A/N: Thanks to htbthomas for the cheerleading and beta reading on this story. This is how she spent her November, egging me through 50K of Highlander/Forever crossover stories. Any remaining mistakes are on me. As always, questions, comments, concrit, and squee are always welcome. I've included some notes on Highlander at the end of this chapter for anyone curious as to how my story fits into the canon.

Something Called Justice

by LadySilver

No day could be complete without a cup of coffee and a moral dilemma.

"It's a mess in there," Jo informed him when Henry arrived at the construction site. She huddled deeper into a coat that, although thick, wasn't enough against the late-winter morning. Her brown hair was already wind-tossed and her cheeks reddened, yet she still managed a smile that was just for him. "I've never seen anything like it." She handed him one of the two cups she'd been holding and pressed her own to her forehead, which told Henry more about how bad the scene was than any description could have.

"What are we looking at?" Henry asked, turning so that a gust of wind hit his back instead of his face. The scarf he'd wound around his neck protected him from the worst, while the cup now in his hands offered the promise of comfort ahead—though Jo's greeting suggested that the comfort would have to wait. In his time as a medical examiner, and his much longer time researching death, he'd seen enough variety of blood and gore to inure him to all but the worst crime scenes.

"We have one dead," Jo answered. Before Henry could comment on how that didn't sound so bad, she added, "and a whole hell of a lot of vandalism."

The construction workers had arrived on the site at their scheduled time that morning to find that someone had broken into the office floor they were renovating and...well, they couldn't guess what the vandal had intended to do.

"The generator exploded," Jo narrated, as she walked him past the tape and into the building. "So did the propane tanks, every can of paint and paint thinner, the light bulbs, the batteries in the flashlights, and most of the electrical work in the walls. The bomb squad and arson investigator are trying to figure out a point of origin. The working theory is a lighting strike." She raised an eyebrow at Henry, trusting him to spot the problem with the theory.

Henry understood what she was getting at right away. "We haven't had rain in a week," he responded. "The skies were clear last night and this morning." He'd gone for a long walk the previous night, taking advantage of a brief warm spell before the new cold snap arrived—a stroll for the constitution, as people used to say—and had bemoaned the lack of visible stars thanks to the light pollution. The moon had still been visible, though. He'd seen no clouds, had not had any reason to consider taking his umbrella, much less to regret not taking one. "I assume the victim was electrocuted?"

"That's really not for me to say," Jo responded, "however, I don't think so." She pushed past a paint-spattered sheet of plastic that separated one room from the next and revealed the body. In life, he would have been a handsome, fit man in his late-teens or early-20s, with olive skin and curly dark hair. Now, he lay prone on the floor, legs bent as if it had dropped from a standing position. His head lay a foot away, staring blankly at the wall.

There was barely any blood, which wasn't the first hint Henry saw that this was an unusual death—severed arteries should have caused extensive blood splatter unless the wound had been cauterized immediately—but it was the most prominent by its absence.

Henry took a sip of his coffee as he sought out the secondary details that should help him develop a narrative of what had happened. "Yes, I see the difficulty," he said. "Our man died suddenly, though not without a fight. You'll note the wounds to his stomach and left arm, and, of course, the one that killed him. They were made with something sharp, perhaps a knife or a..."

"Or?" Jo prompted.

"A sword," he finished. The coffee churned in his stomach as he started to understand what he was looking at. Ever since one of the corpses in his morgue had abruptly returned to life, and Henry had learned how much more extensively immortality existed than he'd ever imagined, he'd suspected that he'd inevitably find himself at a crime scene just like this one. He bit down on the inside of his cheek, forcing the calm that would let him continue his initial analysis.

Oblivious to his thoughts, Jo threw an imploring look at paint-spattered ceiling. "Again?!" For a second, he thought she did have access to his thoughts, until he realized that she was likely remembering the case the previous year where the cab driver had been stabbed to death with a sword. Its uniqueness had made an impression on her. "What's with people running around this city with swords?"

Despite his unease, Henry's mouth quirked at this demonstration of Jo's 21st century sensibilities, as well as her observation that had more truth than she knew. "They are very effective weapons," he reminded her. "A properly sharpened sword can kill instantly, as well as silently, even if the intended victim is wearing Kevlar." He didn't mention what an improperly sharpened sword could accomplish.

"Yeah, I can see that," Jo answered, taking in the body that had so effectively been rendered headless without any of the myriad people who'd passed by the site having the least idea what was going on behind the plastic sheeting.

The sword wouldn't be here. Somehow Henry knew that without bothering to look for it. Searching the shadows along the walls, he found the next best thing: a black long coat that had been tossed aside, never to be reclaimed. Henry shook out the coat, mentally measuring its size against the height and girth of the body, while also confirming the presence of a sword sheath in the lining. Both pieces of information matched, and Henry understood that he now had a much bigger problem than solving the crime.

"We'd better get him down to the morgue where I can examine him in better lighting," he said, doing his best to keep his tone neutral.

"You know something," Jo accused.

Yes, Henry thought. I know how he died; I know why he died; and…. He drew another sip of coffee while he debated acknowledging the last part. Since he didn't make a habit of lying to himself, he allowed an internal sigh and the rest of the thought: I likely know who killed him. The question is: what was he going to do with this information? This body would not be getting up and letting itself out of the morgue, and with the police already involved, he couldn't do anything to stop the investigation.

"I know that anything I say now would be so speculative that it might taint your investigation," he hedged. "Consider the lack of blood. The killer might have taken the time to clean it up, but how could he do that without also touching all the other damage?" He indicated all the paint and broken glass, and the set of boot prints that clearly tracked through them. "And why wouldn't he have cleaned up the evidence that he was here?"

Jo was nodding along by the time he finished, though she didn't look convinced. "So you're saying that the killer is a 'he'? Got anything we can use to start narrowing the pool of suspects?"

Henry gave her one of his small smiles as a silent apology for the observations they both knew he was withholding. She returned it with a searching look. Her brown eyes had become so adept at breaking through his defenses and seeing what he didn't want her to see that he had to turn away before she made him crack.

She read the movement as the sign of guilt that it was. "I'm not going to like what you tell me, am I?"

"No," he answered. "I can honestly say that you're not." Because it was his job, and so he could keep not looking at her, he hunkered down next to the corpse and inspected it in the context of the scene in which it had died.

Jo normally would have come over to prod him for more information or to banter around her thoughts on what had happened. Today, she stepped back and let him work.

And he did; he took in everything from the man's rubber-soled work boots with its new cotton laces, to the blood-stained slash across the fabric of the trousers' upper right thigh that had no corresponding injury beneath it, to a hand that was still curled as if around the hilt of the sword it had been holding when he lost the fight. The more he saw, the more he knew that this case was going to test all his resources.

Worse, it was going to test his friendships.

At lunch, Henry slipped out and headed across town. The church was open, as he'd expected, but it was busier than he'd thought a church would be at noon on a work day. At least a dozen people sat in the pews, reading, praying, or just enjoying the peace and quiet of the building. Henry worked his way up the aisle, one eye drawn to the stained glass windows that cast their colors across the interior, while still scanning the building's occupants for the person he sought. He didn't see him; he didn't see any priest in attendance. He was just turning around to go check the rectory when the opening of a narrow wooden door off to the side caught his attention. A young woman emerged, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. She cast him a wan smile as she passed. Churches this size were bound to have more than one active priest, but he knew the one he was looking for would take this duty, if given an option.

All Henry knew about Catholic confession, he'd learned from reading and, later, watching television. Having been raised an Anglican in a time when Anglicans and Catholics each thought the other to be the worst kind of evil, he'd never been to confession himself. And he still wasn't going, he told himself, thought he did have some sins to get off his conscience. No one else was waiting, so he slipped into the box and took a seat on the hard wooden bench inside. Through the screen, he could see the profile of the waiting priest. The haircut was right, as was the shape of the nose.

Deciding to take a risk, he ventured, "Father Liam?"

Fabric rustled as the priest shifted to see through the screen. Henry leaned forward to aid in the identification.

"Henry," came the surprised answer. "I didn't expect to see you here. Am I to believe that you've come around to the Catholic faith?" The Irish lilt confirmed who the priest was.

Henry shook his head. "No. I'm afraid that I've drifted away from religion over the last few years."

A beat of silence followed, then a concerned: "So what brings you to the confessional?"

"I needed to talk to you about a body that was found this morning." Henry drew a breath and added the relevant detail: "He'd been decapitated."

Father Liam's own head dipped down as he processed what Henry'd said. In the months they'd known each other, their conversations had ranged over a breadth of topics that would put an encyclopedia to shame, but this was new territory. "This isn't the place." He stood up, and Henry took that as his cue to also stand. "I'll meet you in the cemetery behind the church. Do you know where it is?"

"I can find it," Henry answered.

Henry got there first. It was a small cemetery with stones that dated to the founding of the church, back when this part of New York City was still farmland and space was plentiful. The tombstones were worn, in some places canted, but the graves themselves were well-tended. No modern person would have reason to come here unless they were doing a genealogy project, and today no one was. He found a place under a tree that was possibly as old as he was and leaned against the trunk, inhaling the scent of burgeoning leaves. Were it not for the business at hand, he'd have enjoyed this bit of solitude.

Liam came into view a moment later. "I apologize for keeping you waiting," he said. "I had to find someone else to take my place in the confessional." He'd also changed his clothes, trading out his cassock for a thick white sweater. He joined Henry under the tree, let the rumble of traffic and the cawing of seagulls wash over them for a minute, then said, "Tell me about the body."

Henry did, explaining as quickly as he could what he'd observed. "He was like you, wasn't he?" he concluded. He was already sure of the answer, but he wanted it confirmed.

"It sounds like it. I'd be very surprised to discover otherwise."

"Could you come down to the morgue and identify him?"

With a slight shake of his head, Liam said, "Seeing the body at this stage wouldn't tell me anything unless I knew him. If you're asking whether I could sense his Immortality, once he's lost his head, there's nothing left to sense." He gazed off toward the street and the steady thread of traffic that coiled along it. "But that's not what you wanted to talk about, was it?"

Some conversations were easier to have without direct eye contact, and since they'd left the confessional box, Henry had to find a different substitute. He pushed off from the tree and headed into the cemetery. Any paths between the stones had been lost decades before, leaving only the smooth sweep of newly mown grass.

"Richie...told me a little about the war of yours when we first met. We haven't talked about it since." He trailed his fingers along the top of one pitted stone. "I didn't anticipate being confronted with it so directly."

"Didn't anticipate," Liam asked, "or hoped you'd never have to be?"

Henry's shoe slipped on the grass as he jolted to a stop; he'd not expected to be seen through so easily.

"It's not an easy thing to know about," Liam agreed, before Henry could offer an explanation. "And we call it the Game."

"A game?" he echoed, hearing the word, but not understanding its application. "People killing people is not a game." In his immortality, Henry'd only gained an appreciation for how risky and fragile life was, for how important it was. And how brief. As resolutely as he'd searched for an end to his own longevity, the idea of taking it from someone who wasn't ready to go—that was still murder.

With a dip of his shoulder, Liam acknowledged Henry's objection. "I didn't say it was a good name; it's just what we call it. What we've always called it." He glanced at the sky, its pale blue streaked with clouds and jet trails. "I'd guess there are a few other details Richie failed to mention, as well." Growing more somber, he folded his hands in front of him and kept his gaze forward. "You think he's the one who did it, don't you?"

"I didn't say that." He'd answered too fast, Henry knew, and this time made it easy for the priest to see through him.

"You didn't have to. He's obviously not the one who died, or you would have started with that. In the six months I've known you, we've never talked about anything related to the nature of my Immortality; everything you know, you learned from him. One could assume that if you had other questions, you'd ask him. The only reason you'd come to me now is because you don't want to ask him, presumably because you're afraid of the answers."

"Are you sure you haven't been a detective in your life?"

Liam let out a soft chuckle. "I've been a priest for over two hundred years. It's basically the same skill set, only with a lot more forgiveness." He paused at one of the tombstones and bowed his head in silent prayer. He'd been moving reverentially through the cemetery while they talked, touching a stone there, making a cross over a grave there, sometimes just stooping to read the name of the occupant.

"Did you know them?" Henry asked, turning out his hand to take in the whole cemetery. Such a question wasn't outside the realm of possibility, as most of the people here had Irish last names and birth dates that were contemporary with Liam's mortal life.

"Most of them, no," Liam answered. "My village was small and I didn't leave it much until after I died and joined the army. I think I might have known her." The woman had been buried in her grave with two of her children, all having died within a week of each other. He ran a finger over the inscription carved below the names. "I can remember someone singing the song that this line belongs to, and I feel like she was the one who came up with it." Straightening up, he brushed away the melancholy of old memories. "I'm trying to get to know everyone here. It seems like someone should take the time to remember them."

It was another contradiction among the many that Henry was coming to see in the way these other immortals dealt with the world. They were killers. By Liam's own admission, all of them were guilty of that crime. Yet he'd seen how deeply they cared: Richie trying to save people he had no attachment to, and one he wasn't supposed to know existed and was expressly supposed to ignore. Liam trying to honor the memories of people he'd never known.

That made it all the more difficult to ask the question that was really bothering him: "What if Richie was one who did it?"

Liam was matter-of-fact as he answered, "Then he was."

Henry rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and stopped to admire a statue of a child angel that sat on the top of a wide gray stone. Here he was, surrounded by commemorations to those who had died, many before their time, and all he wanted to do was find a way to reconcile himself to being complicit in that taking, if not by deed, then by silence. "Whatever happened to 'thou shalt not kill'?"

"It's funny you should ask that. As it happens, I've given that exact question a lot of thought, myself, and debated it with other priests who've had even longer to pray on it. Are you sure you want to hear my—our—answer?"

He could thank Liam for his time and leave now. Their friendship would continue, though it might be strained for awhile. He'd reconciled himself to the knowledge that his friends had killed before and were, in Richie's case, prepared to do so again primarily by not directly confronting the moral issues. But there was a headless body lying in his morgue and the very real possibility that a person he trusted had willingly put it there, and he had to at least try to understand how the Richie he'd come to know could also be that person. "I think I have to," he answered.

Liam nodded. "I think you're right." His gaze flicked around the cemetery, verifying their privacy. What he said next would not be found in any church's teaching. "The Game takes place outside of mortal awareness. Mostly." He acknowledged Henry with a slight nod, and though Henry wasn't mortal, they both recognized why he'd used the term. "By necessity, it also takes place outside of mortal laws. It's part of who we are. I have to believe that God's law doesn't apply here either, because only a cruel God would demand adherence to contradictory sets of rules."

The rules don't apply to us; that's what Liam was saying. So many of the worst people Henry'd ever met had asserted, or acted in accordance to, the same thing.

Yet, some rules didn't apply to them, such as the one that said that death was permanent.

"Some might say that only a cruel God would curse people with immortality," Henry countered.

Liam reached across the gap between them and laid his hand on Henry's arm. "I don't view my long life as a curse. It's not always easy, true. Nor is it without pain. But what life is, whether it lasts one day or one million days? Would you say differently?"

He knew what answer Liam wanted, but Henry couldn't give it.

A thin breeze swept through the cemetery, ruffling the grass and the leaves and tugging at their clothing. Liam brushed his hair out of his eyes and gave a small nod. "Ah, well, your immortality is different than mine. I know how I'm going to die. I don't know when, only that I know it will happen. You? I can see why your perspective would be different."

"And, yet, I'm not the one who has to kill to stay alive," Henry stated, pointing out the biggest difference between them. To the best of his knowledge, he was truly immortal. They were not. "Tell me, how often do these fights occur?"

Liam's lips quirked in amusement. "We're not vampires. We don't kill as a means of sustenance. Personally, I haven't taken a head since before I became a priest, and no one could accuse me of starving." He patted his stomach, one which was trim, but not emaciated.

Henry blanched at the casual language, but kept the judgment off his face.

"There are some of my kind who seek out fights, some who will kill any other Immortal they meet. The young ones often fall into that trap, though a few do eventually come to their senses—if they live long enough."

Abruptly, Henry thought of the simple, loaded answer Richie had given when Henry had confronted him about killing: "But only in self-defense?" Henry had asked. He'd been searching for any reason to justify the actions of the young man he'd welcomed into his home.

"No," Richie had answered, his gaze steady, his blue eyes sad.

And earlier that day, when he'd been sitting in the kitchen, reading the paper and eavesdropping on the phone conversation going on in the next room, he'd heard, "You know I'm not that guy anymore," without understanding then what Richie was rejecting.

Once again, Liam must have been following his thoughts because he continued, "From what I know of Richie, he'll only fight if he has to. If he took this guy's head, then it was because he had no choice." He stooped to pick up a crumpled soft drink can from the base of a stone, and Henry was once again struck by the fact that they were talking about ritual combat and homicide as casually as if they were discussing whose turn it was to clean up the other stray pieces of the garbage that had blown in from the street.

Henry threw up his hands at the implications of what he was being told. "You make this sound common. If that's the case, then why doesn't everyone know about it? Shouldn't the police and the FBI have records? Interpol? Scotland Yard?"

The emotion made no impression on Liam. He was matter-of-fact as he answered, "We make an effort to dispose of bodies. In those cases where we can't, Immortals who work for the police or the FBI have been known to cover up the evidence. It's in all of our best interest to keep the Game as quiet as possible."

They had made a full circuit of the cemetery, but Henry still hadn't asked his real question. He swallowed hard, his normal composure momentarily displaced. "Is that what I should do? Cover up the evidence?"

Once more, Liam touched Henry's arm. "That is between you and your conscience. First, I suggest that you find out if Richie was the winner, because, if he wasn't, then that means there's another Immortal in town. A fact for which I appreciate the warning, by the way."

Between him and his conscience? Henry'd been hoping for a more concrete answer than that. Still, Liam had given him more to think about, which might help his conscience make the right decision. "Thank you, Father."

"It's Liam. I think we're well past the need for titles." They shook hands and Liam carried the soft drink can to the garbage bin by the door. He threw it in, then turned back toward Henry who had followed him, though the conversation was over; only one door led out of the cemetery. "One last thing, the damage at the scene that you thought was lightning—it wasn't. That's what we call the Quickening, and it happens when an Immortal loses his head. For some of us, taking a Quickening—" Liam's eyes dropped closed and he shuddered in remembered pleasure— "is all the reason we need."

Notes:

In the story "Adam and Joe" by genteelrebel, she describes the need for Immortals to have cotton shoelaces, as nylon ones will melt under the force of the Quickening. This detail has been borrowed with her kind permission.

The original Highlander movie, centered on Connor MacLeod, was released in 1986, and bombed in the US box office. It was, however, enormously successful in the European and Asian markets, which led to the making of Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), which was so tremendously bad that it has been officially disowned, and Highlander III: The Final Dimension (1994), which is mostly a tepid rehash of the first movie. As the Highlander movie is canon in the Forever universe, I've chosen to posit that the first movie also bombed in the European and Asian markets, thus preventing any of the sequels or spinoffs from coming into existence.

To make things even more fun, Highlander: the Series (1992-7) is a canon AU from the first movie. Focused on the character Duncan MacLeod, it is based on the idea that everything in the first movie happened except the end of the Game. Connor appears in the first episode only, though he is mentioned a lot. Highlander: the Raven (1998) is a spin-off of the series, and is focused on the character Amanda, who was introduced in the series.

There is also a fourth movie, Highlander: End Game (2000), starring both Connor and Duncan, which is a movie based on the series, and a fifth movie, Highlander: the Source, also in the series universe, which is even worse than the second movie, and has been officially declared to be a nightmare that Duncan MacLeod had during the fourth movie. For the sake of my crossover universe, movies 2-5 did not occur. I've also chosen to ignore the events of the series episodes "Archangel" and "Avatar."

The character Methos is from the series, originally introduced in the third season episode "Methos." He is the oldest living Immortal, with a credited age of at least 5000 years. When we first meet him, he is using the name Adam Pierson.