All that day Methos watched Tommy with an odd fascination. Maybe it had just been too long since he'd seen any Immortal children for himself, too long since he got a chance to interact with one, but for whatever reason, every little movement she made over the day had him completely mesmerized. Almost, he realized with great irony, like a new parent being completely in awe of every little thing their first newborn did. Though the events of Tommy's day were a bit more progressed than rolling over or sitting up; after breakfast she took the newspaper and found an article that particularly got her attention. She didn't cut it out though, she ripped it out, which in turn ripped up the whole page, but he guessed it was better than actually trusting her with a pair of scissors. She then took the clipping and tucked it away in a manila folder she kept on the coffee table in the living room. He asked if he could take a look at it and found it was full of things that had been ripped out of newspapers. 'Ripped from the headlines' suddenly took on a different meaning. Some of them were the daily comic strips, others little quotations and factoids, and then the rest were headline stories of crime and this, that and the other. An unusual little collection, he thought, but who was he to bring it up?
Most of the day however, Tommy just stayed in the living room and watched the TV. At first glance it might seem like she was content to just lay on the couch and stare at the screen for hours regardless of what was on, but it turned out that even she had her standards. When something came on she didn't like, she went over to the TV and pressed the buttons on the side to switch between cartoons, the morning news, cable movies, and reruns of 80s cop and action shows. They all seemed to be of equal interest to her.
"Not particular, is she?" he asked his brother from where they sat at the antique table in the dining room as they talked among themselves lowly so she wouldn't hear them.
"What she gets out of that rubbish is anybody's guess," Kronos said dismissively.
Methos laughed, "Some things never change I see. Almost begs the question why you even have a television if you don't watch it."
"Oh I watch it," Kronos replied, "Anytime I need a good laugh I turn it to the U.N. peace talks."
Methos laughed even harder, "Nope, you never change."
"What point would there be if I did?" he asked.
Methos knew the question was rhetoric, so didn't bother trying to answer. He watched Tommy laying on the floor watching a rerun of Adam-12, and he couldn't help wondering how much of what she was seeing was actually connecting in her mind, how much of it actually made sense. That was the most infuriating part, they couldn't explain it so you couldn't gauge it, and pretty soon everybody wound up crying in frustration, he knew, from too much experience he knew. He hoped this far down the line that things might turn out better this time, for once, oh he hoped, but anymore he felt he was far too old for there to be any point left to hope.
Being married 68 times, kids were inevitable, babies were inevitable, babies who woke up screaming in the middle of the night because they were hungry, were inevitable. Granted it was only in the last few decades that that really became the father's problem as much as the mother's, but it was a role Methos knew well. He was so well versed in it, he didn't even open his eyes, he just pushed the covers back and started to stand up. He knew this routine like the back of his hand, and he could do it without opening his eyes once, he'd swear to it.
"Methos," his brother groggily asked as he too woke up, "Where are you going?"
Letting out a particularly loud yawn, Methos answered half asleep, "Time to feed the baby."
That got Kronos' attention, he opened his eyes and told his brother, "Methos, get back in bed and go back to sleep."
Something in what Kronos said got Methos' attention and he opened his eyes and became more awake, he looked around and realized where he was.
"Oh!"
But then…he'd no more fallen back on the bed when he realized where those sounds of somebody crying were coming from.
"That's Tommy?"
"Yes," Kronos answered shortly, "And I'll warn you now, this is nothing new, and you needn't bother wasting your time trying to figure out what's the matter, trust me, you won't get anywhere."
Methos looked from his brother, to the room across from theirs where the door had been left open. The heart wrenching sobs continued.
"You mean she does this every night?" he asked.
"Just about," Kronos answered, "She wears out after an hour or two."
"How reassuring," Methos dryly responded, "How long's she been at it tonight?"
"About half an hour."
"Long night," Methos said.
"You should try it for three months," Kronos told him, "And try wasting the first 6 weeks trying to figure out the cause of it all, and there's none."
"You're sure?" Methos asked him.
Kronos shrugged, "There's nothing physically wrong with her, any other possibilities, it's anybody's guess because she sure as hell won't talk about anything."
Methos lay in bed for a couple minutes listening to the continuous wails, and finally decided he couldn't take it anymore, he kicked the covers back and got up.
"You're wasting your time, Brother," Kronos told him.
"Then that's my problem," Methos replied as he stepped out into the hall.
Methos made his way through the dark into Tommy's room, admittedly he hadn't been in it yet to know where everything was, so he stepped lightly to avoid crashing into something and waking everybody up. What surprised him was that for all the problems Tommy seemed to have and for all her mental self seemed to be stunted more along the lines of a 5 year old instead of a 13 year old, there hadn't seemed to be any reason to leave a light on in this damn room when she was sleeping. Maybe, he thought to himself, she never woke up during the night and realized she was in the dark. Or maybe it was just possible that she was a rare breed of child who wasn't fazed by the darkness, well, he guessed anything was possible. In the dark he felt around until he bumped into the bedstead, aha, he was getting warmer. He felt along the side and found the bedspread, and continued up, and found the top covers, and the girl laying under them crying in her sleep.
He found where she was in the bed and put his hands on her carefully so she wouldn't panic and lash out. He tried to get her to wake up but she didn't hear anything he said, no matter what he did, nothing would bring her out of her deep and extremely troubled sleep.
"I told you," Kronos said as Methos came back to bed in defeat.
"Unbelievable," Methos said, "I think people have died in that deep of sleep."
"And come the morning she'll have absolutely no memory of it whatsoever," Kronos told him, "And the cycle repeats."
Methos turned his head towards his brother and asked him, "How do you put up with it?"
"Besides the obvious?" that being that fateful question of what choice he had, "You get used to it, if you're here long enough."
"That's promising," Methos dryly replied as he burrowed under the covers, "I wonder what's going through her mind right now?"
"Could be anything," Kronos told him, "Memories, flashbacks, nightmares, could even be absolutely nothing at all for all we know."
Methos looked at the ceiling and said to himself, "I wonder where she came from before the hospital found her?"
"That's anybody's guess," his brother said.
True to his words, Kronos was right, come the morning when they woke up, Tommy was also getting up and seemed to have no recollection whatsoever of anything that had happened the night before. Methos stood in the doorway of her bedroom and watched as she made her bed, then dug around in an old dresser for a change of clothes for the day and pushed past him to get to the bathroom to clean up.
"You can probably guess what my next question is," he said to his brother.
Kronos did. "And the answer is no," he answered as he came up to Methos, "Bathing is one thing she can do by herself, thank you very much." He added, "Though for what it's worth, it won't traumatize her."
"What wouldn't?" Methos asked.
Kronos nodded his head in the direction of the bathroom door, "Watching her. Either that's something she never learned, or she just doesn't care. Either way…"
Methos couldn't resist a small snort as he said, "Little young to be an exhibitionist, isn't she?"
"It's not that," Kronos replied, "It's that she simply doesn't care."
Methos nodded grimly, "And that would make her an ideal victim for a lot of people."
"Exactly," Kronos told him, "Precisely why it's vital she's always with the right person."
Methos nodded again, "That's going to make it difficult when she gets older."
"If it turns out she is incapable of learning," Kronos said, "Until that time comes, I'm not jumping to any conclusions."
"Just have to keep an eye on her all the time," Methos pointed out.
"That doesn't bother me," Kronos told him.
"No," Methos chose his words carefully because he could feel his brother becoming defensive, "But it's not always a possibility, is it?"
"So far it has," Kronos said.
"Right," Methos replied, "And what happens when…" he shrugged, "The nature of Immortals is going to take its course, what then?"
"What do you mean what then?" Kronos asked, "Anybody that tries coming after me doesn't live to tell about it, it's not that hard to figure out."
"Still, what about Tommy?" Methos asked, "Surely she hasn't been witness to that."
"No," Kronos told him, "I always make sure of that."
"How?"
Kronos looked mildly amused, "What's the matter, Brother? Have you suddenly lost faith in the rule of Holy Ground?"
"It protects us, not her, not mortals," Methos said.
"It doesn't need to protect her, just withstand her," Kronos told him, "One thing she hasn't caught onto yet is how to pick locks. Lock her in any room and she'll stay, but no headhunter is going to look for a child in a church, especially one who has no Quickening."
"No known Quickening," Methos reminded him, "Just because we can't feel one off of her doesn't mean another Immortal couldn't."
"I doubt it," Kronos said, "So far nobody's picked up on her."
Methos considered what this meant. "Then she might be a 'dud'."
Kronos slowly nodded, "She might very well at that."
And if that were true, it would probably be the best thing that could happen to her. Never become Immortal, never become part of the Game, never wind up on the wrong end of a merciless headhunter. Burying children was always hard, even grown ones that you'd watched grow up while you stayed the same, but if it came to that, it would be a far better fate for Tommy than if she were to suddenly wind up plunged into this miserable excuse of a Game. Cruel as it sounded, it would be more merciful for her sake for her to grow up, live out whatever kind of life she might have, and just fade away in time like the rest of the mortals, and Kronos would move on, as he always had before, as they all had before when the inevitable occurred. It was hell, but no Immortal who was ever a parent ever wanted their children thrown into the Game alongside or against them.
Kronos headed downstairs, Methos was about to follow when he heard a sound from the bathroom. He went in to see if Tommy was alright, and stepped in just in time for the shower curtain to swing back and reveal Tommy standing in the middle, soaking wet in all her delayed adolescent glory, and absolutely no regards whatsoever as he stared at her. Methos slowly blinked and reached behind him to the towels hanging on a hook on the door. He pulled one off and tossed it at Tommy and told her, "Cover yourself, please."
Tommy caught the towel but instead of wrapping herself up in it, she used it to dry herself, first her arms, then her legs, then she buffed it across her back. Methos watched her with an odd fascination and he felt sick considering what could ever happen to her if she'd ever fall in the wrong hands. As an Immortal you had to do well to at least attempt to plan out the immediate next few years of your life, always plan ahead for a new name, new identity, new location, new place to start again so people didn't start connecting the dots. This had all come out of nowhere, but he was starting to consider that perhaps the time had come for 'Adam Pierson' to drop out of the picture, permanently or semi-permanently; because it was occurring to him that finishing the process of raising this girl would easily become a two-person job, at a bare minimum.
"And the Odd Couple strikes again," Methos murmured to himself. He took the towel from Tommy and wrapped it around her and told her, "Come on, Tommy, let's get you dressed."
Her response of choice was to smack his hand hard with her own, she gathered up her clothes and showed herself out of the bathroom, and a few seconds later he heard her bedroom door slam.
"She might be 'slightly retarded' but she's self sufficient," Methos noted.
He listened at the door for a moment, and then finally decided she'd be fine by herself, and went to join his brother downstairs. Never a dull moment whenever Kronos was involved, that was for damn sure.
