Disclaimer: I never created, owned, nor had anything to do with Highlander or any of the characters. They belong solely to Panzer-Davis. I'm borrowing them for a bit, and promise to return them in good condition. Amy is my creation entirely and belongs to me.

Story Note: This takes place immediately after "How to Win Friends and Influence Immortals." While you should not have to read it in order to understand the dynamic going on, it may be helpful.

Methuselah's Problem

Paris

Perhaps it was being in Paris for the first time in over a year, or perhaps I had been lonely and not acknowledged it, but ever since arriving my dreams had been filled with Adam. The feather light touches of his fingers on my arms, his aftershave combining with the distinctive musk of Methos. My skin shivered, thinking about his lips tracing my neck. The memories tortured me all night and most of the day in a way they hadn't since my rather sudden departure. Awakened for the fourth time this week with a longing I barely understood, I sat on the couch with my coffee and stared out the wall of glass, wishing to banish this unwanted part of myself and wondering why I had returned to my little apartment.

Eight months ago in Joe's, I had made the choice to live on my music alone. No credit cards, no family support, and no plans. I played my violin for travel money, for food, and for a place to sleep. Callouses redeveloped on my fingers and old lessons in sleeping anywhere at anytime were remembered and used. I had been able to make my way to Europe rather quickly by getting work on a cruise ship, then spent the last three months playing with the symphony in Prague - the life I had dreamed of when I was a girl of fourteen. Ten years ago. So many lifetimes ago.

Other than Madame Martin, Paris truly held nothing for me anymore and a fourth morning of introspection and meditation brought me no reason for my arrival. I had learned years ago to go with the serendipity that seemed to rule my life, but any answer as to "why" usually came swiftly. This time I waited.

My fourth day waiting, spent on my couch with quiet, coffee, and the ghost of fingers tracing their way along my jaw and down my thighs. A knock scattered the memories like vapor. Wrapped up in the past enough to ignore the present, I wasn't paying attention to the nagging in the back of my head. It demanded my attention now. How could he have possibly known to find me here? Not even Madame Martin knew.

"Adam!" He stood alone in my doorway. He couldn't be here alone. Shouldn't be. "Where's Lex?" Her last letter, ten days old, had found me yesterday.

"She's in Geneva."

"Gen - ?"

"She's in the hospital."

"No!" Santorini. They were supposed to be in Santorini for another week at least.

Alexa had fallen in love with the island and spent two pages describing one sunset to me and another two pages telling me about visiting the market with Adam acting as translator and negotiator. Simple joy and pure love had coursed through her pen so strongly, it radiated off the paper. I had begun to wonder if simply being with Adam could cause her to live. Maybe even forever.

"May I come in?"

"Yes, yes, of course." After he stepped past I took a moment to control the flush in my cheeks and breathe. When I turned around, I could focus past myself and study him. His fingers played against his coat in a foreign manner and his eyes darted around the room. Adam was…jumpy? Nervous? As he paced across my windows it seemed to me he was trying decide what he needed to say.

"I found it! I've found it and we go get it tonight!"

"Adam, did we have a conversation I don't know about?"

"Everything matches!" Ignoring me, he continued pacing.

"Adam!" I managed to grab his sleeve and get his attention. "Adam, I'm not a mind reader. You have got to start at the beginning!"

Well, technically I am a mind reader now, I suppose. But trust me, it is not a talent to wish for. Being bombarded with thoughts not your own, unable to tell the difference sometimes between physical words and mental words without watching your friend's mouths…. It's exhausting. Far more exhausting than maintaining the mental barriers to keep all the hubbub out.

Adam pulled me to the couch and began to tell me about a memory, one that had popped into his mind after checking Alexa into the hospital. The gleam in his eyes and the waves of confused emotion rolling off him distracted me from his words for too long, and when I finally realized what he was telling me I could feel the blood immediately leave my face. I couldn't sit up without swaying. Adam didn't notice, too wrapped up in his plan, trying to delay the coming loss.

"Rebecca told me about the power it was supposed to have, but neither one of us believed it. Well, I didn't. Not really. But I started going through our records and -"

"Hold on. Our?"

"Watchers. I compared our records to legends from around the world. Every story, every description, every report of its power, for eight thousand years, they all match! They are all exactly the same! It's real!"

I pressed my fingers against my legs to make them hold still. The edges of my vision went dark. Adam jumped up and paced around again, letting me slip unnoticed to the book case and pull out a small book I'd left behind last year.

"Where does it come from?" I managed to keep my voice from shaking, or at least he didn't notice.

"It was first seen with Methuselah, then he gave it to his grandson."

I found the particular page I needed and studied it closely for a moment. Adam still hadn't noticed my new distraction, thank goodness. What I read didn't make me happy and I swallowed the new lump in my throat, shutting the book more firmly than I meant. Of course that got his attention.

"What's that?"

"I, uh...spider! Big, nasty, fuzzy spider over here. Can't stand spiders. At all."

Incredibly, Adam accepted my crappy, stuttering answer. Slightly more calm, he settled himself on the arm of the couch. I swallowed a sigh of relief and slid the ancient leather book back on the shelf. The dust remained on the cover, obscuring the intricate tooling from casual glances.

"So, after Noah?"

"It disappeared from history for a while. The chronicles don't say anything before it was seen in Rebecca's possession, but she told me The Ancient gave it to her hundreds of years before Darius killed him."

"Rebecca?"

"She was one of the oldest Immortals, one of the best of us, until she was killed."

The softened voice and slight wrinkling around his eyes told me that there was history with Rebecca. The Adam Pierson whom I had drug to Zurich would never have let this much of a tell slip. I wondered if it had to do with Alexa's influence. The name Rebecca finally clicked. Having Adam appear in my apartment had really rattled me, for my brain to be working so slow. "Oh! Amanda's teacher."

"Rebecca gave a piece of the crystal to her students when she decided they were ready to go out on their own."

I searched my memory further with the uplift of his eyebrow and made the connection. "Amanda's crystal. It's part of this Methuselah Stone, isn't it?" Relief swept over me so swiftly I dropped onto the couch also. "So it's scattered in pieces with all her students?"

"Not anymore."

Shit. The fever light re-flared in his eyes and I felt the faint hope that my job would be an easy one vanish.

"A rather power hungry Immortal spent a lot of time hunting down Rebecca's students and taking their heads so he could take their crystals. MacLeod killed him, but the crystals he had collected weren't with him."

So on the one hand, good news. Adam's intense gaze told me there was more. "But…?"

"But Luther's Watcher knew exactly where it was, so he retrieved it and brought the crystal to headquarters."

Always. Always just when you think the news can't get worse, the other shoe drops. In a big way. My stomach rolled. I may not learn how Adam had known he would find me, but I knew precisely why he had knocked on my door. "You want me to get it out for you."

"I got to see it today, on display in a gallery. It's not even in a case! I need your help to get it."

"But Adam, I don't…"

"You told me you've made it in the building before! I know you can get it out of there without any problems."

To get away from the desperate pleading in Adam's eyes, I went to the tiny fridge across the room. Tempting. Very tempting. Magic. Such a part of my life. A worthless part, I usually felt. At this moment, hope blossomed in me. Magic could be useful. Magic just might be the answer. Magic -

I caught myself twisting a curl around my finger while drinking my Coke. My hair. It would be my hair of all things that snapped me back to reality.

To better blend with the eastern European population, I had dyed my hair nearly black and let it grow out of the extremely short shearing I had given myself out of rebellion. Was that the word? Yes, rebellion. Just over a year ago, guilty of surviving, I had literally chopped it off in some sort of symbol of denying who I was. At that moment, my hair served to remind me of my rebellion against Peter.

Because of magic.

Because I had refused his healing. When I realized his magic had not only ensured my survival, but was well on the way to removing all traces of my injuries, I demanded that he stop - but not before his magic had changed me in some way yet again.

Magic changes the user. Magic changes the recipient.

What kind of change would it inflict on Alexa in her frail state? I feared I knew exactly how Adam was going to react when I told him my decision. I prayed he would understand.

With a deep breath I left my Coke on the counter and returned to the couch. I took Adam's hand and pulled him off the arm to sit next to me. I wished to keep holding his hand, but forced myself to let go. I had to quit pining over what was so obviously no more than a one night mistake.

"Did you tell 'Lexa about your idea?"

"No. If I couldn't track down the stone I didn't want to have built her hopes up."

"Adam, dealing with magic isn't predictable, and rarely safe. Wouldn't it be better for Alexa to be part of the decision?"

"She went from standing in the ocean to in the hospital in three days and you want me to take the time to convince her to believe in magic? She doesn't have the time!"

He started to stand, I pulled him back down. "But there are risks and she has to be the one to choose -"

"She will want this. When I am there with the stone in hand, when I tell her what I've found, she will want this."

My hopes to gently lead him away from this plan were quickly shredding. "How can you be so sure?"

"She wants to live!"

Oh, Adam, if only I knew how to take the pain of loss away so this might be easier to hear. "You want her to live and she may not be ready to leave you, but would she be willing to pay the necessary price? Do you even know what that price could be if you use the stone?"

"What I do know is that this stone is her only chance - "

"Adam, I…" I sighed. I couldn't say this gently enough and the last thing I wanted to do was get into details of how magic tended to change mortals. "One thing I've learned is that magic encased in crystals can be highly unreliable. Rebecca was right to divide it among her students, and not just to keep one Immortal from becoming too powerful -"

"It gives life to mortals! How can that be a bad thing?"

I heard the desperation in his voice and pushed anyway. "Adam, will you please look at me! Look! Last year at Joe's, did you not notice I had changed? Can you not see it now? I actually look my age! I'm taller! I have boobs, for crying out loud! Because magic was used on me -"

"You can hardly be an example of what might happen to her! There are no negative reports in any of the accounts. Every single owner has had a long life and miraculous escapes!" Frustration reared through the confused mass of emotions he had been broadcasting.

"Just because humans were too foolish to realize what caused the collapse of their civilization - Please, Adam, don't follow in their foolishness!" I saw his jaw twitch and his pale face go as white as a sheet, so I stopped. After a second I asked, "are you doing this for Alexa, or for you?"

"How dare you!" His words hissed through his teeth and his eyes snapped at me.

I thought I had nothing more to lose, and so much more to protect. "I tell you it's not safe! Adam, think calmly about it for a minute and -"

His fist raised and I braced myself for the blow. Yes, I was willing to be hit if it would help calm the chaos of emotion still rolling off Adam. Mostly I hoped it would jar him out of his shortsighted plan, but he didn't swing. He towered over me and yelled instead.

"I don't have time. She doesn't have time! You say you're her friend? Well, here's something that can help, that can change what's going to -" My heart broke as his voice did. "And you're going to stand in my way instead?" Adam leaned into my face, his eyes glittering with a hard, golden light. He growled through his teeth at me. "You are no friend. Not to her, and not to me."

"Adam," I stood and tried to take his hand once more.

He yanked his arm back and dodged around the couch. "Get away. If you won't help me, then you stay away. Forever!"

He stomped out the door and slammed it shut.

I stood in the middle of the room, staring at the door, trembling from head to toe. I could clearly feel how much Methos loved Alexa, so what else had I expected to happen by questioning his idea?

*Hey, Sis.* Peter's voice brushed into my mind.

*Hey, Peter.* Even my thoughts sounded glum.

*What's going on?*

*Call me, would you? I need -* "...to use my voice," I finished by answering the phone. "Radiating, am I?"

"Maybe a bit. What's going on?"

"I think a magic-user's artifact has surfaced." Of the six of us, Peter is the most serious, so I expected him to take news like this quietly. He was too quiet. "Peter?"

"I heard. What is it?"

"A crystal. And it's been in the possession of Immortals for several thousand years. Funny enough, one had been giving pieces of it to her students."

"In pieces it should be safe enough."

"Except a particularly nasty student killed the others for their pieces, and then MacLeod killed him."

"So Mac has it."

"Nope. Watchers. Thank the Creator it's still missing at least one piece. Adam's after it now because he's sure it will save Alexa."

"Amy…"

"I know! I tried to warn him that it was a bad idea…"

"And how did that go?"

"Almost as well as when you told me you couldn't heal her. I just don't know what to do now!"

"What are your options?"

"Change my mind, and suddenly be willing to steal it and then don't give it to him? Steal it before he does and hide it? Help him, and then let him kill Alexa by using it on her? I don't see a way out of this that keeps me from losing both friends!"

"Why didn't you say not helping and going to Alexa?"

"I already said goodbye last year, Peter."

"No, last year you mourned her coming death. Now you need to say goodbye."

"But the danger if the crystal -"

"Worry about that later. We're used to cleaning up the after messes aren't we? Go."

"Love you, Peter."

"I know," I could hear the smile in his voice, but feeling the extra push of caring he sent through our connection lifted my spirit more than his words. "Love you too, Sis. Come home soon."