"Watchers," Abigail said one night after Kronos returned home, and with plenty to tell her about the men, "They don't strike me as the type to just watch, it seems to me they do a good deal of hunting as well."

Kronos nodded in agreement. His trick had worked. When the other men saw the tattoo on his wrist, they made the mistake in actually believing he was one of them. He had found out that almost every Immortal had a Watcher assigned to keeping an eye on them, apparently he had slipped through the cracks somewhere along the way.

"But I still don't understand," Abigail said, "What do they want with us?"

"Damnedest thing," Kronos replied, "They say their job is to record everything Immortals do so when they're all dead, their history will survive."

"What's the point in that going to be if we're all dead?" Abigail asked, "For that matter, just what in the hell does that have to do with what they did to me?"

"Exactly what I've been trying to figure out," Kronos told her, "From what I've seen of it thus far, I think that record and document bit is all a cover for what they really do…there seem to be a lot of demented bastards in this profession."

"But have you found the ones who attacked me?" Abigail asked.

"No, but I did find some records they left behind…it explains a good deal of that, and after reading through them I can honestly say that these men aren't just bastards, they're not just demented, what they are I don't think there even exists a name in the world."

Abigail's eyes widened when she heard that.

"Well did it say why they did it?" she asked.

"No, the records I found mostly explain how was all done. As you said, that child was created in a test tube, but it involved the sperm and egg which were volunteered up by two other Watchers."

"What? You mean there are women in this racket too?"

"Quite a few of them…that child that grew inside of you went into you already having some genetic work done to it. I checked, both donors came from a family history of stillbirths, miscarriages, and the sort. However they didn't want to take any chances so they added something to the experiment, something that as soon as you went into labor, ate away at the umbilical cord until there was nothing of it left when the baby came out."

Abigail shook her head as she listened, "That's terrible…but what about the blood? Where did all that blood come from?"

"Amazing things they come up with in scientific mutation, apparently they'd been working on some sort of counteractive leech."

"What?" Abigail asked.

"Well you know how leeches do, they grab hold and bleed you dry."

"Yeah, just like lawyers," Abigail said.

"Apparently they'd worked on something else, they created this thing that also went in with the baby, it started as microscopic bacteria but grew into creatures like leeches only instead of draining blood, they went in with the four types already imbedded in them, and they swelled up, making more of the blood, until they just burst," Kronos said.

Abigail's eyes widened in horror as he said that, and immediately her hands went to her stomach, "I'll bet that's why after the baby came out, my stomach didn't go back to its regular size."

"Could be," Kronos said, "I found a lot of the how, just none of the why."

They hung their heads low and sat in silence for a moment before Abigail spoke up, "I'll bet I know why they did everything to me that they did. I bet I've had the answer all along."

"What is it?" Kronos asked.

"Well, I've been trying to remember everything from when it all happened…everything that I could remember anyway…my memory of it all is extremely vague now, but last night I recalled something that one of the Watchers said about me when he thought I was unconscious. He called me an abomination…these men who are supposed to record and document everything we do, they think because we are what we are that we're lesser the humans than they are. It's the same old story, it just never dies, just finds new victims. First it was the religious, then it was the conquistadores, then it was the slave traders and then the Nazis, they torture and kill anybody who's different from them because just because they're not exactly the same, they think their victims don't feel anything, that they don't have any souls and therefore can't feel anything and don't matter at all." She looked up at her husband as she added, "But I'll tell you something, given a choice between us and them, they're the abomination, not me, not us."

Kronos nodded.

"Anybody who would sacrifice another human life in the name of difference is the true abomination. They think they have a right to do whatever they want to us because we can't die, because we heal, who in the HELL are they to say what we are and they aren't? If I had my way I'd track every last one of them down and put them through the EXACT same hell that they did to me. But you know how they are…they find a quick solution to any problem, they wouldn't have to deal with it as long as I would…if one of them would have to carry the baby, they'd shell out a couple hundred dollars and get an abortion…well, if they did I hope they'd get some butcher of a professional who doesn't care much about sterilization and also doesn't care too much of where he does it. I hope…"

Abigail couldn't finish her thought because she'd started crying again. Kronos pulled her to him and put his arms around her. He didn't know what to say to her, he knew that there was nothing he could say that could ever help her. He stood up from the table and pulled her up alongside him. She was still out of it so he picked her up and carried her up the stairs back to the bedroom and set her down in the bed and tucked her in. It seemed that Abigail had fallen asleep, or so Kronos thought until he got into bed beside her.

He felt her reach over and lay her hand on his ribs.

"Kronos?" she said in a tired voice.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I love you…"

He almost laughed.

"I love you too."

"Kronos."

"What?"

She didn't answer him for a minute, then she said, "There's something I want to say but I don't know if I should."

"What is it?"

Abigail turned on her side and said in his ear, in a tone so quiet he almost couldn't hear her, "Make love to me."

Kronos about jumped out of his skin when he heard that. As he had said before, the last time they had done that was over 80 years ago and truth be known, that last time wasn't so much what they originally had in mind when they checked into the hotel, just a way to make the minister and his wife in the next room extremely uncomfortable.

He rolled onto his side and sat up and looked at Abigail and he asked her, "Are you sure?"

She nodded and reached for him again, Kronos backed up and fell out of the bed and onto the floor.

"Well this should be a barren source of amusement," Abigail said as she watched him get back to his feet.

She tried to grab him again but he pulled away from her again.

"Don't do that," he said as he sat down on his side of the bed.

"What's wrong?" Abigail asked.

Kronos wasn't sure how to answer her.

"What is it?" she asked, "What's wrong?"

He looked at her and answered, "You really want to know? I'm afraid I'll hurt you. After what you've been through, I don't know…"

"Remember what I told you when we married," she said, "You won't hurt me."

"I don't want to," Kronos replied as he rested his head on her stomach, "But I'm worried I might."

"You won't," Abigail told him.

He looked up at her, "And how do you know?"

"You never have before," she said.

"I know, but things are different now," he said.

"Maybe not," she told him, "Kronos, it'll be allright, I know it will."

Kronos felt the breeze of the cool night air come in through the window, that mixed with the scent of Abigail's perfume and the overwhelming sensation of being as close to her as he was, all made the situation almost a temptation he couldn't turn down. However he still worried that he might hurt her. It wasn't that he worried so much this time about becoming rough with her, he worried that since the procedure the Watchers performed on her, maybe something had gone wrong then. He remembered how much pain she was in every day she was pregnant, and every day the pain went from her stomach down to her groin, and that was when the pain was at a bare minimum, some days it spread throughout her whole body. He just wasn't sure that since then whether or not something might've happened that he would hurt her.

But he saw that she was certain about this, even if he wasn't. He placed his hands on her shoulders and tried to kiss her but she turned away.

"What is it?" he asked.

She smiled at him and said, "Take your clothes off first."

He did, and it being the first time he had done this with her in over 80 years, he was glad the lights were off because he was sure he looked rather odd by this time. When he got undressed and settle back on the bed, even in the dark he could see the ever so slight smile that formed on Abigail's face.

"Allright, now if you start to feel any kind of pain, let me know and I'll stop," Kronos told her.

Her smile grew larger as she said, "Kiss me, you son of a bitch."

He did, and in that moment, each felt a strange sensation come over them as if after what felt like an eternity of wandering the earth being lost, they were both home again.


It was early in the morning and the sun would come up soon. The strong night wind continued to blow in through the windows. Kronos had already been up for a while, he looked over to the other side of the bed and watched Abigail as she slept. She made no sound except for her light, steady breathing, which was so light Kronos had to watch to see if the sheet moved over her stomach to make sure she was still breathing.

She looked now to be truly at peace when she slept. The night before seemed to Kronos like it occurred a lifetime ago instead of just a few hours, and now was the hard part, waiting. Abigail had made no indication that she had been hurt, however he also noted she remained unusually passive all through the night and just stayed where she lay, nothing like how she used to behave at all when they used to make love. Kronos worried that when she woke up, he was going to hear something that he had spent the whole night dreading.

Abigail took in a rather large breath and opened her eyes.

"Hey," she tiredly said.

"Hi…how're you feeling?"

She grinned as she started to sit up. "I'm fine," she replied, "And you?"

"You know what I mean," Kronos said, "I didn't hurt you?"

"Of course not," she said, "I told you that you wouldn't, maybe now you'll believe me."

"I just don't want anything to happen to you again," Kronos told her.

"I know, I know you worry about me, but I'm fine, Kronos, I swear," she said.

"I know," he replied, "And I'm very grateful for it."

He pulled her to him and held her close for a minute. Abigail was still caught up in a haze from last night but after a moment it started to pass and she realized there was something Kronos wasn't telling her.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Kronos pulled away and explained, "I think I may have found the men who attacked you, however to make sure they don't get away again I'm going to have to follow them, word got out last night that they're assigned to some project over in Washington."

"Oh I see," Abigail said as she drew the sheet up around her body, "You're going away and you don't know when you're coming back…and I guess I'm just going to have to stay around here in this ghost town with a yellow ribbon 'round my throat, counting the hours and days until you return like a good little wretch, er, wife."

Kronos laughed, "I'm not saying that…maybe you'd like to go back to New Mexico since it is your home, while you wait for me, providing you do wait."

She nodded. "I will wait, you know that."

"Unless," Kronos started.

"Unless what?"

"Unless you'd rather come with me."

Abigail shook her head, "I don't want to see those men again as long as I live."

Kronos nodded in understanding and he asked her, "Do you think you'll be allright by yourself until I come back?"

"I'm an old woman, Kronos, I can take care of myself," she said, "But, I do want to thank you for watching over me these last few months, it's been nice not to be alone."

"I know what you mean," he replied.

He kissed her and pulled her into another embrace and held her for a moment.

"I hate having to leave you like this," he said, "But I want to find those men and I want to make them pay for what they did to you…last night I got to thinking about what you said."

"What did I say?" she asked.

"About how they think Immortals are an abomination when they're the real ones…they think just because we don't die that we're some sort of mutant or something, not human like themselves, ha! Well I got to thinking about what you said, they treat Immortals like the Nazis did the Jews and the gypsies…I think a little genocide would be in order with them."

As Abigail realized what he was saying, she threw back the covers and started getting dressed.

"When do you leave?" she asked.

"Well not for a few hours yet," he told her, "It's not even six in the morning yet."

"Well," Abigail said as she got out of bed, "When do you think you'll be back?"

"Can't quite say, I'd figure a month at the most," Kronos answered.

"A month," she said, "One glorious month…yes I'll wait for you, and when you get back, tell me all about how much they suffer."

As she stood in the middle of the room in her underwear and the shirt she'd worn the day before, she grabbed Kronos and clung to him for a minute as if she didn't want the time between then and when he would have to leave, to end.

"I still feel bad about leaving you like this," he said.

"Why's that?" she asked.

"Well for one thing I was never the sort to make love and run."

She laughed, "What, you were never with a woman whose husband came home early?"

"I was never with a woman whose husband was somebody else," Kronos said.

Abigail smiled. "You go on and do what you need to do and then you come back to me," she told him.

"Yes ma'am."


The next month didn't pass quite as planned but it was made the most of. Abigail walked with Kronos to the airport and then returned to the house for the last three days of her lease, then took her bags and her money and hopped a train heading back to New Mexico. She returned home and did count the days until Kronos returned. It was much to her relief to find that from the day she returned, no Watcher ever set foot anywhere near her house again, let alone into her front yard.

Also when she returned home, when she worked herself up to go to her bedroom, she cleaned out the dresser drawer of its cotton and blankets and pillows and placed it back into her dresser. As horrible as it all was to think about, she was glad now that she hadn't had anything for her baby, no crib, no cradle, no nursery room with pink or blue papered walls. It still hurt her to think about it all but she felt she was healing from the whole incident.

At the end of the month, Abigail highly anticipated her husband's return and he didn't let her down. That very night he came home just as she was making dinner. Abigail jumped into his arms and held onto him for a minute or two before she asked him how things went. Kronos kissed her on the forehead and went over to the table.

"I'm beat," he said, "I had to hop five different trains in the last 24 hours to get back home and this last week I've gotten a total of 8 hours worth of sleep and 6 of those hours were leaning against a wall."

"But did you find them?" Abigail asked, "Those men I mean. Are they dead?"

"They won't be bothering you, or any other Immortal, anymore, yes they're dead," Kronos said, "And it wasn't quick, or merciful, or painless, I can assure you of that."

"But you're sure it was the right men?"

"Yes it was, I know this because in the first week I spent torturing them, I got all the details out of them on the how and why of the procedure they put you through," Kronos said.

"The why?" Abigail asked, "You mean you found out their reason for doing it?"

"Apparently there are some 10 or 15,000 Immortals in this world currently that the Watchers know about, one coming up missing and then coming up pregnant is no skin off anyone's nose," Kronos explained, "They picked you because you were convenient, the 'right place at the right time', they would've done it to any Immortal they could've grabbed…I know I've done some pretty gruesome things in my time but these men make the Holocaust look like the Boston Massacre. To them, any Immortal is ripe for the picking, just a lab rat to experiment on, and whoever said a little knowledge was dangerous knew what he was talking about because that is exactly the case here. They wonder what would happen to an Immortal if something happened to one and they carry out the something to see for themselves."

"No!" Abigail said as she stood next to him.

"Oh, Abigail, it took three weeks to finally kill those bastards and after that, I just couldn't get back here quickly enough to make sure you were allright," Kronos said.

Kronos dropped his head against Abigail's chest and she could feel the heaviness of his exhaustion.

"You poor thing," she said, "You must be about ready to drop."

"Don't tempt me," he replied.

She ran her hand through his short hair and said, "Why don't you go lay down for a while and I'll hold off dinner until you're ready?"

He shook his head, "I'm not moving from this spot. I'm just so glad to see you again, you are allright aren't you?"

"Yes I'm fine," she insisted as she walked back over to the stove.

Kronos' face met with the tabletop and he was half asleep, but there was something more to his present condition than he was ready to tell Abigail just yet.

"I hope you like what I'm making for dinner," she said.

"I'm too tired to care, what is it?" he asked.

"Nothing new, fried chicken, fried tomatoes, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and watermelon."

"I don't care, I'm too tired to care, I'll eat the potatoes with the skin on and the cornmeal raw, I don't care."

Abigail took a bottle of tomato wine off the wine rack and put it in the freezer to cool off.

"You poor thing, you look half past dead…what exactly went on for the last three weeks?" she asked.

Kronos shook his head, "It doesn't matter, it's over."

"Try picking your face up and telling me that again, I can't understand half of what you say when you talk into the fiberglass," Abigail said as she sat down at the table.

Kronos sat up straight and looked at her.

"How many of those men were there when you were attacked? 10? 20?"

"I don't know, I think maybe eight or ten," Abigail said.

"Well, they died last, but to get to them I took out about five more," Kronos said.

"Kronos, that many Watchers come up dead so close together, aren't people going to start wondering what's going on?" she asked.

"Maybe they will but they won't trace it back to you," he told her, "Look, look, I know you want to hear about what happened, and after all you've been through you're probably entitled to it, but I'm too tired to go into all the details now. I promise later I'll tell you."

She patted his hand and stood up, "I'll get dinner ready and then I'll help you upstairs."

"Thank you," he tiredly murmured as he laid his head down on the table again.


After dinner, Abigail took Kronos upstairs and over to the bathroom. She turned on the taps on the bathtub and took off Kronos' clothes, he seemed too exhausted to even realize what was going on around him. She gave him a hard shove and he cracked his back falling into the tub.

"Welcome back to the world of the living, my dear," she said, "Kronos, I realize something's wrong that you're not telling me, if you don't want to, that's fine, but will you please act as if there's something else on your mind so I don't have to wonder about it?"

He thought about telling her what had happened. Maybe he should.

"Abigail."

"What?"

He couldn't do it.

"Just don't drown me," he said.

She smiled like the Cheshire cat. "I'd never," she told him.

"I've heard that before," Kronos said.

"Shut up," Abigail said as she dunked his head under the water.

She spent the next half hour washing and scrubbing Kronos until there wasn't a mark left on him. Then she pulled the drain plug and helped him to get up out of the tub, she took a towel off the rack and started drying him off.

"Next we'll get you settled down into bed and we'll…"

She stopped when Kronos grabbed her, before she could ask what was wrong, he swooped her up in his arms and took her into the bedroom where he threw her on the bed and she was immediately pinned to the mattress by his bodyweight. She tried pushing him off of her but he was too heavy.

The first thing he said to her was, "I'm not going to hurt you."

"I know," she said.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said again, as if he was trying to convince himself rather than her, "I just…I spent four weeks wondering what was happening to you, I worried by the time I got back I might be too late…I have to know that this is real, and you're allright, and I'm not just seeing things."

"I understand," she said.

He pinned her shoulders down and kissed her. As he did, Abigail had the weirdest sensation come over her that she could actually feel the fear that had gone through Kronos for the last month.

"I love you," he said.

"I know," she replied.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he told her again.

"I know."


A man who emigrates from Sicily to Los Angeles will kiss the land as soon as he gets off the boat for relief of being off the God forsaken ship and away from the God forsaken ghetto. Kronos having been away from his wife for a month and worrying about her wellbeing every minute of that month, to come back and find her allright, tried to kiss every inch of her body, but he fell asleep halfway down her collarbone.

Abigail tried to move out from under him but he was too heavy. She placed her hands at the sides of his head and lifted it off her stomach and rolled him over to the other side of the bed. She got up and quietly slipped down the back stairs to the kitchen, she crossed over to the fridge and took out a cold beer and took a large swig of it.

"Abigail," she heard.

She turned and saw Kronos coming down the stairs, he seemed a bit more composed now and dressed, but he still looked tired.

"Kronos."

"I know I've been acting weird since I got home, I didn't mean to scare you," he said.

"You didn't scare me," she replied.

"You were right, there is something else that's been on my mind," he told her, "And I wasn't sure whether to tell you or not, but I think I should."

"What is it?" she asked.

"You trust me?"

"Yes."

He held out his arms, "Come here."

Abigail, a bit nervously, walked over to Kronos and put her arms around him. She felt his own hold tighten around her.

"I'm not crazy," Kronos said, "I'm sorry that I scared you…it's just that my life as I know it has been turned upside down and I don't know what's going to happen."

"What's wrong?" Abigail asked.

"Those Watchers I killed, they had with them information and leads to other Watchers. Their pictures, their names, their addresses, everything," Kronos explained.

"I still don't understand," Abigail said, "What's that got to do with how you're acting now?"

Kronos went over to the only bag he'd taken with him and come home with from his time in Washington. He put it on the table and opened it up and started digging through papers and photographs and cards. He pulled out a photograph and showed it to Abigail. There was a man in the picture, he appeared to be somewhere in his 30s, tall and scrawny with a short spiky haircut, eyes that didn't seem to open all the way and an unusually large nose.

"What about him?" Abigail asked.

"Well I checked, his name is Adam Pierson, he's been in the Watchers now for about ten years or so," Kronos said.

"I still don't follow, I don't think you've ever told me about anybody named Adam Pierson and he sure enough isn't one of the men who were there with me that night," Abigail said.

"Abigail," Kronos sounded to be hanging onto his sanity by a thread, "This is Methos. My brother is alive and what more he's one of those bastards!"