Chapter Ten
It took one long, dizzying second for Joe to actually realize what he'd heard; then there was a moment of incredulity in which he couldn't make himself believe it. It was Adam's expression that did it; he looked appalled and sick and nothing like himself, and his eyes, when he finally met Joe's gaze, were almost a stranger's, and heavy with the weight of years.
"Shit," Joe said feelingly. Disbelief was no longer an option. All sorts of little incongruities were slotting neatly into place - streak of unconscious and manipulative arrogance my ass - and he could see a whole plethora of complications unfolding, none of which he'd considered when planning this little meeting. Adam - Methos - winced.
"I don't suppose you'll let me pass that last comment off as a joke?" he asked.
Joe couldn't quite hold back his laugher. "Some joke." He ran a hand over his face, trying to put his thoughts together. "I need a drink." He looked over at Adam. "You want one?"
"God, yes," Adam said. He went unerringly for the bottle of good whiskey that Joe kept tucked away in the bottom drawer of his desk, swiped two glasses from the cabinet over the desk, and poured them both a generous serving. Joe watched him, bemused by the sudden and total absence of his habitual clumsiness. Instead, his movements were all swift economy, though when he sank into one of the chairs it was with his usual sprawl. Joe sat down heavily next to him and accepted the proffered glass. The whiskey burned going down, and was further proof that this wasn't some sort of bizzare dream.
"How?" he managed, after another sip of whiskey. "Why?! Do you have any idea how dangerous it is?" The sudden flicker of amusement in Adam's eyes made him feel stupid. The man was five thousand years old, for god's sake; there was no reason for Joe to still feel so protective. Nevertheless, the thought of seeing him exposed was almost nauseating, and Joe's reaction had nothing to do with his own precarious situation. Ignoring the burn of embarrassment, he raised both eyebrows, waiting for an answer. Adam had the grace to look slightly ashamed of himself.
"It's a good place to hide. No one would ever expect to find me researching myself." He shrugged apologetically. "It's also a sterling way to keep track of other Immortals."
"Are you hunting?" Joe asked bluntly. His instincts said otherwise; then again, he'd had Methos right in front of him for two years and hadn't noticed a thing. He planned on second-guessing his instincts for the foreseeable future.
"No." Adam sounded like he was being honest -- but then, if there was anything Joe did know about the man it was that he was an expert liar. Something of Joe's doubts must have been visible in his face, because Adam put down his glass and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Joseph. I'm not hunting." The touch was startling in and of itself. With the exception of handshakes, Adam made physical contact with others only rarely. Now Joe found himself wondering if that characteristic were one inherent to Methos, or if it was something he'd adopted when he'd decided to join the Watchers, and it neatly hammered home the reminder that Joe actually knew next to nothing about a man he'd considered a friend. Still, Adam's eyes were serious, his expression sincere, and Joe very much wanted to trust him; to see if he couldn't build the sort of friendship with Methos that he'd had with Adam Pierson. He realized that he was nodding in acceptance, and didn't miss the small flash of relief that passed over Adam's face.
"Does MacLeod know?" He was fairly sure he already knew the answer to that one, but couldn't resist asking.
"No," Adam was visibly appalled. "Christ, that's all I need. He'd either challenge me on the spot or decide to wrap me up in cotton wool; I'm not sure which."
"The latter," Joe said, certain of it. MacLeod might be annoyed by the masquerade, but he would also understand the need for it. He was also young enough -- in Immortal terms -- to think Methos a creature of legend. "Finding Methos -- you -- would be like finding the Holy Grail."
Suddenly it hit Joe like a blow to the chest, nearly taking his breath away. He had found Methos. He was sharing a drink with the world's oldest and most elusive Immortal: five thousand years of living history was only an arm's length away. He reached out and drained his glass, then poured himself another. Adam was regarding him with an expression of mingled amusement and annoyance.
"I'm just a guy, Joe," he said. "Really."
"No pearls of wisdom?" Joe asked.
"Don't stick a fork in an electric socket," Adam offered.
"Yeah, thanks. I'll be sure to remember that one," Joe said dryly. Adam grinned, and for a second all Joe could see was the graduate student he'd thought he knew, young and shy and impossibly brilliant. "What the hell are we going to do?" he asked, after another swallow of whiskey.
The suddenly knife-sharp gleam of Adam's eyes was enough to make Joe wonder all over again at his failure to have spotted the man in the first place.
"We?"
Joe met his gaze squarely. "Yeah. We. As in, you and I." At the inquisitorial lift of Adam's eyebrow, he scowled. "The way I see it, I've got two choices. I can turn you in, or I can look the other way. And the first one isn't really an option." Not with the current of paranoia running so strongly through the entire organization. "You could have picked a better time for your little masquerade."
Adam shrugged. "I didn't expect the political climate to be quite so hostile."
"You could have gotten out when you realized what things were like," Joe pointed out. "Why stay?"
Adam sighed, a reluctant exhalation of breath. "I need an Immortal identity." He swirled the remnants of his drink around in the glass, watching the liquid as it sloshed back and forth before shrugging and putting it down. "I can't avoid confrontation forever, no matter how well I hide. The world's gotten too small. Eventually someone -- Watcher or Immortal, it doesn't really matter -- is going to get curious."
"I can see keeping your identity from other Immortals -- but why do you care if we know?" Joe paused. "Well, before you pulled this stunt, anyway."
"Fitzcairn and I are hardly unique in our discovery of the Watchers," Adam said, with some asperity. "I'm not even the only infiltrator in your history." He frowned thoughtfully. "Though I am the only one you have at present."
"Good to know," Joe said dryly, and tipped back the rest of his whiskey.
"Did you talk to Adam?"
Joe looked up from last night's accounts. "Good to see you, too."
Don didn't look the least bit ashamed of himself. "Did you talk to him?"
"Yes." Joe forced himself to meet Don's eyes. He hated the thought of lying to the man, and to lie to him about what was in essence his life's work... "You were right; I was being paranoid."
Don refrained from any version of 'I told you so', which was fortunate; Joe wasn't sure that his nerves would stand it. Instead he nodded once in apparent satisfaction before settling into the other chair with his usual stack of papers.
"Is he coming in today?"
"After he gets out of class." The image of Methos sitting through his regimen of history courses was both amusing and somewhat mind-boggling, and went a long way towards explaining Adam Pierson's reputation for being a difficult student. "Were you going to talk to him too?"
"I wasn't planning on it." Don looked up, frowning. "Do you think I should?" He narrowed his eyes. "You weren't harsh with him, were you?"
"No," Joe said, not lifting his eyes from the papers in front of him. He could feel Don's eyes on him for a long moment afterwards, but whatever the other Watcher had been planning on saying was cut off by the opening door.
One look at the figure silhouetted in the bright winter sunlight was enough to shove any worries about deceiving Don to the bottom of a very, very long list. Forcing his hands to unknot themselves, Joe summoned up the most genuine fake smile in his repertoire and aimed it at his brother-in-law.
"Hey, James. When did you get into town?"
The utter lack of anything (or anyone) worth doing in his hotel had driven Fitz out into the streets of Paris in search of entertainment. Amanda had vanished who-knew-where to do who-knew-what, and though he had been tempted to sulk over not being invited, he had in the end decided that the (likely) resultant jail sentence would have kept him from going anyway. MacLeod had been like a bear with a sore tooth since he'd taken young Adam Pierson under his protection, and as Fitz wasn't in the mood for another ten rounds of Scottish agonizing over whether or not to warn the Watchers to behave themselves, the barge had been crossed off of his list of places to visit.
Instead, he found himself wandering through Montparnasse, idly watching the passers-by, and taking the time to look more closely at several of the prettier girls he saw. One, a particularly fetching redhead, smiled invitingly at him, but he let her pass with a sigh of regret when she turned to take the arm of a blond young man in artist's black. The cafe at the end of the street, however, was nearly as inviting as the redhead. The music spilling from it was an old gypsy tune he hadn't heard in decades, and he found himself humming it as he made his way across the terrace to the door.
The presence of another Immortal crawled up the back of his neck as soon as he touched the handle. For a moment, he considered walking away -- bored or no, this wasn't the sort of excitement he was looking for -- but the hope that whoever it was simply wanted a drink and a chance to listen to some music won the day, and he went inside still humming to himself. The song wound to an end as he came in, and there was a scattering of applause as he looked over the crowd.
The other Immortal was easy enough to spot. Despite the lad's retiring personality, Adam Pierson's profile was damn near unmistakable. He looked up as Fitz approached, eyes wide and panicked until he saw Fitz in turn; then his shoulders slumped in visible relief. By the time Fitz made it to his table, relief had given way to a sheepishness that seemed to indicate that the lad had realized just how foolish his trip to the cafe had been.
"Pierson," Fitz said gravely, taking the chair opposite from him. Babysitting a new Immortal hadn't been on his list of desired activities for the evening; still, if anything happened to the lad, he'd never be able to face MacLeod again. Pierson made a sour face and put aside the book on the table in front of him.
"Fitzcairn."
Suppressing an incredulous look -- because really, who brought a book to the cafes on Montparnasse? -- Fitz raised an eyebrow.
"Is MacLeod about?" He already knew the answer, of course; still, it was worth asking, if only to see Pierson look sheepish again.
"As far as I know, he's at the barge. I needed some fresh air and a decent beer."
"So you decided to go wandering around by yourself?" Fitz asked, and shook his head. "Not wise, laddie. I can understand the need to get away from MacLeod, but - Q.E.D.," he gestured at his own chest, "- there are far too many Immortals in Paris for you to be safely wandering about on your own. You're damned lucky I spotted you first."
Pierson scowled into his beer. "I'm not a child."
"You are in Immortal terms," Fitz said, flagging down the barmaid. "A beer, love, and another for my young apprentice." Pierson's expression was a delightful combination of appalled and incredulous.
"You'd better be paying," he said, once the barmaid had returned with their drinks.
"Of course," Fitz said. He'd picked Duncan's pocket for a hundred francs only three days ago.
"I really don't need a babysitter," Pierson tried again. Fitz shrugged.
"It's not really a topic for debate, old boy. If I wander off and you go and get yourself killed, I'll never hear the end of it. Ever. Which, as you'll eventually come to realize, takes on a whole new meaning when you're Immortal."
Pierson rolled his eyes. Judging by the collection of empties littering the table, he was probably more than a little drunk, so Fitz decided to ignore the blatant rudeness.
"I'm in public, Fitzcairn," he said. "No one's going to be stupid enough to start something in a crowd of mortals."
"The Kurgan would have," Fitz pointed out.
"The Kurgan is dead," Pierson retorted, and plunked his empty down decisively on the table before reaching for the one the barmaid had just brought. The reminder of the Kurgan's death was reason enough in Fitz's opinion for a drink -- even a toast -- and he said as much, clinking his beer against Pierson's in a move that won him the evening's first genuine smile from the lad.
"Darts?" he offered, after a few moments' contemplative silence on both their parts that Fitz was determined to end before it got maudlin. Pierson was too young for such brooding, and he himself was too old. Pierson gave him a startled look -- he'd been eyeing his book longingly -- but then shrugged in compliance.
To Fitz's utter surprise, Pierson won three of the four games they played, and he had his suspicions that the lad had let him win the fourth out of a misguided sense of pity. Either way, it had been a masterful performance, and the games had worked wonders on Pierson himself. By the end of the first he'd been smiling; by the end of the fourth, he'd been actually laughing at his own more outrageous misses. When Fitz collected their tab, several of the patrons paused in their conversations to shout farewells to both of them.
Once out in the winter darkness, they both pulled their coats close around them, trying to fend off the wind that sliced down the streets like a knife, bringing swirls of loose snow with it.
"Where do you live, then?" Fitz asked. "I'll walk you home."
Pierson gave him a look in which deep suspicion was clearly visible. Fitz rolled his eyes.
"Do I need to repeat my earlier speech about the Highlander and his methods of holding people accountable for their actions?" he asked, stomping his feet a little to keep warm. "Come on, lad, it's bloody cold out. Don't be an arse."
"Fine." Pierson gave in with bad grace, heaving a truly spectacular sigh of irritation, and headed down the snow-covered street in the direction of the Latin Quarter.
Fitz rolled his eyes again, and followed after him.
"Children," he muttered.
They'd gone less than ten blocks when Pierson stiffened beside him like a hunting dog going to point. He felt the buzz a split second later; a moment after that, a bulky figure in a dark coat stepped out of the cross-alley in front of them.
"Hugh Fitzcairn," Fitz said quickly, before the stranger could get any funny ideas about Pierson. Out of the corner of his mouth, he muttered, "See? This is why you need someone with you."
"Ranulf Krazinsky," the stranger said, in a heavily-accented voice. The name was vaguely familiar, but as Fitz wasn't the Immortal Joan Rivers that Duncan was, he couldn't place it.
"We're in public, for God's sake," Pierson said sharply. He'd taken a step back under the overhang of a shop door, and his face had been thrown into shadow.
"Who are you, then?" Krazinsky asked.
"Too smart to make a spectacle of myself."
"If I say you'll fight me, little man," Krazinsky said, starting towards Pierson,"you'll --"
Fitz stepped coolly between the two of them, stopping Krazinsky by the simple expedient of twisting his sword-cane out to reveal the first six inches of steel. The metal caught the light from the closest streetlight and threw it back, gleaming, towards the sky.
"You'll be fighting me," Fitz said evenly.
"Your student, is he?" Krazinsky asked. "If you survive this, you should teach him to mind his tongue -- or someone might cut it out one of these days."
"He's incorrigible," Fitz said lightly. "I've tried everything - floggings, whippings, forcing him to listen to Ronald Reagan making foreign policy speeches -- nothing works." Internally, he was snarling curses at Pierson, ordering the idiot boy to be quiet. If he let MacLeod's student get killed, even Immortal life wouldn't be worth living.
"Then maybe I'll train him after I kill you," Krazinsky said, grinning nastily. "The spirited ones do tend to last longer."
Pierson muttered something that sounded like 'you have no idea', but Fitz didn't quite catch it, because Krazinsky was an absolute maniac and was already swinging at him. The man's blade was two-handed and heavy, but he was graceful with it, and for the first five passes it was all Fitz could do to keep backing up, luring the man into the alley where they would at least be out of sight from the street.
Pierson jerked out of the way, then followed them, open-mouthed. Fitz wanted to yell at him to get out of there, but couldn't spare the breath; Krazinsky was big and fast, and not the sort of opponent one could stop paying attention to, even for an instant. Fitz took a wicked cut to his left arm and a second to his calf before he got a feel for the man's rhythm; then he realized that what he'd taken for grace was nothing but aggression, and the speed was flashy but had no purpose behind it. After that, it took four passes before Krazinsky was limping, two more before he'd gone down, curling around Fitz's sword. Fitz didn't wait, didn't pause, just pulled the sword out of Krazinsky's belly and went for the beheading stroke, dropping him into a puddle of ice and blood. In the gasping, momentary pause before the lightning, Fitz managed enough breath to warn Pierson away; then the Quickening struck, and it was all he could do to hold on while fire and ecstasy washed the world away.
He came to himself on what felt like the icy roadway; at least, his back was cold and his head ached and there was a sharp, vicious pain in his neck that he felt positive he ought to complain about. A vaguely familiar voice, tense with worry, was talking somewhere off to his left.
"Nothing happened, all right? I'm fine. Fitzcairn isn't, though. I think he fractured his skull."
"He'll be fine." Those ruthless tones -- those were familiar. Only one person could convey such a brutal and total lack of sympathy for his previously life-threatening injuries.
"Hello, MacLeod," Fitz mumbled -- or rather, tried to mumble. The Highlander's scowling visage loomed into his line of sight.
"Just wait until your head heals," he said darkly.
Author's Notes: All hail lferion, beta-reader extraordinaire! Also -- I humbly apologize for the length of time between updates, especially since the last chapter ended with a cliffhanger. The next chapter will be much shorter in coming, I promise.
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