"And did his tests reveal anything out of the ordinary?"

Henry had no real hope that the answer would be 'yes'. He himself had done all manners of experiments on his own body without anything useful to show for it. But there might still be tests he just hadn't thought of yet. It would be really useful to have another doctor to consult with on this.

"Absolutely nothing. I was in prefect health and the wound in my leg was gone leaving only a scar behind. I thought the poor doctor would faint from the shock of it all. I was a contradiction to everything he believed to be true. I am sure you know that feeling as well, sí?"

Henry sighted. He knew that feeling intimately.

"Yes, I did experience it the first time I came back to life when I knew I should be dead and even now I sometimes feel an echo of it every time I am reborn. "

Montoya's gaze shifted to the blackboard again.

"Do you make a habit of dying, doctor? I must say I find the experience very unpleasant and would rather minimize the number of times I am forced to swim naked. "

Henry found his own eyes drawn to the list as well.

"Sometimes it just can't be avoided. And I went through a period of trying every possible manner of death to see if there wouldn't be one that would be permanent. "

He emptied his glass and let the slight burn of the alcohol drive away the dark mood that threatened to settle onto him.

"Those must have been very desperate times, doctor."

Henry just nodded. He really didn't intend to share that much with a nearly complete stranger.

"I think it would be my time for telling a story, wouldn't it? "

It was nearly midnight by the time Montoya took his leave. He had placed his very professional looking card on Henry's table. On the card were only a name, telephone number and email address. Henry slipped it into his pocket while trying not to think too hard about the incongruity of a 19th century colonel having an email address.

Telling his story to the Spaniard had felt surprisingly good. Finally he could actually talk about it with someone who understood exactly what he'd been through.

As he went to bed his thoughts returned to the last time he had told another human being his real history. Jo had not reacted quite like he would have predicted but then she often surprised him.

When she had showed up with that old photograph of him his first reaction had been to think up a lie she might believe. He had found that people would rather believe the most outrageous lie than face the fact there might be more between heaven and earth than they had ever dreamt. But Abe had asked him to trust Jo with his truth so he had taken a leap of faith.

The slap had stung and caused a ringing in his ears. Jo's raised voice hadn't help much with that either.

"That was for all the stupid stunts that you pulled and for making me save your immortal ass with considerable risk to my very mortal one! What the hell were you thinking, Henry?"

She had been pacing up and down the living room all the time he had been talking. He'd thought he could nearly see her brain sorting through every little oddity, every thing that hadn't made sense before, and re-evaluating it with the new information. And with every little puzzle piece that suddenly fit much better than before he had seen her anger rise. Her steps had become longer, her turns more forceful and one look at her face would have made a hardened criminal confess every crime he ever committed.

She had been carrying around the cup of coffee Abe had made for her distractedly without ever taking a sip. Jo had seemingly forgotten it was even there for when he had finished his story and waited for her reaction she had taken a step towards him then looked down at her hands in confusion.

He hadn't realised what she'd intended to do as she carefully put the cup down on the table then raised her hand for the hardest slap he'd ever felt.

"How could you take such stupid risks when there were people around who would try and help? I don't give a damn if you enjoy getting run over by cars or falling off roofs when you do it without endangering anyone else but sooner or later someone will get hurt trying to protect you! "

It has stunned him into silence. First of all because no one had ever before reacted like that to his revelation and second because he had found that he had no defence at all. There was no way to justify his actions, no reason why what Jo accused him of wasn't the complete and absolute truth.

He had become reckless. He had got so used to the certainty of his own immortality that he had started using it like any of his other skills.

He knew being run over by a car wouldn't kill him permanently so why not use it to stop a murderer from fleeing?

It had never really crossed his mind how his actions must have looked to Jo.

Had she thought him suicidal? Addicted to adrenalin?

Surely she had been afraid for him, she had saved him more than once as it were.

And yet having been distracted with the threat of Adam he had failed to fully see the impact his actions had had on his friend.

What if Jo had died saving him? What if when he was climbing around on the bridge some kind-hearted stranger had stopped and tried to pull him back up only to fall to their own death?

For the first time in decades he realised just how different he had become from his original self.

When had he stopped considering the lives around him? When had everyone else turned from fellow human being to a phantom, a shade flitting in and out if his life without consequence? He had made so few new connections in this lifetime.

Ever since he lost Abigail he had been keeping everyone but Abe at arm's length. And it had somehow made them less real. Only now when Jo, Mike, Lucas and the other's had dragged him from his solitude by their persistence to be his friends had be realised that he was making an impact on other people's lives.

It wasn't them who had become the phantoms, he finally realised, it was him.

What a cheerful thought right before falling asleep, old chap. Why not just put up a sign reading 'Nightmares welcome'?

But he wasn't a phantom any longer, was he? They had made him real again. Abe, Jo, Lucas. They saw him and cared about him and that made him real, made him human.

There, subconscious, is that a better thought?

Henry turned off the light and closed his eyes with a smile.