The Blood of Brotherhood by Merrie Thomas Part III
Disclaimer: I do not own nor claim to own Methos, Kronos, MacLeod, Amanda, Joe, Cassandra or any other characters from Highlander. If I did own them, I would be making new episodes instead of writing fan fiction in place of new episodes. Oh well. (sigh)
Summary: Methos and Kronos were brothers. In arms, in blood, in everything except birth. What exactly does this mean for Immortals?
Characters: DM, J, M, A, C, K, Valerie Viscount OFC
Author's Note: This is an alternate-universe story based around the events of Comes A Horseman and Revelations 6:8, WARNING if you don't wish to read about a Kronos romance, you may still read this story, but you won't like parts of it. Also, I live in the Midwest and I have traveled few places in my life, so I took some liberty and made some stuff up about the cities mentioned here. Please post reviews!! Thank you!!!
Rating: This story is rated PG-13 for language and violence.
Chapter Three
"Nigel! Nigel! Wake up! What's wrong with you! Nigel! Help! Someone help! My boyfriend's fainted! I don't know what's wrong with him!" Valerie shouted out in the airport lobby, not noticing that she had called him her boyfriend. She shook Kronos' unconscious body, trying desperately to wake him. She got no response. She tentatively stretched to shaking fingers out to check for his pulse at his neck, fearing the worst. She sighed in relief as she felt his heartbeat, steady and strong. "Please, someone! He's alive but he needs help! Nigel, wake up! Nigel!"
"Miss? I'm a doctor, what has happened here?" a man's voice asked her.
"Oh thank you!" she cried, hugging the stranger. "I don't know. We were just talking, and then he just fainted! Please, tell me what's wrong with him!"
"I'm trying to figure that out, Miss. His name is Nigel, is that correct?" he continued when she nodded. "Do you have a phone?" she nodded again. "Good, call 911 and have them come here. I am pretty sure he'll be alright, but I can't be completely sure after an cursory examination on the ground of an airport, now can I?" Valerie shook her head and did as she was told. The doctor lifted Kronos' eyelids while Valerie talked on the phone, noticing that Kronos' pupils were extremely dilated. Valerie hung pushed the 'end' button on her cell phone, and kneeled down at Kronos' side.
"I called them, they said an ambulance would be here in a few minutes. They told me to stay with him." Valerie said in a kind of a daze.
"Yes, that's absolutely right. You said he was your boyfriend, is that right? Try talking to him. Maybe you can get him to wake up." the doctor told her.
"He's not really my boyfriend. Not yet, anyway. We just met on the plane." she told him.
"I see. Well, that doesn't really matter right now. He will need to see a familiar face when he wakes. I'm sure he will feel a lot better seeing a face like yours after something like this. I know I would." he told her kindly, smiling as she blushed. "He's a lucky man to have someone like you to watch over him. I'm sure everything will be fine." she nodded and looked up in relief as she saw a couple of EMT's with a stretcher coming running towards her. "Here they come, now don't you worry, he should be fine." the doctor told her.
"Oh thank you, thank you!" Valerie exclaimed, giving the man a hug. He returned it, and leaned over to talk to the EMT's about things she didn't hear or want to.
"If you will excuse me, I'm going to miss my flight. Goodbye, Miss. He's in good hands now." the doctor told her, walking away.
The EMT's put Kronos on a the stretcher and rolled him down the hall, one of them picking up the strange long case he had been carrying, and handing it to her. Valerie accepted it, not really noticing, rushing to Kronos' side. 'He'll be fine,' she kept telling herself, hoping to make herself believe it.
***
Cassandra stared at the computer screen in absolute, utter, horror. 'One of them lives, oh God, one of them lives.' she thought to herself. The computer showed the face of an Immortal in the early 18th century. Louis Kreude. Kronos. He lived. One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse lived. The Watcher database that she searched in didn't show any more recent pictures or identities of Kronos, but Cassandra knew that if he had been alive at that time, he was almost certainly alive now. She knew what she had to do. She had to kill him. As long as one of them still lived, she would never be at peace. Never. Kronos had to die.
***
MacLeod awoke feeling like, well, crap. He sat up groggily from his place on the bar floor, and rubbed his neck. What had happened here? He didn't remember. Something about someone named Nigel. Nigel Kretzlich! Methos! Where was Methos?! "Methos! Methos! Are you here?! Joe! Amanda! Wake up! Someone's taken Methos!" "Urg. Don't shout, MacLeod. My head's killing me." Joe groaned from the floor. "Why are you shouting anyway?"
"Someone's taken Methos! He's not here! And neither is Amanda!"
"Duncan, darling, there is no need to shout. And I know Methos isn't here. I've been looking for him for awhile now." Amanda said, walking into the room. "Whoever has taken him is long gone."
"MacLeod, Methos was saying something to you, right before we passed out. Something about how to find him if we were still here and he wasn't. What did he say?" Joe asked.
"He said to go find his brother. Someone named Nigel Kretzlich."
"Duncan, I'm afraid you must have hit your head when you passed out. Immortals don't have brothers and sisters. Well, we do, but not someone who would still be alive after 5000 years. You must have been mistaken." Amanda said, putting a hand on MacLeod's shoulder.
"I know what I heard and I'm not mistaken. Methos told us to go find his brother. He said his brother would know where to find him. He also said something about Colorado at the end. Maybe his brother there."
"Well, I don't see any choice then. We're going to Colorado." Joe informed them, walking over to the phone to make flight reservations.
***
"Paging Dr. Bolle. Paging Dr. Bolle. Please report to operating room B."
Valerie awoke with a start to the voice over the intercom. It took her a moment to remember where she was. Glancing to the prone figure on the bed, she remembered. She was inside Denver Memorial Hospital. She had been there for the last hour. It seemed like she had been there for much longer. She put her head in her hands and thought over the events leading up to this. Nigel had fainted. Well, she didn't really think he had fainted, and the doctors had confirmed this fact. But they in their infinite knowledge hadn't had one clue as to what the hell was wrong with him. And now he was in a hospital bed unconscious, perhaps never to wake again. Valerie had no idea. She reached over and placed a hand on his neck, believing with her heart that he was still alive, but not her eyes. She gave a little sigh of relief as she felt his heartbeat, strong if not steady. Oh, she didn't know what to do. She had just met this man. Why should she worry about him? Why should she bother? She almost got up to leave before she stopped herself. She would stay because she cared. Because she thought that she might love this man, no matter what happened. She looked at her watch for the umpteenth time and decided to go for a cup of coffee. She didn't want to leave Nigel's side, but the cafeteria was just down the hall, and she seriously needed something to calm her nerves. She whispered into Kronos' ear that she would be back soon. She turned to leave, but was stopped by the faint whisper of her name.
"Valerie, wait. Don't go." Kronos fluttered his eyes open.
"Nigel! You're awake! Oh my God, what happened to you? You just fainted! The doctors said they didn't know what was wrong with you." She ran over to his side, grabbing the nearest hand in a crushing embrace.
"Valerie, don't worry about that right now. We have to get out of here. Trust me. Help me up." Kronos sat up slowly and swung his legs out of bed. His bare legs. "Val, where are my clothes?"
"Oh! Sorry about that. The doctors took them off and put you in a hospital gown when they took the MRI. They're in the closet with your luggage. I'll get them."
"Wait, they took an MRI? This is bad." Kronos said, fearing the worst. He had dealt with doctors before. He knew how they became when they didn't understand something, and he was sure they wouldn't understand the MRI of his brain. An Immortal brain. Something new and interesting for them to argue over and do tests on. "We really have to get out of here."
"Nigel, what's wrong? You're scaring me." Valerie said as she handed him his clothes and sword case.
"I'll explain everything later, I promise." He said as he got dressed. He smirked when he noticed Valerie was blushing. He finished and stood up, a little wobbly, making sure to check that his sword was still in his case where he had left it. He knew that she was watching him, but he had to be sure. He sighed in relief when he saw that it was present and undamaged, the lights in the room gleaming off the sharp blade. He looked up at her as he closed the case and took it in a hand. "We must go. I don't know how much time we will have. Some things might start to happen to me, and you must trust me and not worry. I am tougher than I look." Kronos said as he led her out the door.
'Tougher than he looks? He looks pretty tough to me already.' Valerie wanted to ask questions, but that would have to wait as she struggled to hold on to Kronos' hand as they ran down the hall. 'And what did he mean when he said some things might happen to him? And why is he carrying a sword? Just what have you gotten yourself into, Val?'
***
The flight, although only a short trip from Washington to Colorado, seemed to go for hours. Joe had booked the three of them in first class, so they should've been comfortable while they waited. In fact, the only one of that seemed comfortable was Amanda, sipping away daintily at a flute of champagne. But McLeod knew better. He had known Amanda too long to not notice when she was hiding her emotions. In truth, she was as worried as he and Joe were. He was sure that they had the same two major questions running through their heads: Where was Methos? And how are we going to find him? McLeod had been struggling with those particular questions ever since they left the bar. He also had a few others that wanted their place in the spotlight like, who was this so-called brother of Methos', and why hadn't Methos ever mentioned him before? The fact of a 5000 year old Immortal having a brother isn't a fact that you would be likely to forget to mention. That meant that Methos hadn't told them about him for a reason. What was that reason? Who was this man? And how would he know where Methos was, when no one else would? McLeod sat, so deeply pondering these questions that he didn't even notice when the plane touched the ground in Denver.
***
Darkness. For a while that was all Methos knew or wanted to know. Wherever he was, that was about all there was. Only darkness. He lifted a hand in front of his face, and he couldn't see anything. Of course, his eyes insisted on playing tricks on him and having him see things that weren't there. Methos stopped trusting his eyes and he closed them. He wished he didn't mind the darkness so much, but it brought back unpleasant memories of the 'kindly' folk that considered it their duty to bury the poor soul who had been killed in whatever way. Whether the burial had been accidental or intentional. He had experienced both in his long life.
He had in fact, been buried alive many, many times. Enough times to give him a healthy case of claustrophobia. To take his mind off of it, Methos sat and thought about what had happened in Joe's. There had been a phone call for him, and then the gas had come. He didn't remember being taken, because he had been passed out. What he did remember was telling McLeod to find Kronos in Colorado. Or at least, he thought Kronos was in Colorado. He wasn't entirely sure. It was a vague sense. He concentrated and felt his brother's faint presence. He was still in Colorado, or near there, and McLeod, Joe and Amanda were hopefully on their way to meet him. Methos didn't want to think about the explanations Kronos would have to make about how he was his brother. How they had been Horsemen together. How they had preformed the blood sharing ritual, and how it had changed both of their lives. 'Wait a minute,' Methos thought. 'I can't be thinking about the past while I am trapped in the present. Who the hell has done this to me?' Methos scanned over his considerably long list of enemies. There was one person who stuck out in his mind like a glaring beacon. Who hated him enough to do this? The answer was clear. Cassandra. ***
Cassandra looked up with a sense of victory on her face. She had been searching for so very long, and now her search was finally over. She had found him, and she would make him pay for everything he had done to her. The beatings, the rape, the utter slavery. She had endured it for a hundred years without a word. But now she would have her words. Yes, she would be heard, and those responsible would pay dearly for what she had suffered. She would get her chance for vengeance.
But, she mused, it wasn't exactly what she had hoped for. The person she really wanted to make suffer was either dead, or somewhere Cassandra couldn't find him. But she would make do with what she had. She had time. She had all the time in the world.
Cassandra turned off the computer and started packing. She had to get the first available flight to Colorado. Kronos was there, and she would make him pay.
TBC
A/N: Thank you for all the kind reviews!! This part was for you guys!! Please be sure and review again!! It keeps me posting new chapters!!
Disclaimer: I do not own nor claim to own Methos, Kronos, MacLeod, Amanda, Joe, Cassandra or any other characters from Highlander. If I did own them, I would be making new episodes instead of writing fan fiction in place of new episodes. Oh well. (sigh)
Summary: Methos and Kronos were brothers. In arms, in blood, in everything except birth. What exactly does this mean for Immortals?
Characters: DM, J, M, A, C, K, Valerie Viscount OFC
Author's Note: This is an alternate-universe story based around the events of Comes A Horseman and Revelations 6:8, WARNING if you don't wish to read about a Kronos romance, you may still read this story, but you won't like parts of it. Also, I live in the Midwest and I have traveled few places in my life, so I took some liberty and made some stuff up about the cities mentioned here. Please post reviews!! Thank you!!!
Rating: This story is rated PG-13 for language and violence.
Chapter Three
"Nigel! Nigel! Wake up! What's wrong with you! Nigel! Help! Someone help! My boyfriend's fainted! I don't know what's wrong with him!" Valerie shouted out in the airport lobby, not noticing that she had called him her boyfriend. She shook Kronos' unconscious body, trying desperately to wake him. She got no response. She tentatively stretched to shaking fingers out to check for his pulse at his neck, fearing the worst. She sighed in relief as she felt his heartbeat, steady and strong. "Please, someone! He's alive but he needs help! Nigel, wake up! Nigel!"
"Miss? I'm a doctor, what has happened here?" a man's voice asked her.
"Oh thank you!" she cried, hugging the stranger. "I don't know. We were just talking, and then he just fainted! Please, tell me what's wrong with him!"
"I'm trying to figure that out, Miss. His name is Nigel, is that correct?" he continued when she nodded. "Do you have a phone?" she nodded again. "Good, call 911 and have them come here. I am pretty sure he'll be alright, but I can't be completely sure after an cursory examination on the ground of an airport, now can I?" Valerie shook her head and did as she was told. The doctor lifted Kronos' eyelids while Valerie talked on the phone, noticing that Kronos' pupils were extremely dilated. Valerie hung pushed the 'end' button on her cell phone, and kneeled down at Kronos' side.
"I called them, they said an ambulance would be here in a few minutes. They told me to stay with him." Valerie said in a kind of a daze.
"Yes, that's absolutely right. You said he was your boyfriend, is that right? Try talking to him. Maybe you can get him to wake up." the doctor told her.
"He's not really my boyfriend. Not yet, anyway. We just met on the plane." she told him.
"I see. Well, that doesn't really matter right now. He will need to see a familiar face when he wakes. I'm sure he will feel a lot better seeing a face like yours after something like this. I know I would." he told her kindly, smiling as she blushed. "He's a lucky man to have someone like you to watch over him. I'm sure everything will be fine." she nodded and looked up in relief as she saw a couple of EMT's with a stretcher coming running towards her. "Here they come, now don't you worry, he should be fine." the doctor told her.
"Oh thank you, thank you!" Valerie exclaimed, giving the man a hug. He returned it, and leaned over to talk to the EMT's about things she didn't hear or want to.
"If you will excuse me, I'm going to miss my flight. Goodbye, Miss. He's in good hands now." the doctor told her, walking away.
The EMT's put Kronos on a the stretcher and rolled him down the hall, one of them picking up the strange long case he had been carrying, and handing it to her. Valerie accepted it, not really noticing, rushing to Kronos' side. 'He'll be fine,' she kept telling herself, hoping to make herself believe it.
***
Cassandra stared at the computer screen in absolute, utter, horror. 'One of them lives, oh God, one of them lives.' she thought to herself. The computer showed the face of an Immortal in the early 18th century. Louis Kreude. Kronos. He lived. One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse lived. The Watcher database that she searched in didn't show any more recent pictures or identities of Kronos, but Cassandra knew that if he had been alive at that time, he was almost certainly alive now. She knew what she had to do. She had to kill him. As long as one of them still lived, she would never be at peace. Never. Kronos had to die.
***
MacLeod awoke feeling like, well, crap. He sat up groggily from his place on the bar floor, and rubbed his neck. What had happened here? He didn't remember. Something about someone named Nigel. Nigel Kretzlich! Methos! Where was Methos?! "Methos! Methos! Are you here?! Joe! Amanda! Wake up! Someone's taken Methos!" "Urg. Don't shout, MacLeod. My head's killing me." Joe groaned from the floor. "Why are you shouting anyway?"
"Someone's taken Methos! He's not here! And neither is Amanda!"
"Duncan, darling, there is no need to shout. And I know Methos isn't here. I've been looking for him for awhile now." Amanda said, walking into the room. "Whoever has taken him is long gone."
"MacLeod, Methos was saying something to you, right before we passed out. Something about how to find him if we were still here and he wasn't. What did he say?" Joe asked.
"He said to go find his brother. Someone named Nigel Kretzlich."
"Duncan, I'm afraid you must have hit your head when you passed out. Immortals don't have brothers and sisters. Well, we do, but not someone who would still be alive after 5000 years. You must have been mistaken." Amanda said, putting a hand on MacLeod's shoulder.
"I know what I heard and I'm not mistaken. Methos told us to go find his brother. He said his brother would know where to find him. He also said something about Colorado at the end. Maybe his brother there."
"Well, I don't see any choice then. We're going to Colorado." Joe informed them, walking over to the phone to make flight reservations.
***
"Paging Dr. Bolle. Paging Dr. Bolle. Please report to operating room B."
Valerie awoke with a start to the voice over the intercom. It took her a moment to remember where she was. Glancing to the prone figure on the bed, she remembered. She was inside Denver Memorial Hospital. She had been there for the last hour. It seemed like she had been there for much longer. She put her head in her hands and thought over the events leading up to this. Nigel had fainted. Well, she didn't really think he had fainted, and the doctors had confirmed this fact. But they in their infinite knowledge hadn't had one clue as to what the hell was wrong with him. And now he was in a hospital bed unconscious, perhaps never to wake again. Valerie had no idea. She reached over and placed a hand on his neck, believing with her heart that he was still alive, but not her eyes. She gave a little sigh of relief as she felt his heartbeat, strong if not steady. Oh, she didn't know what to do. She had just met this man. Why should she worry about him? Why should she bother? She almost got up to leave before she stopped herself. She would stay because she cared. Because she thought that she might love this man, no matter what happened. She looked at her watch for the umpteenth time and decided to go for a cup of coffee. She didn't want to leave Nigel's side, but the cafeteria was just down the hall, and she seriously needed something to calm her nerves. She whispered into Kronos' ear that she would be back soon. She turned to leave, but was stopped by the faint whisper of her name.
"Valerie, wait. Don't go." Kronos fluttered his eyes open.
"Nigel! You're awake! Oh my God, what happened to you? You just fainted! The doctors said they didn't know what was wrong with you." She ran over to his side, grabbing the nearest hand in a crushing embrace.
"Valerie, don't worry about that right now. We have to get out of here. Trust me. Help me up." Kronos sat up slowly and swung his legs out of bed. His bare legs. "Val, where are my clothes?"
"Oh! Sorry about that. The doctors took them off and put you in a hospital gown when they took the MRI. They're in the closet with your luggage. I'll get them."
"Wait, they took an MRI? This is bad." Kronos said, fearing the worst. He had dealt with doctors before. He knew how they became when they didn't understand something, and he was sure they wouldn't understand the MRI of his brain. An Immortal brain. Something new and interesting for them to argue over and do tests on. "We really have to get out of here."
"Nigel, what's wrong? You're scaring me." Valerie said as she handed him his clothes and sword case.
"I'll explain everything later, I promise." He said as he got dressed. He smirked when he noticed Valerie was blushing. He finished and stood up, a little wobbly, making sure to check that his sword was still in his case where he had left it. He knew that she was watching him, but he had to be sure. He sighed in relief when he saw that it was present and undamaged, the lights in the room gleaming off the sharp blade. He looked up at her as he closed the case and took it in a hand. "We must go. I don't know how much time we will have. Some things might start to happen to me, and you must trust me and not worry. I am tougher than I look." Kronos said as he led her out the door.
'Tougher than he looks? He looks pretty tough to me already.' Valerie wanted to ask questions, but that would have to wait as she struggled to hold on to Kronos' hand as they ran down the hall. 'And what did he mean when he said some things might happen to him? And why is he carrying a sword? Just what have you gotten yourself into, Val?'
***
The flight, although only a short trip from Washington to Colorado, seemed to go for hours. Joe had booked the three of them in first class, so they should've been comfortable while they waited. In fact, the only one of that seemed comfortable was Amanda, sipping away daintily at a flute of champagne. But McLeod knew better. He had known Amanda too long to not notice when she was hiding her emotions. In truth, she was as worried as he and Joe were. He was sure that they had the same two major questions running through their heads: Where was Methos? And how are we going to find him? McLeod had been struggling with those particular questions ever since they left the bar. He also had a few others that wanted their place in the spotlight like, who was this so-called brother of Methos', and why hadn't Methos ever mentioned him before? The fact of a 5000 year old Immortal having a brother isn't a fact that you would be likely to forget to mention. That meant that Methos hadn't told them about him for a reason. What was that reason? Who was this man? And how would he know where Methos was, when no one else would? McLeod sat, so deeply pondering these questions that he didn't even notice when the plane touched the ground in Denver.
***
Darkness. For a while that was all Methos knew or wanted to know. Wherever he was, that was about all there was. Only darkness. He lifted a hand in front of his face, and he couldn't see anything. Of course, his eyes insisted on playing tricks on him and having him see things that weren't there. Methos stopped trusting his eyes and he closed them. He wished he didn't mind the darkness so much, but it brought back unpleasant memories of the 'kindly' folk that considered it their duty to bury the poor soul who had been killed in whatever way. Whether the burial had been accidental or intentional. He had experienced both in his long life.
He had in fact, been buried alive many, many times. Enough times to give him a healthy case of claustrophobia. To take his mind off of it, Methos sat and thought about what had happened in Joe's. There had been a phone call for him, and then the gas had come. He didn't remember being taken, because he had been passed out. What he did remember was telling McLeod to find Kronos in Colorado. Or at least, he thought Kronos was in Colorado. He wasn't entirely sure. It was a vague sense. He concentrated and felt his brother's faint presence. He was still in Colorado, or near there, and McLeod, Joe and Amanda were hopefully on their way to meet him. Methos didn't want to think about the explanations Kronos would have to make about how he was his brother. How they had been Horsemen together. How they had preformed the blood sharing ritual, and how it had changed both of their lives. 'Wait a minute,' Methos thought. 'I can't be thinking about the past while I am trapped in the present. Who the hell has done this to me?' Methos scanned over his considerably long list of enemies. There was one person who stuck out in his mind like a glaring beacon. Who hated him enough to do this? The answer was clear. Cassandra. ***
Cassandra looked up with a sense of victory on her face. She had been searching for so very long, and now her search was finally over. She had found him, and she would make him pay for everything he had done to her. The beatings, the rape, the utter slavery. She had endured it for a hundred years without a word. But now she would have her words. Yes, she would be heard, and those responsible would pay dearly for what she had suffered. She would get her chance for vengeance.
But, she mused, it wasn't exactly what she had hoped for. The person she really wanted to make suffer was either dead, or somewhere Cassandra couldn't find him. But she would make do with what she had. She had time. She had all the time in the world.
Cassandra turned off the computer and started packing. She had to get the first available flight to Colorado. Kronos was there, and she would make him pay.
TBC
A/N: Thank you for all the kind reviews!! This part was for you guys!! Please be sure and review again!! It keeps me posting new chapters!!