It was a good thing, Methos decided, that he'd never had much interest in being cop, because stakeouts were always one of his least-favorite parts of hunting. Playing by the rules never really appealed to him, either, but he simply hated sitting around and waiting. Watching really wasn't his forte.

Hilarious then, that he spent so many years as a Watcher. Admittedly, though, he was never in the field, actually tracking another Immortal during that time. No, he had been assigned the task of researching the ancient chronicles of an almost mythological Immortal known as Methos... That, as he recalled, had been quite possibly the most peaceful stretch of time he'd known in five thousand years. A period which, alas, ended when a certain do-gooder Highlander named Duncan MacLeod walked into his flat in Paris.

What a twisted road his life was - a lot like the residential tract he was in at that very moment, in the very southeast of Colorado Springs.

It all seemed so perfectly ordinary at first glance, very white-picket-fency, American Dream, and definitely expensive. Each house featured two or more levels, multi-car garages, spacious plots, professional landscaping, and quite the view. He didn't see golden retrievers in any of the yards, but it really wasn't much of a stretch to put one there.

Methos's quarry turned into the driveway of one of these homes and pulled into the garage. This, then, was probably their base of operations. Not bad for fugitives from the law, but being Immortal had its perks; the truly smart Immortals were clever enough to make good investments that accumulated over time. One of Methos's aliases had made a rather impressive fortune in Apple stocks over the last few years. Too bad he couldn't get at it at the moment.

He watched the men as they vanished from view before pulling out his phone and consulting GoogleMaps, one of the many wonderful inventions of the 21st Century. His eyes traced the street he was on, curving up the hill; he noticed that the houses on the west side of the street backed up against an access road leading up the to one of the five or so military bases in the Colorado Springs area: the NORAD facility, nestled safely underground beneath Cheyenne Mountain.

"Hm," he mused, frowning at the map. Judging by the twists and turns of that access road, he figured it was a good possibility that he had been held by Daniel Jackson's mysterious military friends at that same facility. Coincidence?

Methos hated coincidences. One of the few things he distrusted more than beer gifted by strangers.

He filed the information away for future reference and continued his clandestine surveillance as the sun vanished behind Cheyenne Mountain. He wanted to learn all he could about Sydyk and his plans before he called in Amanda. Unlike some Immortals, he had no intention of walking into a situation unprepared. What could they possibly be up to here?

~o0o~

"Wow. You look terrible," Dr. Lam said as she walked into Daniel's office at the SGC. "What happened after you left yesterday? You go hang out with Colonel Mitchell at a bar somewhere?"

Daniel winced heavily as the clicking of her high heels on the hard floor seemed to stab through his brain. "Stop walking so loudly," he begged her. "And it wasn't Mitchell."

The doctor made an exaggerated expression of surprise. "So you were hanging out at a bar! Don't tell me that Vala dragged you out on the town. Again."

"She's not back on Earth yet. At least I don't think she is. What day is it, anyway?" he asked as he rubbed his eyes blearily.

"And you drove to work today?" Lam exclaimed in disbelief. "It's Thursday morning. How was your briefing with SG-2?"

"Could've gone better," he admitted with wry humor. When Griff and his compatriots had finished reaming him for being so late, they teased him about looking like something the cat dragged in. And of course they brought up the story about the oranges and beer bottles. Again. One of these days, Daniel was going to kill Jack O'Neill for telling that particular tale to what seemed like the entire SGC.

"So, who was she?" the doctor asked, leaning down conspiratorially. "You better spill, or I'm going to tell Vala everything when she gets back."

"But you don't know anything."

Dr. Lam grinned brightly. "That's never stopped anyone before, has it?"

"Carolyn..." Daniel groaned.

"Wow, one little hangover, and you completely lose your sense of fun," she teased. "Anyway, I got Adam Pierson's autopsy report from the El Paso County Coroner's Office." She slid the file across the desk to Daniel, who opened it curiously.

"Anything interesting?"

"Nothing pops out immediately," she admitted somewhat ruefully. "Adam Pierson was in perfect health when he died. I mean, besides the extensive and very fatal trauma to the head and chest he suffered during the car accident, obviously."

Daniel pulled out a photo of one of Pierson's wrists, showing a tattoo of an odd Y-shaped design in a circle. "Did we ever identify this tattoo?" he asked, holding up the photo.

The doctor frowned slightly. "I'm not sure. Here, let me check..." She leaned over Daniel and tapped at his keyboard for a minute. "We were running it through various databases, and... wow."

Daniel stared at the screen in surprise. "Are these people all murder victims?"

"Yeah," Lam said softly, swiftly reading the text file attached to the photo array. "Apparently, a bunch of people with this tattoo turned up dead in Europe, a lot in Paris, in the mid-90s. No real connection between the victims, other than an apparent interest in ancient history."

"A whole bunch of history buffs murdered? How come I didn't hear about this?"

"You really have to ask that question? You were gone on Abydos for a year, remember? And when you got back, didn't you spend all your time with Jack O'Neill, running around with your head buried in the sand on other planets?" she said mockingly. "It probably would've been surprising if you'd noticed anything in the next room, let alone another continent."

"Oh. Right." He stared at the tattoo for a few more moments. "So, Adam having this tattoo. He was a historian, too, wasn't he? Maybe the tattoo was some sort of, I don't know, fraternity."

"What, like the historians' equivalent of the Freemasons?" Her tone indicated some measure of disbelief.

Daniel offered her a crooked smile. "Secret societies have a long and storied history going back to the dawn of civilization. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Ordo Aequitas Albion, the Tahitian Arioi-"

Laughing, she held up a hand to forestall his monologue. "I get the idea, Daniel!"

"And you complained about me being no fun. This stuff is fun!" he griped affectionately as he returned the picture of the tattoo to the autopsy report. "Hey, wait." Daniel flipped the picture upside down and held it up again. "I've seen this before!"

"What? Where?" Dr. Lam asked, a frown crossing her face.

"Here." Daniel gingerly picked up one of the Methos chronicles they'd taken from Adam Pierson's motel room. Engraved on the ancient binding was that very same symbol.

"Wait, isn't that thing like hundreds of years old?"

"Yeah..." Daniel replied absently. Delicately, he opened it to the first page of text. "Here begins the Chronicle of the immortal Methos, recorded for those who watch," he translated the Latin aloud.

"'Those who watch'? Now, that's not creepy-sounding at all," the dark-haired doctor replied sarcastically.

A slow smile crept across his face. "Not 'those who watch'. The Watchers. Adam Pierson was part of a secret society of Watchers, one that has apparently been around for hundreds of years at least. Either that, or a group of history buffs just thought this symbol was really cool and decided to use it themselves, which is totally possible in academic circles. Either way, whatever they were doing got a bunch of them killed."

"Ooookay... but can I ask the obvious question? Who were they watching?"

Daniel shrugged. "No idea. But maybe Amanda knows something."

"Wait," Lam interrupted, "Is this the same Amanda that was doing a breaking-and-entering impression the other night?"

"Oh, yeah." The archaeologist couldn't help but smile, despite his hangover. Amanda was really one helluva woman.