The next few days passed slowly and excruciatingly; both teenagers were watched around the clock for any sign of their conditions worsening, and around the clock Richelle was fed pills, pills to keep the fever down, which didn't seem to work, and pills to keep her hypokalemia at bay, which Methos hoped did work. And for several days she stayed lost in a realm of delirium, babbling constantly, talking to people who weren't there, and for Methos, it was like watching the same bad movie over and over and over. He'd seen this too many times throughout his life, unfortunately some things were timeless and illness was one of them. The fact that they were in a completely different time and place didn't hold much water with him, the day when she was able to recognize her surroundings and speak coherently couldn't come fast enough where he was concerned.

Any time was a bad time to be ill but the nights seemed to be the worst. Methos knew that that old twin psyche just had to be kicking in and Richelle, amidst her delusions and bouts of unconsciousness, had to know that Richie wasn't with her and she had to be wondering what had happened to him. He felt pity for what she was going through, and for reasons he would never tell anyone, he went to his room, got the Spike gremlin doll, took it to Richelle and placed it in the crook of her arm while she slept.

He'd fallen asleep in the chair by the bed one night, and woke up when he heard someone talking. It took him a few minutes to realize it was Richelle and he opened his eyes to see her sitting up in bed with daggers in her eyes aimed specifically for him.

"Where is my brother?" she demanded to know.

It was still dark out and Methos guessed it was around 2 in the morning, though he was still half asleep as he asked her, "What?"

"My brother, where the hell is he?" she demanded to know, and she reached for him, "If you've done anything to him, so help me I'll…"

That was the story of his life, try to help people and they want to kill you for it.

"He's in another room," he calmly explained, "You don't remember but you've both been sick."

"I remember," she said, "I remember very well, what I want to know is why? Why did you split us up?"

Methos practically had to sit on her to keep her from flying off the bed, as he struggled to keep his temper as he told her, "We couldn't take a chance. You both showed similar symptoms but for all we knew it could've stemmed from two completely different illnesses, we couldn't risk it."

"You couldn't risk it?" she repeated, "Who the hell do you think you are? It's my life you're screwing around with. Mine and my brother's, that's a line you don't cross."

Methos bit back the urge to reply with 'who're you telling?', but he understood what she was saying very well.

"Where is Richie? How is he?" she wanted to know.

"He's done better than you," he answered.

But she wasn't convinced, she had to see it with her own eyes, and he couldn't blame her.

"I can see you still don't trust us," he said as he untied her.

"I don't trust anybody," she replied, "You stay alive longer that way."

Yes indeed, there had been a whole other reason why these two were drafted for this game of cat and mouse with MacLeod instead of that Noel woman. For one thing, and he couldn't deny it, things had certainly be a lot more amusing with these two around instead of her. They went to the room where Richie was being kept for the time being and neither was too surprised to see he was still in bed asleep. Richelle climbed on the bed beside him and shook him to wake him up but he was dead to the world.

"How many of those pills was he slipped?" she wanted to know.

"There's a reason he wasn't hit as hard as you were," Methos told her.

She calmed down after that and replied, "I guess I should be grateful for that." She went over to the bed and climbed on it alongside her brother. Methos looked at the two with something of an amused expression on his face; he went over to the bed and pulled the covers up on her and commented, "It's to my understanding that most pairs of twins speak their own language, some gibberish only they understand."

"Not us," she tiredly replied, "Richie here can't hardly even speak English."

Methos looked over at Richie, who hadn't moved and hadn't noticed his extra company. Lethargy had become his first nature since he got sick and he spent most of the days and all the nights asleep now.

"He seemed a bit more anxious to go back home than you do," he commented.

"Yeah well what can I say?" Richelle asked, "MacLeod succeeded in partially washing his brain but it got hung out to dry prematurely, thank God."

Methos smirked and said, "You don't like MacLeod, do you?"

"Do you?" she replied.

"I never met him," Methos reminded her.

"But you still have an opinion about him," she said, "Your brother knows him and that makes you biased as well, so what's your opinion about the bastard?"

"From what I know about him?" she nodded, "I wouldn't waste my time knowing him."

She smiled weakly and replied, "You know, Scarecrow, I think I like you."

"I can see they haven't sold you on the idea of a big happy family," Methos noted.

Richelle sneered and told him, "MacLeod's got a warped sense of what qualifies as family. What he calls family, I call dictatorship. He wants a family that everybody's going to do exactly what he says when he says it without question, he really thinks we're going to say how high when he tells us to jump."

"I've known people like that," Methos told her.

Richelle's eyes were half closed down and her words started to slur as she continued, "You know he looks at Richie and he sees another him, he looks at me and sees…" she shook her head, "I don't know…he hates me, he must, he's hated me since the day I stepped in and interrupted his perfect life, he'd do anything he could to get rid of me. He's put up with me because he knew otherwise, I'd take Richie and he'd never see either of us again, but he makes it no secret that he despises me. I think if I died he'd be very happy."

"What did you do?" Methos asked.

"I was just there, he couldn't have that, he had to get me out of the way because Richie got exposed to somebody who knows what they're doing." Her eyes closed and her head kept dropping forward before she'd wake up again and continue, "I told Richie, I tried to warn him…if he doesn't listen it'll be on his own damn head, but I told him why I don't like MacLeod."

"Why's that?"

"He's dangerous," Richelle explained, "Not like you'd think though. He's not dangerous by what he does or what he's capable of doing, physically. But he looks at people, like Richie, he comes in and says to them 'do this, do that, think like this, become this kind of person' and all he's doing for it is getting people killed. He'll start a war, and then leave somebody like Richie to fight it for him and get him killed, just to make a point. I told Richie that, but I don't think he listens…he's still naïve enough to believe that there's goodness in people and that I just don't give MacLeod a break. But I know better…MacLeod's a bastard, he will always be a bastard, the kind that will go to his grave believing he's right about everything and that every word he says is the Gospel truth. So you can see why I'm not too heartbroken about our current situation..." she laughed weakly and said, "Maybe this will teach him a lesson in humility. First he thought he was above the game and could opt out of it and lead a normal life any time he wanted, then he comes back into it and he makes a big speech about Immortals can't live normal lives…but he has no problem putting Tessa's life on the line for his own selfish needs, or our lives for that matter. He wants a girlfriend, he wants kids, he wants the life he's always preaching Immortals can't have, but he thinks he's the exception who can have and do anything he wants. Well this is one time where he is completely helpless, he can't find out where we are, or who has us, all he can do is stay home and wait for the phone to ring, or to get another blood soaked letter in the mail."

Methos smiled as he smoothed back the curls on her forehead and he commented, "You two seem to be doing alright. I'd say you've faired exceptionally well given your current situation."

"And that is precisely what I've been trying to explain to MacLeod for the past six months, but you know you can't explain anything to him because if it's not his own idea, it's not worth hearing. I've told him time again and again and again, Richie and I are adults, we are perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves, we don't need him for anything."

Methos nodded and said, "I'd say that's definitely true, especially considering how well you two have taken to this whole ordeal."

"That's what I told him," she said as she started to fall asleep, "He gets off thinking he knows so damned much, thinks he's superior to us…what was he doing when he was a kid? Living with his family, his mother and father," she said the words as if her tongue had been dipped in vinegar for the occasion, "Where was he at our age? Still living with them, he doesn't know anything, he had a privileged life…we've had to fight to stay alive all our lives, was never anybody looking out for us, and there ain't anyone to watch our backs now either, we've got to rely on ourselves to stay alive."

"You're a little optimist, aren't you?"

"I'm a realist," she said, "I don't believe in good intentions or good people, there ain't no such animal, all of the world is a cesspool of bloodthirsty predators, and the only way to rise above it all is to bite back with sharper teeth."

It was hard to argue with that logic.

"Well," Methos heard behind him, "The dead rise again."

He turned around and saw Kronos standing in the doorway.

"How long have you been standing there?" Methos asked.

Richelle threw back the covers and got out of the bed and asked Methos, "How long have we been sick?"

"About five days," he answered.

"Well I need to get a bath," she said, and tried to leave the room but Kronos blocked the way out. She turned back to Methos and asked him, "What the hell's going on here?"

"You don't know it but the reason you were kept tied to that bed is when you weren't, you disappeared out of the room, only to be found downstairs, on the floor again, you had another fainting spell and came very close to cracking your head open on the glass coffee table. That said, I'd rather not we chance you conking out in the bathtub and drowning either, so if you don't mind," Methos made it clear by the way he talked that she didn't have a choice if she minded or not, "You're going to have some company while you bathe."

Richelle didn't say anything at first, she just looked at Methos, then turned to look at Kronos and she finally exploded at them saying, "Why the hell not? I don't see how it should be anymore embarrassing now than it was when I was 7!" and walked past Kronos towards the bathroom, and both Immortals followed after her.

After being sick in bed for several days, Richelle reveled in being able to soak in a hot bath. She couldn't scrub off her skin but trying to burn it off seemed like a nice second; anything to get rid of that smell, that all too familiar smell of being sick, it always had a tendency to linger. The room was full of steam and her skin was as red as a lobster; the water's surface was white and filmy from soap and offered a thin screen of privacy, not that it mattered much anyway because the two Immortals were more engrossed in the private conversation they were having. Richelle reached over and her wet hand grabbed the back of Methos' jacket as she asked him, "Hey genius, have you figured out who sent you those pictures yet?"

"That's what I'm working on," he told her, "I have a few ideas."

"Brother, you disappoint me," Kronos shook his head, "You really think that James Horton, the most wanted bastard in the Hunters, whom everyone would love to see hot tarred and feathered and set on fire, would be dumb enough to come here and what more let us know that he'd declared you a target?"

"If he didn't think I could pin him for it, it makes sense that he would," Methos tried to reason with him, "Horton is smart but he's also egotistical and thinks he's smarter than everyone else and that's where he starts to slip."

"Just like MacLeod," Richelle commented, "Good thing these two can't team up and work together. That would be a disaster area." She looked past Methos over to his brother and said to him, "Can you tell me why Horton would even want to come here? What does he want?"

"Besides us dead?" Kronos asked, "I can guess."

"Do us a favor and don't," Methos replied, "Every time you start guessing all we get is trouble."

As the two argued, Richelle moved around so she was directly under the tub's faucet and turned on the cold tap and let the icy water wash over her.

"Exactly what does this Horton plan to accomplish by killing off all the Immortals? He has to know sooner or later people are going to catch on and realize who's the man behind the mask and then he's going to have a price on his head," she said.

"What did Hitler have to accomplish by killing off the Jews?" Methos asked, "The Poles, the Serbs, the Soviets, the deaf, the retarded, the crippled…"

Kronos sat down on the edge of the tub and told Richelle, "We can be here all night, in the future, don't get him started on this again."

Richelle found the drain lever and pushed it and the tub started to drain. Kronos gave her a yank out of the tub and she wrapped a large black towel around her as the three of them left the bathroom and returned to the bedroom, where along the way, they ran into Silas and Caspian, and Caspian looked like he was ready to kill someone.

"Doesn't anybody in this house go to sleep anymore!" he said when he saw them.

Richelle hawed and told him, "You should try living in New York."

"What happened to you?" Methos asked as he noticed that Caspian's clothes were singed and parts of his skin were blackened.

"Car bomb went off," he said, and when he opened his mouth, Richelle was surprised to see smoke coming out of it.

"Not your car," Richelle guessed.

"Obviously not," Methos said, "Or he wouldn't be here now."

"And this ain't Miami so I'm going to go on a limb and guess he didn't get caught in a cartel's crossfire, more of the Hunters' work?" she asked.

"Obviously," Kronos said.

"Whatever," Richelle replied, "I'm going to bed."

She returned to the bedroom but turned around when she noticed Methos had followed her in.

"Oh no," she shook her head, "Uh-uh, it was one thing with you two standing around while I was in the tub but I am not getting dressed with you in here."

Methos went over to her and instead of responding, he put his hand on her forehead; Richelle put her hands on her sides and asked, "Well? What's the verdict?"

"101 degrees," he said, "Not good but better."

Richelle pointed over to her unconscious brother and asked, "What about him?"

Methos went over to the bed and felt Richie's forehead and answered, "100 degrees."

"What is it?" Richelle asked as she slipped into a nightshirt.

"Could be any one of a dozen things," Methos told her, "Now just so I know we're not going to be in for anymore surprises, you're not also an epileptic by chance, are you?"

"Certainly not," she said, "Why?"

"Never mind," he replied, "I'm going to give you some pills before you go to sleep, they should help bring the fever back down to normal."

"What about Richie?" she asked.

"If he wakes up now we'll all be up," Methos told her, "He'll get his in the morning."

"Hey!" she just realized, "If we've been conked out for five days, what the hell's been going on around here?"

"What do you mean?" Methos asked.

"Have you figured out who sent you those bulls eye pictures yet?" she asked.

"Not yet," he answered, "But I stand by my suspicion it's Horton."

"And? You never answered why he would want to come here, or anyone else for that matter," Richelle remembered.

"That'll wait for another time," Methos told her, "Right now, I'm going to get your pills, and then I have a few questions for you."

"For me?" she repeated in disbelief.

"When you were sick you started to ramble on in delirium," Methos told Richelle as she got into bed alongside her brother, "I didn't figure there was any substance to any of it but I did take a few notes at a few names that stuck out. Sometime during your delusions you mentioned two people named Seth and Keith St. Cloud, do you have any idea who they are?"

Richelle didn't need to take too long to think about it, she nodded.

"Who are they?" Methos asked.

"Just a couple of guys," she said.

"A couple of Immortals," Methos corrected her.

She nodded, "Alright, a couple of Immortals, yeah, so what?"

"How do you know them?"

She made a face and said, "Remember what I said about MacLeod can't accept the fact that we're adults, and capable of looking after ourselves? Well that was another such case, he doesn't know about it, we never told him. I don't know who these guys are or what they wanted but for some reason they wanted MacLeod, and they came to the shop one day looking for him. The only thing was he wasn't there, he and Tessa were out somewhere, only Richie and I were home that day when they barged in."

"And?"

She shrugged, "They said they wanted MacLeod, we said he wasn't there, they didn't believe us. So they came upstairs…"

She remembered it well. The two men who had walked into the shop were both tall and wore trench coats and looked like a couple of killers, at least where the twins had been concerned. And when the two Immortals pushed past them, Richie and his sister both knew they were going to have trouble with these unwanted guests. Richie didn't know what to do but all the same he had a plan, he went over to one of the display cases and took out one of the swords, he didn't know how good it would be for fighting, or for that matter how good he would be, but he was going to find out.

They followed the intruders up the stairs and found that they had ransacked the living room.

"We told you," Richelle said defiantly as she folded her arms to her chest, "He's not here, trust me if he were I would offer him up to you on a platter, gladly, just to be rid of him."

The man closest to her told her to shut up and hit her in the face so hard that she fell back and hit the floor. Richie thrust the sword out and the tip of the blade was a fraction of an inch from the other man's neck.

"Naturally they fought," Richelle said, "What else could Richie do? And I'll tell you, for him not having one idea what the hell he was doing, he did a good job of faking it. He and that freak Seth were neck and neck for a few minutes, and then it happened."

"What did?" Methos asked.

She remembered it only too well. She closed her eyes and suddenly she was back in their living room standing off to the side with Keith and watched as Seth's sword and the one Richie had clanged against one another, the sound would forever be ingrained in her memory, and so would that horrible sight.

"The sword broke," she said, "A dozen pieces flying through the air, we'd never seen anything like it."

"So then what happened?" Methos asked.

"They both had their swords drawn, and they both moved at the same time," Richelle said, "I had an idea."

How she'd thought of it she didn't know, but in the split second that the two men tried to run them through with their swords, Richelle grabbed the coffee table and all but threw it at them. The blades cut through the wood and were stuck, but Richelle couldn't let go of it. Instead she hoisted the table up in the air over their heads, and she kicked Keith in the stomach and knocked him back, and then she brought the whole table crashing down on Seth's head.

"Of course we didn't kill them," Richelle said, "Not permanently anyway. It was warm that day and the windows were open, so we grabbed them and tossed them out the window, and you should've seen them when they hit the pavement. Luckily that was a Sunday when everybody's either in church or still in bed sleeping off hangovers, so nobody saw anything, but when they came back to life, they took the hint and left. We never saw them again."

"And MacLeod never found out?" Methos asked.

"Na," she replied, "I threw away the broken sword…we'd taken their swords so they couldn't try anything, and we put them in the display case instead. Naturally MacLeod could tell the difference, and he demanded to know where they came from, and what happened to the other one, but we never told him. And as for the coffee table…well, if they'd seen that they could've put two and two together…but instead we got rid of that too, and when they came home I told them that I'd tripped and fell on it and broke it. MacLeod believed it, bit my head off for being so stupid, so careless, always breaking something in his home, costing him a fortune in destroyed antiques."

"If he knew…" Methos started to say.

"He wouldn't care," she said, "He doesn't…he doesn't care about either of us, not Richie, but especially not me, he would be only too happy to see me dead somewhere. And in truth he would probably be rapturous if Richie should ever get killed as well. Then he'd be rid of both of us permanently, and he'd have his nice, quiet, peaceful life back again."

She closed her eyes and seemed all but asleep. Methos grabbed at the bedspread and adjusted its fit over her when she opened her eyes again and continued speaking, "Those men, the Immortals who came to the shop."

"What about them?" Methos asked.

"They were brothers," she said, "But that's not possible, is it?" she looked at him, "In all the history of Immortals there were never two born to the same mother, were there?"

"Immortals have no known parents," Methos said, "They're adopted as babies upon discovery."

"But still," she insisted, "They were brothers, not like you're brothers with those other freaks but real brothers, they were bound together through birth, and that's not supposed to be possible, is it? It's supposed to be every Immortal for himself, come into the world alone and die alone."

Methos didn't answer her, he only brought the covers up and told her to go to sleep, that it was late. Despite all the time she'd spent in bed it didn't take long for Richelle to fall asleep again, and she did so, on the surface, without a worry in the world, which was more than could be said for Methos. Once he was sure they wouldn't wake up, he left the room and went looking for Kronos. After coming up empty everywhere else it occurred to him that at 3 o' clock in the morning, his brother would be in his bed asleep, so he ran down the hall to Kronos' room, ran inside, and tripped over the footboard and crash landed on the bed alongside his brother, and that woke Kronos up.

"What's going on?" he wanted to know.

"We underestimated those two, Kronos," Methos told him, "And we never knew it, never to what degree."

"What're you talking about?" Kronos demanded to know. It was late, he was tired, and aside from squeezing Methos' neck till it popped like a champagne cork, all he wanted to do was go to sleep.

"Keith and Seth St. Cloud," Methos told him.

Even in the dark he could see Kronos' eyes open wider and he knew that he now had his brother's attention.

"What about them?" Kronos asked as he sat up.

"Apparently they paid MacLeod a visit several months ago, but MacLeod was out at the time, and you can guess then who was left to deal with them," Methos said.

Kronos wasn't impressed though. "Obviously they didn't do too well, those bastards are still alive."

"Obviously," Methos agreed, "But wait until you hear what they did do to them."

"And why would that interest me?" Kronos asked.

Methos told Kronos what Richelle had told him and it was slowly becoming obvious to Kronos what his brother's point was. "That's not a basic reflex by any stretch of the imagination, somebody taught them how to deal with Immortals a long time ago."

"And it's not MacLeod," Methos said, "And we both know this wasn't a couple of rookies fresh out of the morgue either, the St. Cloud brothers are over 1,000 years old."

"Yes," Kronos commented, "Ironic how history passed those two up and instead chose to remember that little bastard Xavier instead."

"But what I can't figure out is what those two would want with MacLeod," Methos said.

"Maybe he got them shot in the back in Texas 120 years ago as well," Kronos commented as he lay back down to sleep.

The next day both Richie and Richelle were in an improved enough state of health that they were able to get out of bed, and once Richie had showered and they'd changed their clothes; the twins left their room and went downstairs and walked into the middle of a conversation about them.

"Time to call MacLeod again?" Richelle asked.

"Well we wouldn't want him to think anything had happened to you two," Methos said with a snicker under his breath.

"Who's going to talk to him this time?" Richie asked.

"Hey I've got an idea," Richelle said as she went over to Kronos, "If you really want to wrack his brain, you ought to send him another note and sign it JMJ, he'd spend weeks trying to figure that one out."

"What the hell is JMJ?" Kronos asked.

"Not what, who," she said, "Who the hell is JMJ?"

"Fine, who the hell is JMJ?"

"JMJ stands for Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Richelle told him, and when he glared at her like he wanted to strangle her all she had to say in response was, "What's the matter, don't you watch Homicide?"

"There's a blind man 6,000 miles away in the jungle who saw that one coming," Methos commented.

Kronos started to reply to that with something else that Methos should've seen coming and was just about to punch his lights out when Methos took a step back and responded with, "You know the rules, not in front of the children."

"Very funny."

"So where are the other two gorillas?" Richelle asked.

"Out," Methos answered her, "Following up some leads we've been getting from our informant."

"How do you know that guy's not just setting you up to get killed?" Richie asked.

"Why do you think they sent Silas and Caspian out?" Richelle asked him, "Come on, let's go eat."

Once they were out of the room, Methos turned to his brother and told him, "Tonight, I want those two put in the war room."

"Whatever for?" Kronos asked.

"You always criticized me for my paranoia, but I think if the Hunters are planning an attack, it's going to be here and it's going to be sooner than we think, and those two aren't in any condition to either fight or try to escape. The war room's the most heavily secured room in the whole house, nobody can get to them in there."

Kronos managed to restrain himself from saying what he was currently thinking about his brother. After another minute had passed he finally said, "Alright, but I don't see what you're getting so worked up about."

"Believe me, I'm just as anxious to be wrong about this as you think I am," Methos said, "But as long as those two are staying here, I'm not going to have their blood on my hands."

Despite the immense progress that they had made, the twins knew they were still not up to par and didn't feel the part either, so, as not to overexert themselves, they spent most of the day in Methos' room and had a free-for-all with his toys. Richelle had stuck close to the Gremlin dolls and put on a little show for Richie's benefit and rechristened the George and Lenny dolls Caspian and Silas, and had Silas pounding Caspian into next week. Richie tiredly leaned back against the footboard of the bed and just smiled, he was too tired to laugh.

Richelle moved to get up and when she did she noticed something resting in the middle of a table that was covered in Transformers, old metal toy cars, and Star Wars action figures. In the midst of all that was a small electric fan and when Richelle saw it, she started laughing hysterically.

"What is it?" Richie asked.

"I have an idea," she said, "I have an idea, I-have-an-idea. We're going to call MacLeod ourselves, and just to screw with his head, we're going to make him think we're a lot farther away from home than we are."

"What'd you have in mind?" Richie asked.

She quickly explained the idea to him, and also explained that she'd seen it in an old movie Connor had shown her once. Richie thought it sounded crazy but decided it would be worth trying and it might be fun. Richie picked up the phone and dialed the store's number while Richelle got the fan plugged in and found a few sheets of typing paper.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mac!" Richie said, practically grinning from ear to ear.

"Richie! Where are you? Are you alright?"

Richie was momentarily shocked by how worried Mac sounded, and just as he opened his mouth to reply, Richelle yanked the receiver away from him.

"Yo MacLeod, how go things in the fairy forest?" she asked.

"Richelle? Where are you? What's going on?" he demanded to know.

Richelle pressed her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing, then she flipped the small fan on and told MacLeod, "Sorry, Oberon, but there's a hurricane blowing down here and you're gonna have to talk louder than that." As she said that she picked up the sheets of paper and fed them into the fan and let the blades beat over them and make a terrible racket as she added sarcastically, "Whew, it certainly is windy down here!"

On the other end of the line, MacLeod was distraught. He pulled the receiver away from his ear for a minute and waited until the noise died down before he asked again, "Where are you? Are you alright?"

Richelle cut off the fan and said into the receiver, "What was that?"

"I SAID WHERE ARE YOU?" Duncan repeated, feeling near the end of his rope.

Richelle looked to her brother and then back at the phone and said to him, "Why? Are you worried about us?"

"Richelle!"

"Because I find that very unlikely that you would be worried about us, that you would care at all if we lived or died," she said, "I'd think you'd be happy with us gone, you have your nice, peaceful, 'normal' little life back and that's what you always wanted, just you and your squeezebox. No responsibility towards anybody but yourself, no concern for anybody except yourself, what you want, you need, nobody to interfere with your boring little plans and your boring little life. Must be nirvana where you are, while we're over here fighting for our lives, trying to keep from getting killed. Though I suppose you would be concerned, for Richie's sake, if anything happens to him then you have to find some new slave to clean your shop, wait on your customers, move your junk, you couldn't possibly do that yourself, no, you need some young whipping boy to do it all for you for what, minimum wage and third rate room and board. But I told you before it's a package deal, either you take us both or they won't release either of us, I guess it just comes down to how much you feel like gambling on double or nothing."

"Richelle, who are they? Where are you?" she heard him reply.

"Did you hear anything I said?" she replied, "I guess not, too bad, I guess they won't be letting us go anytime soon."

She pushed the plunger on the Batmobile and disconnected the call.

"You are evil, you know that?" Richie said, and from the tone in his voice it seemed he was proud of her for it.

"I learn from the best," she responded as she put the phone down.

She moved and her foot met with something hard and she crouched down and found a bowling ball half concealed under the bed. She rolled it out and stuck her fingers in it to see how it fit. She turned to her brother and started to say something when he signaled for her to be quiet and went over to the door. She followed him and they could hear voices coming up the hall. Richelle poked her head out and could see the outlines of Caspian, Silas and a third man coming their way. She turned out the lights and set the bowling ball out on the hall floor and sent it rolling. A few seconds later the twins heard the commotion as first Caspian was tripped by the ball and in turn he fell against the other two and all three of them hit the floor.

"Ste-rike!" Richelle said.

They went out to see who they had bowled over and saw laying in a heap on the floor in a pretzel of limbs were Caspian, Silas and Kronos.

"You did it now," Richie said as he grabbed her by the arm, "Run!"

They took off running down the hall and jumped down the stairs two and three at a time and when they hit the ground floor they just narrowly avoided colliding into Methos. He didn't know what was going on but it didn't stop him from grabbing Richie by the arm and jerking him back so he couldn't escape. Richelle had gotten as far as the kitchen when they heard her make a sudden noise like she was being choked and they saw the reason why when a few seconds later, Kronos came through the doorway with her doubled over on his shoulder, kicking and struggling all the way.

"Alright, what happened?" Methos asked.

"I'm not quite sure," Kronos answered as he put Richelle down, "But I know now what a 9-pin feels like."

As night approached, the twins were informed that they would be spending the night in the war room instead of one of the regular bedrooms, and neither knew how to respond to this sudden news.

"Is it because of what happened last night?" Richelle asked. Of course they knew what she was referring to; the explosion was taken as a sign that the Hunters were moving closer and determined to kill anyone who got in their way.

"Not exactly," Methos answered, "Although, until you two are fully recovered, I think it would be in your best interest to stay in there incase anything should happen."

"I don't get it," she said, "What makes that room so much safer than the rest of the house?"

He took them into the room and showed them that the windows were made of bulletproof glass and were covered by steel shutters. Then he showed them the locks on the door which by turning one knob sent four bolts of six inch long reinforced steel into place.

"Imported from Italy," he commented cynically.

"Right but if we were locked in, where would that leave you?" Richie asked.

"We have our ways of getting in, but nobody else would," Methos told him.

He then took them over to the bed and showed them that underneath every mattress was a bullet deflector, should anybody from the floor below try shooting straight up.

"All things considered," he told them, "You'll be safer in this room than you would be in Fort Knox."

"Is it going to come to that, though?" Richie asked.

"It might," Methos told him, "Which is why this room was designed so securely in the first place. Now the odds are nothing is going to happen tonight or tomorrow night or for the remainder of your stay here…but you're both in a compromised condition right now and I'm not betting on anybody getting to you in time to help should anything go wrong."

"Boy you're an optimist," Richelle said, "When do we have to be shut in here?"

"That's going to depend on when you two fall asleep," Methos told her.

It didn't take long for Richie and his sister to fall asleep, shortly after dinner that night both were conked out on the couch in the living room. Methos knew the odds were they'd probably be up half the night after this, but all the same he let them be until 11 o' clock. He woke the twins up and told them to get ready for bed, but the two would've been content with staying on the couch for the rest of the night because they tried to go back to sleep as they were. He pulled them off the couch and escorted them up the stairs and gave them a slight push into the bathroom. A few minutes later the two came out changed in their nightshirts and with their clothes in hand.

"Now since we're going to be staying in that room all night," Richelle said, "Can we bring anything with us or are we just expected to shut up and go to sleep?"

"By all means," Methos told them, "Get anything you want for the night, it's not a jail cell."

Richelle pulled Richie back to her and whispered something in his ear and he nodded and headed for the stairs.

"What was that?" Methos asked.

"Very simple," she said, "I told him to get the food, and I'll get the toys."

Methos couldn't resist laughing when she told him that. He followed Richie down into the kitchen and it was then that he made a slightly unnerving discovery. At the top in the trash can was an empty bottle for sleeping pills. He remembered that Kronos got them some years ago when he went through a bout of insomnia, and he had an idea what his brother had done with the last few pills tonight. Apparently his brother had seen to it that the twins wouldn't keep anybody up tonight.

The pills seemed to already be taking effect in Richelle; what was supposed to be a couple of minutes spent getting stuff together for the night turned into twenty minutes of going in and out of consciousness standing up and leaning against the wall. The next time that she opened her eyes she found herself looking out of the window and out into the night. The moon was out that night and she could see all the trees and their shadows on everything, and she could see the expanded space in the vicinity since there weren't any other houses in the area. And then, Richelle thought she was seeing things but she quickly realized she had seen a car's headlights and she opened the window and leaned out slightly as she saw a car slowly driving up.

She saw that the car came to a stop about 50 feet from the house, the headlights stayed on but all became quiet. With the light from the moon shining down on it, she was able to get a very good look at the car. Nobody got out of it and she couldn't see who was in it, but she had an idea. She realized that she was starting to fall asleep again and fought to keep her eyes open. The she heard somebody calling her from off in another part of the house and she realized Methos and Richie were looking for her. So she quickly grabbed their things for the night and left the room to join them.

"Is this really necessary?" she asked.

"You won't be locked in," he told her, "But if anything should happen, you'll know ahead of time so you can lock the door in time."

"How're we going to know that?" Richie asked.

"There's an alarm system," Methos explained, "You'll hear it," he pointed to the closet, "In there is a video monitor that shows who's standing outside this door. Now, are there anymore questions?"

They shook their heads.

"Alright, then we'll see you in the morning."

Richelle tiredly nodded as Methos left and closed the door behind him. She and Richie went over to one of the beds and got in and both were already about asleep already, but before that happened, Richelle turned over and shook Richie's shoulder to get his attention.

"What is it?" he asked.

Richelle looked back to the door to make sure they were alone, then she leaned in towards him and said to him, "Richie, Connor's car is outside."

"What?" he asked.

Methos had just joined Kronos downstairs when they both felt another quickening nearby.

"Expecting anyone?" Kronos asked him.

Methos shook his head, "You?"

"I don't know anybody," he replied.

They heard a car drive up and both went to the front door and saw the car pulled up right in front of the house with its headlights on and it about blinded them both.

"This should be interesting," Methos said.

Kronos grabbed his sword and Methos likewise grabbed his coat and the two headed outside to see who had come to pay them a visit.

They stood on the front porch and waited as the headlights went off and they saw the driver get out of the car. The door slammed and they saw the figure come around to the front of the car, and even in the dark both Immortals were able to get a good look at their unexpected visitor. The man appeared to be somewhere in his 30s, had short dark blonde hair and was dressed in a gray trench coat, blue jeans and white sneakers, and he had no sword drawn but it was not clear yet what his business was here.

"Well well well," Methos said, sounding mildly impressed with his presence, "Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod."