Cassandra and the Sisterhood
Hope Triumphant II: SISTER

COMES A HORSEMAN

Methos didn't respond to Alex's unexpected—and presumptuous—suggestion right away. She waited in return, apparently content to remain silent, even in the face of his contemplative stare. Contented silence was an unusual trait, especially for a woman. Perhaps she'd learned it from being the wife of Connor MacLeod.

How long had she been married to him now? Three decades, at least. Methos had met her nearly thirty years ago, in Dawson's Le Blues Bar in Paris, while a woman played a shimmering blue harp on stage and Cassandra shot dagger looks his way. Alex had been reserved and wary, an untouchable beauty in white and gold, a lovely woman in her prime. She'd been friendlier at Duncan's wedding nearly ten years later, and just starting to go gray.

Now she was old. Still attractive, yes, with dark blue eyes over high cheekbones, but old, with white hair and wrinkles, her body frail instead of attractively slender, her bones gone brittle with age, a definite limp in her walk, and the beginnings of a quaver in her voice. She knew it, too. Methos could see that in her eyes. Was that why she wanted Cassandra dead?

The waiter arrived with their salads, offered pepper, ground out a few grains on Alex's and more than a few on Methos's, and disappeared. Methos waited until she'd picked up her fork before he began his investigation. "You told me once that you and Cassandra were best friends."

The fork went back down. "We are."

"Funny way you have of showing it."

"I'm her friend now. I like who she is now. But in a hundred years? Three hundred? A thousand? I don't know who she'll be."

"That's true of every Immortal," he pointed out.

"Yes," she allowed, "but not every Immortal is trying to change the world."

So that's what Cassandra had been doing lately. Par for the course. Many immortals went through idealistic stages now and again; it gave them a sense of purpose, a goal beyond mere survival or the Prize. He'd tried his own hand at changing the world, ages ago.

"And not every Immortal has the Voice," Alex added.

Ah, yes. The Voice. "You're that worried," Methos said, which was hardly a stunningly insightful observation, but it served to encourage Alex to go on.

"Do you know about that prophecy she believed in?" she asked.

"The one about the Solstice Child defeating the Voice of Death? Where MacLeod passes through darkness into light and then saves the world from an Evil One? Yes, I've heard of it."

"She told me once that she would do anything to fulfill it. Anything," Alex emphasized.

Methos waved that away. "That prophecy of hers was fulfilled thirty years ago. It's done. Even she admits that."

"Yes, and it left an enormous emptiness in her life. So she replaced the prophecy with a vision—her vision of what the world should be."

"And you're afraid she'll do anything to make her vision come true."

Alex leaned back from him to stab at the lettuce of her salad. The fork quivered in her hand, its tines shimmering with reflected light, as if she were trembling from cold, though it was warm in the restaurant, too warm really. But perhaps not too warm for her.

Alex gave up on her food and leaned forward again. "When I first met her, Connor told me Cassandra was a manipulative, coldhearted liar. He was right about the lying and the manipulating part, although," Alex added thoughtfully, "I don't think she's ever been coldhearted."

"No," Methos agreed, remembering. Cassandra was a woman of passion, in all its many forms. "She cares." Too much, sometimes.

"The ten years of therapy helped her immensely, but she hasn't changed. Not really."

"Does that surprise you?" he asked dryly. "Ten years isn't much compared to three thousand."

"No," she said, her eyes narrowing at the mention of age. "It doesn't surprise me. How long did it take you to change, Methos?" she asked, and this first use of his name was obviously meant to be a deliberate reminder of his past. "Four hundred years? Five? Or did you ever 'really' change?"

"In essence? No. In behavior, yes. How's Cassandra's behaving these days?" Methos challenged in turn.

As he had intended, that got Alex back on topic. "She doesn't lie anymore, not outright, but she has what she calls a 'pragmatic approach to the truth,' and she still manipulates people."

Methos didn't see anything necessarily wrong with that. It sounded like a sensible approach to life. It certainly wasn't worth killing over. Not even used car salesmen deserved death.

"You're not taking this seriously," she said, but more resigned than indignant.

"Oh, but I am," Methos corrected. "I know exactly how serious what you're suggesting is. Do you?"

"I've seen it," she answered defensively.

"But you haven't lived it. You've never taken a head. You've never felt a Quickening. You've never heard—"

"Their voices?" she suggested when he paused.

"Their screams."

He held her there, pinned under his gaze, until finally she blinked and went back to stabbing at her salad, with her other hand this time. She speared a cucumber slice but didn't eat it. "I have killed," she said softly, not looking up. "I heard his screams. I watched him die. I know what that's like."

Methos was surprised, but only mildly. Living with an Immortal meant living with the probability of violent death. "But did you know him?" Methos asked, and only when Alex met his eyes did he go on. "Had he ever made love to you? Had you ever made love to him? Had you ever touched in the moonlight? Ever woken together in the dark?"

"Yes," she said with grim and defiant pride. "It was Connor. I shot him, and then I watched him die."

Now that was surprising—and amusing. No wonder the MacLeod men didn't mess around on their wives. But Alex still didn't understand. "And then you watched him revive," Methos added. "You knew he would come back."

"Yes," she admitted then offered, "But I did kill a mortal once. I watched him die, too." She stared at the cucumber slice, lying impaled on the fork. "He never came back."

She still didn't get it. Methos leaned forward to ask: "Have you ever stripped the life from someone you loved, and then devoured their soul?"

"No," she said, so soft it was a whisper, and Methos knew she began to understand.

"I have loved Cassandra in the moonlight," Methos told her, "and so has she loved me." Alex started to speak, perhaps to protest, but Methos deliberately cut her off with icy words: "How dare you ask this of us?"

She gazed at him, wordless, then said finally, "I'm sorry. I didn't think…"

"That I cared for her, all those years ago?" he finished for her. "Or that I am capable of caring at all?"

She reached over and laid her hand briefly on his. Her fingertips were cold. "I've never thought that you were cold-hearted, Methos, any more than Cassandra is." Then Alex smiled at him, and for a moment Methos saw again the lovely woman in white and gold from years before. "You care, just like her," Alex said. "I know that. But I also know you can be ruthless, if you have to be."

"Just like her."

Alex nodded. "You're a match for her, Methos, in a way that no one else is. Even if Duncan did believe it was necessary to kill her, he can't resist the Voice, and he could never bring himself to shoot her from a safe distance and then take her head."

"Amanda could."

"Yes," Alex said slowly. "I did consider her. I also considered Grace and Elena and Ceirdwyn and one or two others. But they may not survive through the centuries. I think you will."

Methos didn't thank her for that vote of confidence. "What about Connor?" he asked, and when he saw her eyes flinch, he drove the point home. "What about your husband?"

"He—" She drew a breath before saying, "He is capable of killing her, if he has to."

"So, he's a match for her, too."

"Yes," she admitted. "Different than you, but yes." Alex reached for her tea and sipped at it. China rattled when she replaced the cup on the saucer. "But Cassandra is also a match for him, which is precisely why I, as his wife, cannot ask this of him."

Methos took his time sipping his own drink then said with a show of surprise, "You want her to have him."

"What I want," Alex said fiercely, the first real emotion she'd shown so far, "is to be with my husband. What I want is not to have to grow old and die and leave him alone." Her fierceness faded into resignation, and then a smile appeared, painful in its determined bravery. "But I'm not getting what I want this time. Maybe Connor and Cass will. Maybe they'll make each other happy. I want that chance for my husband—and for my best friend."

Her best friend, indeed. Cassandra was a lucky woman, and Connor was a lucky man. And Alex was a remarkable woman. Methos raised his glass in a salute. "Well done, Mrs. MacLeod. You found your way through the maelstrom of an immortal marriage. When did it come—ten years ago? Fifteen?"

Surprise widened her eyes, then laughter creased them. "You knew it was coming," she said. "Even at Duncan's wedding, you knew." Methos nodded, and Alex murmured, "After sixty-eight marriages, I guess you would."

Sixty-nine now. But he and Marika had been together only a year and a half before she'd been widowed, not nearly enough time for that bitter rage and hate to drag them down. She was probably married again by now; it had been over a decade since he'd died. Yuri and Dani might be married, too; they'd be nineteen and twenty-three. Methos drank a silent toast to Marika and her children before he put down his beer. Then he returned his attention to Alex MacLeod. "So, why do you want Cassandra dead?"

"I don't want her dead," she protested. "I'm concerned it might be necessary, sometime in the future, and I want you to be prepared."

"Hm," he said, a noncommittal noise. "Does Cassandra know you're meeting with me?"

"No."

Alex didn't seem bothered by her secrecy. She should be. "Well, if Cassandra's half as devious and ruthless as you are," Methos told Alex, "I can see why you're concerned." That got a blink, a flinch of more than surprise, and Methos wasn't done with her yet. "Tell me, Alex, do you think she's becoming more like you, or are you becoming more like her?"

For the second time today, he had rendered her speechless. Good. She'd probably be chewing on that unsavory fact for the next few months at least. A chanting of "murderer" rose dimly outside.

Finally, Alex managed a rueful smile. "I'd have to say I'm becoming more like her," she admitted then added with wicked humor, "Cassandra has so much more experience than I do."

"No doubt there," Methos murmured and reached for his beer.

"But I could never be half, or even a tenth, as dangerous as she could be," Alex said, back to trying to convince him.

Not only was she ruthless and secretive, Methos reflected, she was stubborn, too. Just like Cassandra. He could almost feel sorry for Connor MacLeod.

"She has the Voice," Alex said, harping on that. "She can use it to influence people. She's immortal; she can carry out long-range plans, while—"

"Ah, but 'the best-laid schemes of mice and men / gang aft agley,'" Methos put in. He took a long overdue swallow of beer.

Alex waited for him to put the drink down before she spoke. "You're not taking this seriously," she said, and she was serious enough for two. "You don't think she's dangerous enough to worry about."

He shrugged. "One person can't change the world, Alex."

"You're probably right," Alex agreed. "But she is not alone."

When the check arrived, Methos didn't make even a token protest when Alex reached for her purse. She'd invited him, after all, and it wasn't as if she couldn't afford it. He did look twice when she paid; first because she pulled out paper money (almost nobody in the U.S. used cash anymore, and the government liked it that way), and second because she laid out five one-hundred-dollar bills, and she didn't get any change. Four ration coupons also disappeared.

Alex saw him watching. "Inflation was bad here after the bomb, and private security isn't cheap," she explained with a nod to the guards outside the front door. Of course, public security wasn't cheap, either, which was why state and local governments didn't provide much of it anymore. The federal government didn't even bother to try. "And there's a luxury tax on meat," she said.

"Vegan-atic lobbyists?"

"Phinyx," came the succinct reply. Her purse clicked shut with a snap. When Alex started to rise, Methos immediately stood to help her move the heavy chair. He held her coat for her, too. The smile she gave him in return held neither gratitude nor surprise; it was a smile of grim knowledge, shared. "Duncan told me you'd been a doctor," she said.

"Several times." He offered her his arm for support. She looked at it, her lips tightening with distaste. They both knew his offer was neither flirtatious nor gallant, as it might have been in days past, but a precaution that would, all too soon, become a necessity.

Then she looked at him, her timeworn face a ruin of loveliness, even as the tumbled pillars of the Parthenon were the ruin of a temple—ruins that gave tantalizing glimpses of a glory that had once existed, and so were more achingly beautiful than the pristine version could ever be. "Do you stay with your wives?" Alex asked, yet another impertinent question, but Methos knew why she needed to know. "Till the end? Or do you leave before the 'maelstrom' comes?"

"Often" (too often) "that decision never needed to be made," Methos said. "Not many marriages lasted that long. In twenty years, one of us was likely to die."

"But some marriages lasted."

"Some did," he quietly agreed, and suddenly Sorcha's aged and smiling face was before him, startling in its clarity, from the mole under her left eye and the tiny bump on her nose to the wisps of white hair straying from under her wimple. So she had looked the day she had died, cradled in his arms. "At first, I stayed till the end," Methos told Alex. "Though some of them left me. Others stayed, but cursed me as they died. Once that had happened a few times, I started leaving after fifteen or twenty years."

"Before the maelstrom drowned the love in the hate," Alex said, not needing that explained. "Before the bad memories poisoned all the good."

He nodded. "'Cut clean' isn't only for swords. But sometimes," Methos said, smiling now, "with certain, special women, I stayed, and she stayed, and all the memories are good." Alex smiled then, the beautiful smile of a beautiful woman, a certain, special woman. He offered her his arm again, and this time she took it.

At her car, parked behind the restaurant, her driver opened the door then stood a discreet distance away and stared at the restaurant's brick wall. Alex stepped closer to Methos and kissed him on the cheek. "Goodbye, Methos," she said softly. "I'm glad to have known you."

"And I you." He kissed her on the cheek before he helped her into the car. "Goodbye, Alex," he said and then he shut the door. He stood, watching from the grimy back lot of the restaurant, until the car turned the corner and she was gone.

Methos started to walk. He hadn't been to New York City since before the DC bomb, since before the mandatory ID bracelets and the ubiquitous surveillance cameras and the CZs, zones cordoned off with a lot more than just cords. The walls around the former UN building were at least ten meters high, and wide enough for the machine-gun-toting guards to walk side by side. Methos crossed First Avenue and headed west toward the center of town, walking briskly, block after block. It was good to walk again. Good to feel the air on his face and the sun on his back. Good to be alive.

That had been about the first thing Emory had said to him, when he'd visited her at her home in Canada five months ago.

19 July 2026
Kentville, Nova Scotia

"Ohmigod!" Emory breathed in surprise as she opened her door. "You're not dead!" She grinned with heart-warming delight and nearly knocked him over with her hug. "Adam, I'm so glad! How are you? It's so good to see you! Where have you been?" Still talking, she tugged at his arm and pulled him into her house, out of the fine summer rain. "What have you been doing? Does Duncan know you're back? Have you seen him?"

"Yes, he knows, but no, I haven't seen him," Methos answered. "I called him a few days ago. He told me where you were—and what happened." At those words, Emory's happiness faded and she let go of his arm. "I came to see you straightaway," Methos put in hastily, but it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.

"Where were you?" she asked in quiet bewilderment. "And where have you been?" The volume increased. "Do you have any idea how worried I've been?" Now she was guarding further entrance into her home with crossed arms and crosser words, keeping Methos standing just inside the door. "Do you know what the hell I've been thinking ever since you didn't come for Joe's funeral?"

"I'm sorry," Methos said, and he meant it. "I was … delayed."

"Delayed," she repeated, grinding the word between her teeth. "Delayed? I've been putting my life back together and wondering whether Joe's funeral should have doubled with yours, and you've been … what? Stuck on the top of a pinnacle of black rock for twelve years? Did an eagle just rescue you?" She was glaring at him by this point, her hurt covered with a protective layer of rage.

"No," Methos answered, knowing better than to chance even a hint of a smile. "More like somebody brought down the mountain. I've been buried."

"Buried?" Another repeated word, but this one wasn't masticated to death. Her eyebrows drew together, and parallel lines of puzzlement appeared on her forehead. "Underground?"

"Under snow," he corrected. Tons of it. Great, crushing, freezing, suffocating bloody tons of it. And rocks. Don't forget the rocks. Tons of great, black, bloody rocks. "It was an avalanche."

The lines deepened. "Were you dead?"

"Mostly." Not often enough. Methos couldn't quite repress the shudder that rippled over him from head to toe. He was still sleeping on top of the bedclothes, so that his arms and legs could be free, so that he could move.

Emory winced. "Oh, Adam," she said, reaching out with open arms to hug him again.

"It's all right," Methos said. He leaned into her embrace and hugged her tightly in return, wishing he could make everything all right for her, too. "I've survived worse. And will again, I hope."

Emory groaned and thumped his shoulder with her fist as she drew back just a bit. "You're unbelievable," she said, sniffling loudly. "Here you've been gone ... Trapped under ice like that—that guy, that Iceman they found in the '90s ..."

"Oetzi," Methos supplied the name. "Of course, he was buried for over five thousand years. Thanks to global warming, I got out in ten. I've sometimes wondered," he added conversationally, "if Oetzi and I knew each other, back when we were kids. He is about my age, you know."

That got Emory thinking in a whole new direction. "You grew up in the Alps?" Then she wised up to what he had just done. She scowled at him, just like old times, and growled, "You," in disgust—disgust with herself, not with him. "You really are unbelievable," she said and thumped him once again. The scowl disappeared, and her eyebrows went back to their normal position. The lines didn't disappear. The gray hair was permanent, too. Emory was fifty now; Joe's seventy-eighth birthday would have been last May.

Damn that avalanche, Methos thought, and not for the first time. Spending a decade as a human popsicle had not been on his list of things to try. He'd had plans, commitments, a family waiting for him ... people dying on him. Damn it all to hell.

He shoved all that irritation aside as Emory buried her face against his shoulder. Her cheek was damp, but not from the raindrops still clinging to his sweater. "I've missed you, Adam," she said, her voice sounding choked and small. "I really, really missed you a lot."

"I'm sorry," Methos said again, holding her tight and closing his eyes. He had to clear his throat before he could get out the words. "I came as soon as I knew."

But he hadn't been soon enough.

"It was you?" Methos said to Evann in disbelief a week later in Maine, the first morning of his visit to her. She had chosen right after breakfast as the time to break the news. "You blew up Watcher HQ?"

Evann nodded, her only movement. She'd gone still, watching him. Her husband, Sean, was sitting next to her, a cup of coffee by his hand.

Methos shoved his chair away from the kitchen table and looked back and forth between the two of them, trying to decide how he felt. The disbelief was fast wearing away, and a dull, inescapable pain was settling in, just below the ribs. Rage was there, too. A sheer, unblinking desire to kill. But no grief. He'd mourned for Joe with Emory all last week. They'd remembered the good times (lots of those) and groused about bad habits (a few). Methos had said goodbye and toasted his friend farewell. He'd been prepared to move on. But now …

Methos shook his head, keeping his movements and his face and voice controlled. "When Emory told me about the attack, I came up with a list of Immortals who could have done it. The list included you," he said to Evann. "But then I thought, 'She wouldn't have done it,' so I took your name off."

"It was necessary." That was Sean talking now, a man defending his wife.

"Really."

"They were incredibly sloppy," Evann said. "They were going to get caught."

"And when they get caught, we get caught," Sean chimed in.

Methos didn't challenge him on the "we" part of that. In a witch hunt, entire families could go—had gone—into the flames. Or beneath the sword. Or under the river. Or in any number of exceedingly unpleasant ways. Considering how much Emory knew, she was lucky to have survived.

No. Not lucky. Deliberately spared. Evann had been on a military mission against the Watchers, not a witch hunt. The raid had been a precise operation, not a bloodbath. Methos took a slow and calming breath. "That's why you killed them," he said to her.

"Yes."

And that was it. No excuses, no justifications, no more explanations. She'd had reason, and that was enough. Killing was what Immortals did, after all. They'd both had enough practice at it. And yes, the Watchers had been sloppy. He'd noticed that himself. But wiping the place off the map and destroying the original Chronicles … damn. Methos ran a hand through his hair, wondering just how Evann had arrived at that decision and then acted on it, because it wasn't like her to act completely on her own. She was used to being part of a team. "Did you know about this before?" Methos asked Sean. "Or after?"

"Before," Sean said, sounding affronted, as if to say: What kind of marriage do you think we have? But Methos knew that Immortality and marriage didn't mix well, and just as a soldier might never speak of war to his wife, it wasn't unusual for an Immortal to keep the bloodier aspects "quiet."

"Did you help with the attack?" Methos asked next, his civility knife-edged. "Or just with the planning?"

Evann answered for him, a woman defending her husband. "Sean doesn't have the training for that kind of mission. Planning or attack."

"But he approved it."

"I'm not the United Nations Security Council," Sean said, sounding a bit sharp himself. "I didn't approve it. I accepted it."

"But first he changed it," Evann said, still defending. "I was considering a bigger show, the better to scare them, but Sean insisted the loss of life be minimal." They exchanged quick, unhappy smiles. Sean was as quietly tense as Evann, and even though her decision had caused trouble between them, and probably still did, he touched her arm where it rested on the table, then they held hands.

Quite a show there, Methos thought bitterly, thinking of Emory's many nights alone, thinking of Haylie and Ian growing up without a father. Then he forced himself to take another calming breath. He was not going to lose his temper.

Evann had her own sharply pointed question: "Who do you ask for permission before you kill, Methos?"

"No one," he retorted. "As you know." Who to kill was a decision each Immortal had to make alone, and had to live with—alone. "But I'm not talking about asking for permission," Methos said. "I'm talking about exploring options." Even though Sean had convinced Evann to lower the body count, he was still a cop, an American cop. "Kill them before they get a chance to kill us" was a standard response for cops and soldiers (and Immortals), and that attitude had gotten ten times worse in the U.S. after the D.C. bomb. Who else could she have gone to? Grayson was dead. (Not that he would have had compunctions about blowing up a building, no matter how many people were in it.) Fitzcairn was dead. "Did you talk with Alex Raven?" Methos asked. "Brennan? Connor MacLeod?" Each name got a shake of the head, and each shake loosened his control. "Damn it, Evann, you should have—"

"Should have what?" she demanded. "How would you have shut them up, Methos? How would you have kept us safe?"

"Oh, now you ask me? Now?" He slammed his hands on the table, standing up and leaning over her to yell, "Why the bloody hell bother to ask me now?"

"I wanted to talk to you before," she said, almost plaintively, her soft interruption taking all the fire from his words. "But I couldn't find you, and then we ran out of time."

"Damn it, Ev!" Methos said again, but quieter now, for the anger had abruptly drained away, leaving only the pain behind. That was going to be with him for a while. He sighed and sank back into his chair. They'd been down this road before. "You know why I wasn't around."

"Snow," Sean said. "I've heard worse reasons."

"Like Sherrise," Evann said, offering Methos a crooked grin. "Margaret. Julia. Anteia."

Methos wasn't about to let Evann change that subject that easily. "Evann, Joe Dawson was my friend."

"I know," she said, even more quietly. "And I'm sorry about Dawson. That was a mistake. I'm sorry," she repeated, and he knew she meant it.

Outside the kitchen window, a single golden leaf fluttered to the ground. Autumn would arrive in a few months, and then the winter snows. "It's not the first time you and I have killed each other's friends, is it?" Methos said finally.

"No."

The unspoken words lay heavy between them: And it probably wouldn't be the last. Her enemies weren't always his enemies; his friends weren't always hers. It was always so, with everyone. The ties that bind, the ties that cut both ways …

He left them sitting at the kitchen table and went for a very long walk, watching the waves curl onto the shore. When Methos returned, Sean had already left for work at the sheriff's station. Evann was waiting on the front porch, sitting on the stairs, her chin on her knees. Methos leaned his backside against the railing and stared at the blue sky. After five minutes of silence, she spoke. "The Chronicles aren't all gone. I saved a copy for you."

The Watchers had saved a copy, too. Three copies, to be precise. Emory had told him that Joe's final efforts to build those last three schools had proved worthwhile. The Watchers were rebuilding, and someday, they would return. And, by then, not one of them would remember who he was. His reply of "Thanks" sounded almost cheerful.

"They're in Zurich. I'll give you the access codes before you go."

He nodded. She fell silent again. Another golden leaf fluttered down, then another, and then a third. Something was wrong with that tree; it was too early for leaf drop. "Who else did you talk to, Evann?" Methos asked, turning to her. She was still staring at the ground. "Who made the operation a 'go'?"

Her shoulders moved up, then down, a silent sigh. "The one who started it all." She tilted her head to look up at him, squinting a little from the sunshine, and explained, "There'd been several recent incidents of Watchers getting caught by governments. Any one of them could have told everything, and then both Immortals and Watchers would have been exposed. A senior Watcher came to me—"

"Came to you?" Methos interrupted.

"Came to me. He'd read my chronicles and decided to offer me the job."

No wonder some recruiters were called headhunters.

"He said they needed to be shut down, before everyone got caught," Evann said. "He said he'd been trying to stop them, but the others wouldn't listen. He told me what needed to be done."

"In his opinion."

Her shoulders moved up and down again, a shrug this time. "Who would know better?"

And there was the link he'd been looking for. If even a Watcher sees no choice but to destroy his own…

"Except he wanted it bloodier," Evann said. "Sean said no, and I agreed. Minimal damage. Cut clean."

And cut clean wasn't only for swords. Methos knew better than to ask Evann for the traitor's name. "Is he still alive?"

She shook her head. "He died in the raid, with his men."

Suicide, by any other name. Horton and Dawson would have to give up their shared prize for "Most Interference by a Watcher in the Last One Hundred Years" and hand it over to this guy, whoever he was. "And Dawson?" Methos asked, as much for himself as for Emory. "Did he die with his men?"

Evann looked away, staring into the distance, maybe at the trees, maybe at nothing. "I don't know. My men didn't see him; I never saw him. I didn't know he was in the building. He wasn't supposed to be in the building. My contact told me he would clear it of civilian personnel, that only security forces would be there." She stood, running her hands down the sides of her jeans, as if to rub them clean, then looked him in the eyes before saying, "I'm sorry," once again. He nodded, accepting her apology this time, and she nodded back before she turned and walked away, up the driveway and down the road, heading for the ocean and the waves, just as he had done a few hours before.

Methos closed his eyes as weariness mingled with the dull pain. He couldn't summon much enthusiasm for arguing over a decision that had been made and acted upon twelve years before, a decision he might have been able to change, if he had been around. And Evann wasn't going to argue; he knew the signs. She'd just sit there and nod as Methos talked, and look more and more glum. She'd made the decision to kill, and she had killed, and she'd be living with it for the rest of her life—alone.

As did they all. And what was the point of talking now, really? People made decisions and things happened. Mistakes happened. All the words in the world couldn't bring back Silas or Richie Ryan. Kronos was gone. Byron, too. The dead were dead were dead.

And nothing could bring back the sounds of Joe's guitar.

Methos left the next day, much sooner than he had planned, then traded summer for winter; New Zealand was half-way around the world. MacLeod met him at the airport—alone. "Are we not to have the pleasure of your wife's company?" Methos asked, shouldering his bag.

"Susan's busy right now, and she thought you and I would have more fun without her," MacLeod answered smoothly, and while that sounded perfectly plausible, something was wrong.

"How's married life?" Methos asked, keeping his words cheerful and his tone bland.

MacLeod hesitated just for an instant before saying, "Fine," just as cheerful and just as bland, but that instant was enough. Methos knew a lie when he heard one. Susan had not wanted to come. She did not want to see yet another Immortal. The maelstrom had arrived at the home of the younger MacLeod, right on time.

Before they got in the car, MacLeod spoke to him across the top of the roof. "You sure you want to go skiing?"

"You'll dig me out if I get buried, right?"

MacLeod's smile was still dazzling, white teeth and dark eyes lit by an inner glow. "Right."

Methos shrugged. "Got to get back on the horse sometime."

The smile dimmed slightly before MacLeod recovered, smiled again, said, "Right," and then got in the car.

Not *that* horse, MacLeod, Methos thought. He drummed his fingers twice on the car roof, then breathed out slowly, shook his head once, and got in the car.

They'd been driving a good twenty minutes before MacLeod said carefully, "I've been talking to Connor lately, about married life …"

"Good," Methos said firmly, relieved beyond measure that he wouldn't have to step into this particular can of worms. "I'm sure he has a lot of good advice for you." That got him a sidelong glance.

"Yes," MacLeod said thoughtfully. "He does."

"Good," Methos said again, then yawned ostentatiously and closed his eyes with the murmured excuse of "Jetlag. Does it every time." MacLeod drove on.

At the ski resort they kept busy: skiing, drinking, talking. Talking about Joe Dawson, and trying to sing some of his songs, and then getting drunk and talking and singing some more. They talked about Richie and got even drunker, then gave up on skiing the next day in favor of nursing their hangovers. They talked about the color of rainbows, the history of the violin, and the taste of rain.

They had a great time, with nary a whisper of an avalanche all week. The suffocating nightmares were slowly fading away. But MacLeod had a twentieth anniversary to celebrate with his wife, and Methos had a long-overdue date with Amanda, and so in the middle of August he and MacLeod said goodbye.

Six weeks later, there came word that Evann's husband had been shot and killed. Methos said farewell to Amanda in Ireland and headed back to Maine, because come hell or high water or avalanches of snow, he was going to be there for Evann this time.

Mrs. Alex MacLeod had been at the funeral, and she had been insistent on seeing Methos soon. So, after Evann had left for Texas with McCormick, Methos had gone to New York City, whereupon Alex had informed him that he might someday find it prudent to take Cassandra's head.

And now here he was, standing at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street on a bright autumn afternoon, with no particular place to go.

The lions still sat in arrogant splendor in front of the New York Library. Methos wouldn't call it a public library anymore. Not when you had to provide proof of citizenship or a signed and stamped permit to get in the door and then pay for every minute of your research time. Personal credit cards were accepted, although corporate, educational, or governmental sponsors were preferred. And no matter who paid, every article you researched, every book you requested, and every question you asked was noted down by the librarians for the all-encompassing records of the HSA. He'd heard a rumor that the board of the American Library Association had all been hauled away to jail, the night before the ALA had been officially dissolved and banned, charged with obstructing justice and contributing to seditious activities. A lot of the old librarians had gone to jail. A lot of the libraries had been closed. Eventually, the libraries had reopened with new people behind the desks. But these librarians never had to say "Shh!" These days people knew to keep quiet when a librarian was near.

Methos patted the lion Patience on its cold stone nose and then gave Fortitude a goodbye pat as well. Good names, those. Good names to remember and hold dear.

Although, Methos thought as he walked toward Central Park, the people of the city weren't fundamentally different from days gone by. Snatches of music still blared now and again from the throngs on the sidewalks, and advertisements still glared from every available surface. The sidewalks were completely covered with them now, with the new "miracle" paint that stayed bright even under the scuffles of millions of passing feet. Until the contract expired and the paint somehow disappeared. Fleets of taxis and buses rumbled by, along with the occasional private car. And there were still people who managed to be both louder than the music and more colorful than the ads. A green-haired teen in orange and yellow was warbling out the romantic hit "Stars of gold on a band of blue!" even as he danced to the thumping beat of "Yo You, Hey Yo."

Methos found himself whistling. It really was a beautiful day. He found a patch of sunshine and relaxed on a bench not far from the zoo. After about ten minutes, an old man in a dark brown coat nodded to him politely, but glanced at Methos's green ID bracelet before he sat down. Together they watched the world go by—a stout woman with a Dalmatian on a leash, a trio of long-legged runners in pink sweat suits, a couple hand in hand.

"Fine weather for November," the old man commented.

"Indeed it is," Methos agreed, dropping the British accent he had used with Alex and opting for a Canadian one instead. It matched his current passport and his papers, and one never knew. The old man could be with the HSA. "The sunshine feels good."

"Good on old bones," the old man said and added a cackle of a laugh. "But you wouldn't know about that."

Methos let that comment go by. A sparrow hopped along the path. The man pulled out a bag of crumbs from his coat pocket and tossed a few morsels on the ground. The bird began to eat. Another bird flew down.

"Well, look there," the man said softly, and Methos turned his head to see. A pregnant woman was coming toward them. The old man stood as she drew nearer, and after he looked down at Methos, Methos stood, too. "Afternoon, ma'am," the old man said, and she smiled at them both, proud of her figure and pleased with herself, and went by. The old man sighed before he sat down, then watched her till she disappeared. "Me and the wife had four children," he said. "We probably would have had more-my mother had eight and hers had seven-except the pill was around by then, and she said four was enough. And it was. Tiffany and John-they're our oldest kids-didn't want more than two apiece of their own, and that seemed fine at first, four grandkids, 'cause we always thought there'd be more, but Tim and Bethany both got radiation sickness so ..." He tossed another handful of crumbs.

"They were near D.C.?"

"No, they got dusted in the Gulf Wars. Tim was in the first one, Bethany was in the second. Some people say the uranium dust came from our own weapons, from U.S. weapons, but I don't believe it. The government wouldn't do that, not to its own people." He peered at Methos. "Would they?"

"Of course not," Methos said instantly.

The old man nodded, seemingly reassured, then sighed again. "You don't see pregnant woman much these days."

"No," Methos agreed, not at all averse to dropping a topic of conversation that bordered on treasonous. "You don't." He hadn't seen a child today, either. Not a one. It was Tuesday, and it was early in the afternoon. Most of them would be in school. The rest … well, the rest weren't around. The sterility plague had arrived in the States six years ago, and children under two were rare.

The old man had gone back to feeding the birds. Methos pulled his coat more closely around him, suddenly chilled. The patch of sunshine had moved, and he was in the shadow now. The old man was in the sun. Methos was almost ready to leave when the man said abruptly, his head down, "They eat them, you know."

"What?"

"The women. They eat the unborn." He looked up, and his eyes were unfocused and glazed. "In their wombs, like rabbits do. That's where the babies go." His voice shifted to a mechanical, robot style, like something from a bad sci-fi show. "They—are—absorbed." Another cackle came; another handful of crumbs was tossed to the birds.

Methos stood and left the old man sitting in the patch of sunshine, feeding the birds and talking of babies forever unborn.

It was nearly dark when the young woman invited Methos to come home with her. "You really should be inside soon," she said with concern. "The curfew cops don't ask first, and with that—" Pilar looked down at his green wristband then quickly looked away, as if it were somehow obscene. Her wristband was white with thin blue and red stripes (a native-born citizen, no matter that all four grandparents had crossed the Rio Grande without permission forty years ago) and encircled with gold stars.

"Stars are for those who serve," Evann had explained back in July, when Methos had first entered the U.S. after his sojourn in the snow. "Not just military, police, and firefighters, but for nurses, teachers, paramedics—anyone who helps the community. Blue-bands still get priority, since their jobs are dangerous, but star-bands are next in line."

"Next in line for what?"

"Groceries, movies, housing, whatever. People let blue-bands and star-bands go first." She'd grinned. "They even buy us drinks sometimes. Sean says it almost makes up for the lousy pay, though that's been getting better, too, lately."

"That was Phinyx," Alex had said at lunch earlier today. "Blue-bands have had priority since the bracelets went on, but our lobbyists worked hard to add the stars for all community workers, and to get them better pay. Americans respect money most of all."

And so now—perhaps—Americans might respect their community builders a little more. Community builders such as this charming, young nurse with the dark brown eyes and the long black hair. She and Methos had bumped into each other (literally) an hour ago at the new Rafael Cauduro exhibit in the art museum, and they'd been talking ever since.

"The museum is about to close," Pilar said. Over her left shoulder, Methos could see a bas-relief of pairs of skulls, rising in columns two-by-two, an even dozen in all, creamy white bone against glass of foam green. Over her right shoulder was a painting of a woman, framed by a cracked stone doorway, head lifted and on all fours, eyes aglow. A newborn child lay between her hands. Tzompantli and Natividad. A wall of skulls and a portal of birth. Death and life. Light and dark. "It'll be dark soon," she said.

"Yes," Methos agreed. He did have a room reserved in a nearby hotel (he knew about the curfew laws), but going home with Pilar sounded much more interesting than being alone. She'd mentioned several sisters and brothers, too. "Your parents won't mind?"

"Oh, I don't live with my parents. I'm in a com-home." At his puzzled look, she explained, "A community home. It's like a dormitory, except we're not college students; we all have jobs. Or maybe it's more like a fraternity house, since we have a kitchen and common space downstairs. It's co-ed, about fifty of us, but there are guest rooms. You'd have a place of your own for the night," she said but then looked at him through lowered eyelashes, the age-old flirtatious glance of a woman who was suggesting that a place for him might—possibly, if all went well—be found with her. "There's always plenty to eat," she said next, adding the enticement of food to the lure of sex. "Cintia's cooking tonight, and she does great empanadas."

Yes, much more interesting. "I love empanadas," Methos answered. "Thank you for inviting me." She flashed a smile that turned her ordinary prettiness into sudden beauty then started for the door, walking quickly enough so that Methos had to stretch his legs to keep up, and he was a head taller than she was.

Two bus transfers, a subway ride, and a ten-minute walk later, they arrived at a five-story building of gray stone. Water tanks stood like fat soldiers on each corner of the roof, guarding the rows of solar energy panels that glistened gray in the dim light. Methos stopped at the foot of the stairs. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to the edge of the first stair's riser. The engraved numerals 2017 were barely visible underneath the white paint. After the date was a simple drawing: a circle bisected by a long vertical line.

Pilar came back down the stairs to see. "Oh," she said in surprise. "I don't know; I never noticed that before. But 2017 is the year the building was converted from apartments to a com-home; we're planning a ten-year anniversary celebration for March. It must be a cornerstone."

"Must be," Methos agreed. A cornerstone, engraved with the Greek letter phi. "That's the Phinyx symbol," Alex had told him, tracing it with her finger on the tablecloth at lunch today. "You might see it as the Earth on its axis, or a caduceus surrounded by a wreath, or a wand against the full moon. Different companies use different forms."

"An arrow in front of a sun?"

"Yes. I think that's Pathways, one of the mental health divisions."

Emory worked for Pathways; Methos had seen that symbol on her professional stationary. Yet he was sure she had no idea who ultimately controlled the company that employed her. Very few people did. She liked her job, she liked her co-workers, the pay and the benefits were good ... Why look further than that?

"The basic shape—a line through a circle—remains the same," Alex had said. "That's one way we recognize each other."

"We," Methos had repeated.

"Yes," Alex had replied evenly. "We. I helped start Phinyx; it was my idea. What we're doing now, I have no quarrel with. Where Cassandra might take it … I don't know."

And she was not alone.

"Come on," Pilar said, touching him on the arm. "Let's go in. It's cold."

It was cold. Methos followed Pilar up the stairs. The lobby was warm, brightly lit, and smelled of baking bread. Methos took a deep and appreciative breath. Bicycles hung from the ceiling; the front wheel of a red one near the stairs was spinning slowly, giving off flickers of reflected light as it twirled. "You can leave your coat here," Pilar said. She'd already taken hers off and was hanging it on one of the many hooks that lined the wall. Nearly half the hooks were taken, mostly women's coats and capes, a flower garden of bright colors. Pairs of shoes stood in neat rows underneath.

"Thanks," Methos said. "But my wallet and keys and passport are in it." And his sword. "I'd rather..."

"Oh, of course," she said. "Let me show you the guest room. You can leave your coat there and lock the door."

And how many people here could unlock that door? "I'll just keep my coat with me for now." He smiled at her and asked, "Show me around? I've never been in a com-home before."

"Sure!" She turned to the right and went through a set of double doors. The space was more of a hall than a room, long and narrow and with a high ceiling. A dozen round tables and some sixty or so chairs took up most of the floor. From the kitchen at the far end came loud voices and laughter, and the clang and clatter of dishes and pans.

"Who does the decorating?" Methos asked, for the ceiling was blue with white clouds, and the walls were covered with paintings of flowers and trees. Real plants lined the window sills. Another garden, a pleasant retreat from man-made canyons of brick and stone.

"Tom and Briseis do the drawing—they're artists—but a lot of us help with the painting. We change it every so often. Last year this place looked like a jungle. I never liked to eat in that corner," Pilar said, pointing to the left. "There was a jaguar waiting to pounce from a tree. The rooms still have kitchens, and some people like to cook their own meals, but I usually eat here. Most of us do. It's more fun than eating alone, and it saves a lot of time and hassle. No cooking when I get home from work, no standing in line for food. I just hand over my ration coupons at the beginning of the month then show up here for meals."

"Do you pay to eat here?"

"You can. I work off most of my bill by washing dishes and helping to cook on my days off from the hospital. We have a full-time cook who coordinates the meals and does the buying; he's married to Anita, who coordinates the other work around here. They're an older couple, kind of like our house mom and dad." Pilar grinned. "Except they don't nag us to clean up our rooms."

"The best of all possible worlds," Methos said gravely. As they headed back across the lobby he asked, "So the com-house isn't just for singles?"

"Except for Jorge and Anita, I think it started out that way. But there've been eight weddings just in the three years I've been here, and six of those couples have stayed." She gave him another look from under lowered lashes, and the hint of a smile. "And, of course, there are a lot of couples who aren't married."

He smiled back, and they stood admiring each other until she remembered her role as tour guide. "Here's the laundry room," she said, taking him down to the basement. It was like all other laundry rooms, except that the artists-in-residence had chosen an ocean theme; the walls were covered with sharks and other denizens of the deep. Three women were folding clothes at a table, while an octopus on the ceiling stretched tentacles toward their heads. Upstairs in the living room, eight women were watching the news on TV; two men were playing cards. That room was decorated with a woodland forest motif. Tiny birds fluttered among the trees, and a fawn peeped out from the leaves.

"The kids must love this," Methos commented.

"They would," she said quietly. "But we only have three." She shut the door. "When I was growing up, I always wanted to be a midwife," she said as they went down the hall to the back of the building. "But by the time I started school…" Pilar shrugged helplessly. "Not much work there now."

"What is your specialty?" Methos asked

"Oncology."

Cancer patients. Survival rates for some forms of cancer were better than they had been, but still not good. Quite a career change for her, from birth to death, from newborn babes to walls of skulls.

"This is the reading room," she said, opening yet another door. They peered into a room that was (thankfully) painted a restful beige, with only a few trompe l'oiel columns between the windows. A painted mouse scurried above one of the bookshelves. Four women and two men were immersed in their studies at the center table. "Medical students," Pilar whispered. "They're always here." Methos nodded in sympathy. In an armchair in the corner someone was reading a newspaper, but man or woman Methos couldn't tell; the face was hidden behind the paper shield, and the brown trousers and sturdy hiking boots gave no clue.

After Pilar shut the door, Methos asked, "You said this was co-ed. Are there a lot more women than men?"

"Oh, no. But most of the men are paramedics or firefighters—their engine house is right down the street—and they're out on a call right now. See?" She turned around and pointed to a glowing red light mounted on the wall near the front door. "It'll turn yellow when they're coming back. That gives us time to get ready to welcome them home."

"A parade for the returning heroes?"

"They deserve one," she said with utter seriousness. "They've been out saving lives. But they only get a parade once a year, on Patriot Day. When they get home, we bring them their food or something to drink, and sometimes the physical therapists give them massages. I'm not trained in PT, but I've been learning, and the boys don't mind when I practice on them." Another look, another hint of a smile.

"I wouldn't mind, either," Methos said, playing the game. "But I should do something for you," he suggested. "You save lives, too."

"Oh, but I don't risk mine," she said. "That's why blue-bands get the parades."

Stars of gold on a band of blue. Everyone's hero and the man of your dreams. Of course.

"But we all take care of each other here," Pilar said. "When we finish long shifts at the health center, the boys bring us food. And George does an amazing foot rub," she said, looking suddenly dreamy-eyed.

"So do I," Methos told her. He was rewarded with another beautiful smile.

A bell rang, too loud. Footsteps sounded in the halls and on the stairs. "Dinner!" Pilar announced. "Let's go eat! I'm starved." She took him by the hand, and they went together into the hall.

The empanadas were great, as she had promised, and the room was lively with chatter. When they were nearly done with their meal, a woman with curly, black hair and a short blonde with bold and hungry eyes approached their table. "Adam, this is Mary Calhoun," Pilar said, indicating the dark-haired woman. "And this is Susan Yoiwaiski." That was the blonde. "They work at the health center. Mary's a gynecologist, and Susan's a nurse in the emergency room."

Methos half-stood and half-bowed. "Pleased to meet you, ladies. I'm Adam Galt."

"Call me Sue," the blonde said, sitting down directly across from him. Mary took the chair on Methos's left side. "Found another stray, Pilar?" Sue asked, stirring sugar into her tea.

"Pilar's very friendly," Mary confided, leaning closer to Methos. "She's always bringing people home."

"And dogs." That was Sue.

"I like dogs," Methos said mildly. Under the table, Pilar squeezed his hand.

"Where are you from, Adam?" Sue asked.

"He's Canadian," Pilar replied for him, and the other two women examined him more closely this time.

Sue was still curious. "Who's your sponsor?"

"My sister is a citizen. She sponsored my visit."

"No, what I meant was: Who do you work for? What company?"

"I'm self-employed."

That got total silence, then Mary said simply, "Oh." Her eyebrows drew together in concern. "How do you... I mean, what do you do about health care or retirement? And food rations and fuel allowance and-"

"He's Canadian," Sue broke in. "They don't have the same work ethic Americans do. You see," she explained, as if he were a dim-witted four-year-old, "here we believe that if 'You don't work, you don't eat.'"

"A worthwhile sentiment," Methos said. "There, we believe that all our citizens work to help our country, so everyone is entitled to food and medical care and a decent place to live." He smiled sunnily at them both, then zeroed in on Sue. "Where are you from, Sue? Alabama?"

"Georgia." Her boldness became suspicion. "You're good with American accents, for a Canadian."

"I watch a lot of American TV."

"Hunh. What else do you do?"

"He writes books," Pilar said, apparently determined to protect him from the intruder. Or maybe she was defending her territory. "That's why he came to New York."

"I'm doing research," he added, and that was true. He was always gathering information.

"On what?" Sue wanted to know.

"The sterility plague." He hadn't been, but he was curious to see what a gynecologist had to say about it. Also, turning the topic to Mary's field of expertise should give Sue a good reason to shut up.

"Oh, God," Mary said in mingled disgust and despair.

"Not much progress?" Methos asked sympathetically.

"Oh, we know how it happens; we figured that out years ago. Women get pregnant, but they're not carrying the babies for nine months. Most of them abort in the first nine days. That in itself isn't uncommon. Do you know what percentage of pregnancies never makes it past the first two weeks? Before the plague, I mean."

Methos did know, but it was obviously a question that Mary wanted to answer herself. "Five?" he guessed.

"Fifty," she announced with grim satisfaction, and Methos pretended to be suitably amazed. "Now it's more like ninety-five," she said. "The serum progesterone concentration drops, and the embryo never has a chance. A lot of the blastocysts never even implant. We know how the pregnancies end, but we don't know why."

"Bad sperm?" Methos suggested. "Or bad eggs?"

"Both," Mary said. "Another problem is that sperm count has dropped by one hundred million or so over the last seventy-five years; most men are just at the threshold of infertility now. But when we check the fertilized eggs that have been spontaneously aborted, over half of them are completely fine. There's no reason for the body to reject them."

Their conversation had attracted an audience. "Toxic environment?" suggested a man in a green shirt at the next table. More people came over, some standing around, some pulling up chairs. Methos settled back in his chair and prepared to enjoy himself. He hadn't heard a good group discussion in years. Of course, he hadn't heard much of anything in years. It was quiet under snow.

"Yes, toxicity can certainly cause aborted pregnancies, Brad," Mary said, "but the epidemiologic distribution is all wrong. If it were an environmental hazard, it would appear in specific places, not spread with this type of disease vector."

"I heard that researchers in Europe say the survival rate of fertilized eggs in birth tanks is good," said the woman sitting next to Brad, sounding wistful. "Maybe that-"

"The eggs survive," another woman interrupted. "The babies don't. They abort later on. Almost 90% of them. And the ones that are born..." She shook her head.

"Birth tanks are illegal," Sue declared. "And immoral."

That brought out a slew of comments from around the circle.

"Tanks were made illegal to stop genetic engineering, not for normal babies."

"Yeah, well we're not getting normal or enhanced babies now, are we?"

"Those few babies we can have ought to be enhanced," said the woman sitting next to Sue. "Why use valuable tank space for-"

"For a 'mundane'?" a bearded man cut in bitingly. "Do you want to live in a world where 'normal' has become 'substandard'? Where a natural baby is wrong? You think enhanced is good? You think we should play God?"

Methos didn't bother to point out that people had been "playing God" for thousands upon thousands of years, every time they actively tried to change their world. They'd just gotten more efficient at it lately.

Mary was staring at her plate, saying nothing. She looked almost relieved when Brad picked up on a different theme saying, "It's worse in cities."

"But is that because of higher chemical concentrations, or because we're too crowded?" A different woman this time, from a different table.

"Crowded?"

"Yes, like the rabbits in the book Watership Down. When General Woundwort ordered the does to abort. They killed their own children in the womb."

Methos turned to see the speaker: a young woman with round glasses and very short hair. She looked nothing like the old man in the park, and yet here it was again: They—are—absorbed.

The denials came fast and from several directions. "Those are rabbits, Martea."

"Yeah, humans can't do that, not on purpose."

"Rats can," Martea said.

"So? We're not rabbits or rats."

"And humans have been crowded before," Sue said. "We've never had any problem getting pregnant."

"We've never had this many of us before," said Martea. "Nearly eight billion? It's too many for the earth."

"Maybe the plague isn't the disease," said Brad slowly. "Maybe we're the disease."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" asked Sue.

Brad pulled his chair closer, its feet screeching across the tile floor. "Look, when germs make us sick, our bodies attack the invaders, try to kill them or neutralize them or contain them somehow, right?" He spoke earnestly, using his hands.

"Yes, that's right," Mary said.

"Well, we've been making the earth sick. For years. Maybe she's trying to, you know, contain us somehow. Even kill us off, if she has to, so the other species can live."

"You Gaians," said a woman disdainfully. She was the one who'd dismissed the rabbit idea so quickly before. "The earth isn't alive. And I don't care how many times you recite the 'Our Mother', the earth isn't a 'she'; it's an it, and it's made of rocks and dust and dirt."

"And algae and pine trees and dolphins and earth worms and microbes," added Martea. "And us. Those are all parts of the earth, Sheila. You can't separate any of it, any more than you can take out your lymph system or your brain and say: 'That's me' and 'That's not.' It's all intertwined."

"That's a bad analogy," Sheila objected. "If you take out my lymph system or my brain, I die. Thousands of species have gone extinct, and the earth is still here."

"Maybe it's more like a sea star," Pilar said, her eyes bright as she joined the conversation. She looked very pretty now. "They can lose arms and grow new ones, as long as the central ring of their nervous system survives. Maybe all the different species on this planet are like different arms. But if the central ring is destroyed, it all dies."

Brad repeated that, deliberately pausing between each word. "It all dies."

A shuffling of feet and uneasy glances were the only responses to that. Then Sheila said stoutly, "The earth can't 'kill germs'. It's not alive."

"But the ecosystem of The Earth is," Brad replied, and in his insistence, Methos could hear the capital letters Gaians typically used when speaking of the earth.

Sheila wasn't giving up. "An ecosystem isn't a conscious entity."

"Do you consciously tell your body to kill germs?" Brad asked. "Or does it happen on its own?"

Sheila glared at him, probably trying to think of some devastating reply, but before she came up with anything, a tall, dark-skinned woman in brilliant orange and yellow moved serenely through the crowd, then laid a hand on Sheila's shoulder. Sheila turned irritably, then saw who it was and relaxed enough to almost smile. The woman smiled back before turning to Pilar and saying, "I haven't had the chance to meet your guest, Pilar."

Methos immediately stood, all the way this time, as Pilar said, "Anita, this is Adam Galt, from Canada. Adam, this is Anita Petersen, the manager of the com-home."

So this was Anita, the house-mom. She was, at the most, forty-five, which made her about ten years older than anyone else Methos had seen in the building. "Older couple" indeed. "I'm very pleased to meet you," he said.

She said the same and shook his hand before sitting down in the last remaining chair at the table. "Is this the type of information you were hoping to find, Adam?"

"It's interesting, certainly," Methos said, giving friendly and encouraging nods to the ten or twelve people standing around and listening intently to his every word. Time to give them something else to do. "I'm also very interested in how society is changing. The plague isn't common in Canada, so we don't know. What should we expect?" He gave them his well-honed look of innocent appeal. "Do you have any advice I should take back home?"

"Yeah," Brad said with black humor. "Don't invest in birth control. Nobody uses it anymore."

"And that means the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases is on the rise," Mary said grimly. "That doesn't help fertility."

"Some older people still use birth control, people who have two or three kids already," Martea said. "But young people don't. Our most fertile years happen now. I know some girls who start trying to get pregnant when they're fifteen."

"And if one guy doesn't work, they try another," said Sue, looking straight at Pilar. "And then another and another." Sue turned to Methos to say, "And if they do get pregnant, they won't even know who the father is."

It certainly wouldn't be him. But that explained Sue's earlier crack about Pilar picking up strays. Under the table, Methos found Pilar's hand and took it firmly in his own. Her fingers felt cold, but she didn't let go. Methos asked Martea, "Don't the girl's parents mind?"

Martea shrugged. "Better early than never, as the saying goes. Families will help out, no question, if a baby comes. And the girl can always go back to school later."

"At least here she can choose her partners, and keep her baby," Sheila said. "I heard that in some countries, rich or powerful men take any young women who might be fertile and keep the women for themselves. They keep the children, too. Just like in that movie 'The Handmaid's Tale'." She shuddered. "God, what an awful way to live."

Another uneasy silence fell, and again, people avoided each other's eyes. Then a bell rang in the kitchen, and the crowd scattered as if released from a spell. Mary and Sue gathered up their cups and left the table, and Pilar turned to Methos to say, "I've got kitchen duty tonight. I won't be long, if—"

"I'll help," Methos offered, starting to stand.

"Oh, no," Pilar objected. "You're my guest," even as Anita said, "Please stay and talk with me."

"You're sure?" Methos asked Pilar.

"Yes, stay."

Methos said back down, promising, "I'll be waiting right here for you."

"And I'll be keeping him company," Anita said. They both watched her go, and then Anita said, "Pilar's a sweet girl."

"And very friendly, I hear."

"She's a good girl," Anita said firmly. "But she desperately wants to be a mother, so she's trying everything she can."

"You mean trying everyone?"

"No, not everyone," Anita said. "She has high standards. She likes you, and she respects you, or you wouldn't be here. Also, you're intelligent and healthy and tall. And not bad looking." She tilted her head to one side, smiling slightly. "I can see you're not used to being chosen for your potential as breeding stock."

"It hasn't happened often, no."

The smile disappeared. "It will, once the women in your country have the plague. You wanted to know what to expect, Mr. Galt. The two-parent family is rare. People are turning to promiscuity, child-stealing, mate-swapping or sharing, group adoption, group marriages..."

"Com-homes?" Methos added.

"Yes, and com-homes. Most of the people here were only children, and a lot of their parents were only children, too. That means no sisters or brothers, no aunts or uncles, no nieces or nephews, no cousins. The extended family has been severely pruned. But in the com-home, we're a family to each other. A child born to one of us will have all of us as parents. Next month at our ten-year anniversary, we're going to choose a name."

"What do you have now? A number?"

"Actually, yes. We're registered with the city as com-home 621."

"How many are there?"

"In New York, maybe eight hundred. Nationwide, around ten thousand, I believe. Of course, living in a community is not a new idea, but we're sponsored by Trithea Company. They gave us money to get started, and they trained my husband and me. They pay for us to attend conventions of house-managers once a year. It's good to talk with other people who have the same job."

Methos nodded, an agreeable smile on his face. "That's a beautiful necklace," he commented, leaning forward a little to peer at the Greek letters picked out in gold. "Phi Nu Chi," Methos read. Or, said another way, PhiNX. He asked casually, "Your college sorority?"

"I did join in college, but it's a service organization," Anita answered. "For men and women both. That's where my husband and I met."

"And you're both still members?"

"Oh, yes." The answer was brisk. "You can join for life."

The next morning, Methos got on a train headed north. When they finally cleared the border and made it into Canada, he celebrated by ordering a Molson's ale. Being in the USA these days made his skin crawl.

As he had expected, a v-mail from Alex was waiting for him when he got home. "I am Cass's friend," the message began. The subtle color variations surrounding Alex's image matched all the shades of blue in her eyes perfectly, one of those personalized privacy screens that promised "To make you look your best and keep your home secure!" She still looked tired.

"I just … thought you should know," the screen-Alex said. "In case. Thank you for listening. And thank you for telling me what I needed to hear. Duncan did say you were good at that." She smiled slightly, and Methos found himself smiling in return. "Take care of yourself," she said; then with a blink, the screen was back to displaying the list of messages still unread.

At least she hadn't tried to convince him again. Methos wasn't going to forget what Alex had said, but he wasn't going to worry about it, either. Not any time soon, anyway. He needed to go back to school; there was so much new to learn. And the stars were calling.

It wasn't until the spring, right after mid-terms, when Evann came to Toronto to escape the swampy Texas heat, that Methos thought about Alex's warning again. "You're keeping busy," he said to Evann, for there was a sense of purpose about her, instead of that empty, aimless stare she'd shown right after her husband's death. Her purpose obviously went beyond rummaging in his refrigerator for a beer, which was what she was doing now.

"We've decided to start a school," she said. Her hand emerged from over the top of the door and tossed a bottle across the room.

Methos lifted slightly out of his chair so he could snag the cold beer with his left hand. "We?"

"Matthew and I."

A pair in more ways than one, Methos knew. Evann and Matthew MacCormick had been friends for centuries and lovers once or twice before; it wasn't surprising if they were lovers again—or would be soon—now that both of them were free.

Evann came out of the fridge with a beer of her own. "Matthew's going to run the police and investigative side of it; I'll teach tactics and hand-to-hand. We've got some people lined up to teach alarm systems and codes. Graduates from our academy will be trained in all the critical areas, and they'll be used to working as a team."

"You'll be training security forces?"

Evann nodded as she flopped in the chair opposite him then popped open her beer. "It's a huge market. The competition between corporations is getting fiercer all the time."

Fierce competition was a polite way of saying "small scale war." Corporations didn't have security these days; they had private armies, not unlike the economic empires of the Medicis and the Borgias.

"We've got twenty students registered already," Evann said, "and we don't even have a building yet. Or a name."

"Then how'd they hear about you?"

"Cassandra."

Methos was unsurprised.

"She called a month or so ago," Evann explained, "and we got to talking about some of the problems Phinyx had been having lately, and she said if I ever heard of a training academy that would take young women to let her know. They wanted their security to be in-house, not contractors, but their people needed better training. I looked at the schools out there and didn't like what I saw, and so, after Matthew and I talked about it, we decided to start our own."

So, was this "military academy" Matthew and Evann's idea? Or Cassandra's? And what uses could a private army of young women be put to? "Is Cassandra an investor in the school?" Methos asked.

"No, it's ours alone. I don't like directors and trustees looking over my shoulder. Cassandra's company will be paying their tuition. She said there'd be at least twenty every year. Maybe more."

She is not alone.

Methos took a long, slow swallow from his beer. Perhaps it was time he paid Cassandra a visit after all.

Methos didn't bother to ask Alex or Evann for Cassandra's address. He just went to the biggest Gaian temple in Toronto, attended a service that was short on speeches from the pulpit and long on singing and clapping and swaying, and made sure to sign the guest book before he left. When he returned a week later, a very friendly young woman with a nametag reading "Jara" met him at the door and greeted him by name. "Adam, how wonderful to see you here again! And such good timing: we have a special guest speaker today, all the way from Australia. We're all so excited! She's supposed to be very good."

"I'm sure she will be," Methos said and allowed the young woman to lead him to an aisle seat in the third row. She handed him a program, promised him an "amazing experience!", told him to be sure and look for her during the donut-and-coffee social afterwards, and then went back to her ushering duties.

The guest speaker was good, but hardly amazing, though the Chinese musicians playing Buddhist temple music were excellent. After the service was over, Methos headed for the donut table. Jara met him before he was halfway across the room, joined him in getting donuts and coffee, and stayed close by his side during the repetitive chit-chat with the church members. When the room started to empty of people, she suggested they walk through the garden outside the temple. "The daffodils are in bloom, and I just love daffodils!" She giggled when Methos offered her his arm, then she led the way outside, down a brick staircase, across a green lawn studded with crocus, and through a garden gate.

Cassandra, dressed in white and with her long hair unbound, was sitting on a stone bench under a leafless apple tree at the far end of the garden. Yellow daffodils flowered all around. It made a pretty picture.

No doubt she knew that.

Jara waved and hurried them right over so she could introduce her "new friend, Adam Galt" to her "old teacher, Linda Shaw."

"Mr. Galt," Cassandra said, rising smoothly to her feet with an amused smile. Neither offered to shake hands. "Your middle name is John, of course."

Methos smiled back, pleased. In the ten months since he'd crawled out from under the ice and chosen a new identity, no one else had commented on his choice of name. "Of course."

"You are just so amazing, Linda," Jara gushed to Cassandra. "How ever did you know?"

"John Galt is a character in an old book."

"My parents loved that book," Methos added in explanation. "Adam is a family name."

"Then who is John Galt?" Cassandra asked.

Ah, yes. The eternal question between them: Who are you now? What are you now? What have you been doing, and what are you capable of? Shall I dare to trust you? Shall I dare to eat a peach? Or must I take your pretty little head? Yet there was time, there would be time, time yet for a hundred indecisions, while listening to the mermaids singing, each to each. Mermaids, sea-nymphs, naiads, sirens, banshees … furies. A daughter of Night. Who are you now, indeed? Two could play. Two needed to play. "Who is Linda Shaw?" Methos retorted.

Jara looked from one to the other before clapping her hands together in delight and exclaiming, "I just knew you two would like each other! You have so much in common. It's like … fate!"

Cassandra's smile was a curving of the lips, no more. "I would call it karma."

Good? Or bad? "Whatever you call it, it wasn't just coincidence that brought us here today; was it, Linda?"

Then she truly smiled. It wasn't pleasant.

After Jara left, Methos and Cassandra sat on the stone bench, watching daffodils nod in the spring breeze. Methos broke the silence first. "I saw Alex MacLeod in November."

"Yes, she told me you'd had lunch together."

Well, well. Apparently, Alex had decided she didn't want to be as secretive as Cassandra. Good for her. "She's worried about you," Methos said next.

"She told me that, too." Cassandra turned from watching the daffodils to look straight at him. "She also told me she suggested that one day, you might find it prudent to take my head."

Well, well, well. Alex had laid all her cards on the table. Perhaps not so good. "What do you think about that?" Methos asked carefully.

Cassandra was back to watching flowers. "I think she has a point. I've been insane before; I could be again. I must say, however, that taking my head does seem a rather drastic cure."

"You seem very calm about it."

"I wasn't when she told me," she said, almost tartly. "Alex knew I wouldn't want you watching me. She knew I'd asked you to keep your distance."

And so he had, for over twenty years. But if Cassandra had truly wanted distance between them, she wouldn't have made friends with so many people who were also friends with him: Amanda, MacLeod, Evann, Elena, Emory … and even Alex herself, though she had been friends with Cassandra first, and only lately a friend to him. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, and if you can't stand your enemy, keep the friends of your enemy closer still. "You've been waiting for me," he pointed out.

"I've been watching for you," she corrected. Methos laughed aloud at that, and even Cassandra smiled as she looked at him again, but this time sidelong, through lowered lashes. "You're right, though," she said, and that was an admission she wouldn't have made so easily before. "I have been wanting to see you again."

"And I you," Methos said. A little flattery wouldn't hurt. "We could … renegotiate the truce."

"We could."

And from her smile Methos knew they would. Or perhaps they just had. He stretched his arms over his head then leaned his back against the tree trunk. "So, you and Alex are still friends."

"Always. She understands me better than anyone else I've ever known."

"Have you ever let anyone else understand you?"

"Not since you," she answered, but the words weren't angry, bitter, or spiteful, as they would have been years ago. "Do you let anyone understand you?"

"That's hard to do," he said ruefully, "when I don't understand myself."

"Don't you?" she murmured. He didn't answer. "Alex also told me why she asked you, instead of someone else," Cassandra continued.

"Yes," he drawled. "She thinks I'm the best bet to be around for the next few millennia."

Cassandra shook her head. "She knows you don't want to kill me."

Kronos had known that, too. Methos felt mildly annoyed. Where had all his inscrutability gone? Didn't anyone take him seriously anymore? "There's one more reason she asked me," Methos reminded Cassandra. "She knows that I can kill you, and if it's necessary, I will, no matter what I want."

"What do you want, Methos?" she asked, not responding at all to his implied threat (which couldn't have come as much of a surprise), and using his name for the first time today.

And what a question. It was right up there with "Who are you really?" Next would come "Who do you trust?" and "Who do you serve?"

What did he want. He had to tell her something. "Peace," he answered. "Good friends. Good books. Good beer." He decided to see just how far their truce extended. "Good sex."

Cassandra actually laughed. "So not everything has changed for you."

Or for her. He had seen the tip of her tongue dance along her bottom lip. But now it was his turn. "What do you want, Cassandra?" he asked, calling her by name for the first time.

"Peace," she said, repeating his answer, but then added: "Peace for all mankind."

"And for all womankind?" Methos pressed.

She stood then, looking down at him as he sat beneath the spreading branches of an apple tree, and answered with utter seriousness: "Peace."

A week later, after a weekend spent at a Gaian retreat center, Methos wrote to Alex to say: "I'll watch her." The next day came the one-word answer: "Good."

Three days later he got another text-only message from her. "I have a favor to ask of you," it started, and Methos sighed. But when he finished reading it, he wrote back to say yes, and got a "Thank you" in reply. He didn't hear from Alex again.

This story is concluded in Till Death, in which Alex says goodbye