Duncan looked from Richie to the two kids he'd brought over to the loft and back again.

"Who're your friends?"

Richie sighed. "The girl's one of us, Mac."

Duncan nodded. "So I figured. What are they doing here?"

"The girl just died... in front of her boyfriend. She was just reviving when I found them. I've told them both about us. I had to. I know we're not supposed to tell mortals, but..."

"Yeah, you had no choice. But what are they doing here?"

"I was hoping you could, you know, teach the girl. Like you taught me."

Duncan raised an eyebrow. "And why can't you teach her? You're immortal, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but you're a much better fighter. I mean, I can hold my own and all, but you've had 400 years to prefect your skill and I've haven't even been alive for one century. I don't want her to die just 'cause I wasn't a good enough teacher."

Duncan looked at Richie for a moment, then sighed. "How'd she die?"

"I got shot," the girl said softly, playing nervously with a lock of her curly blond hair. "Some drunken bastard shot me."

Duncan nodded. "Oh, and why did he shoot you?"

The girl looked at him, confused. "I don't know... we were just going to a party and he jumped out from some alley, said some stuff, I don't remember what, and shot me."

"And where is he now?" Duncan asked, not sure if he should believe the girl's story.

"He ran away when he saw Richie coming," the boy told him.

"Right." Duncan turned to Richie. "These kids wouldn't by any chance have names, would they?"

Richie smiled, relaxing a little. "The girl's name is Sherry and the boy's Jerome."

Duncan sighed. "Did anyone else see Sherry die?"

Jerome shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Fine, I'll teach Sherry to use a sword. Meet at the dojo downstairs tomorrow around 3 and we'll start."

Richie grinned. "Thanks Mac. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Duncan rolled his eyes. "Yeah, ages. Centuries even."

"Well, to me it's been a long time. Anyways, it's good to see you again. What have you been up to?"

Duncan shrugged. "I've still got the dojo. Lately things have been pretty quiet. Shouldn't those two be going home? Surely someone's going to be worrying about them."

Sherry smiled. "Bye... and thank you."

"I'd better be going too," Richie said.

"Yeah. You can walk Sherry home and see that no one takes her head, hmm?"

Richie nodded and the three of them left.



Sherry showed up right on time the next day wearing jeans and a t-shirt, her hair in a ponytail. It quickly became obvious that she had absolutely no idea what she was doing. Duncan doubted the girl had ever touched a sword before in her life. Of course, up until now she had undoubtedly thought there was no reason to.

Sherry didn't seem overly eager to learn, either. She made half-hearted attempts to strike at him, waving the practice blade around lamely. Duncan was sure he could have taken her head in his sleep, without a sword. After a half an hour of trying in vain to teach her, Duncan was thoroughly annoyed.

Exasperated, Duncan disarmed her, sending her practice blade clattering across the dojo floor and knocking her to her knees. Duncan raised his sword, bringing it down just inches from her head.

She screamed, then sat there on the floor, staring in horror at Duncan's practice blade, lying on the floor. Then she turned slowly to look at Duncan and he was pleased to note that she trembling, her eyes wide.

"Now look. You're immortal and that means that there are going to be people after your head for the rest of your life – which may not be very long unless you learn to defend yourself. So let's try this again."

Shaking, Sherry got up and walked slowly over to where her practice blade had fallen. The moment she had it in her hand, Duncan came after her again. He disarmed her, but this time she rolled away from his sword, scrambling after her own blade. Duncan kept coming until he had her cornered against the wall. Then he let her get her sword and started again.

He kept at it for another two hours, until she was trembling and soaked with sweat. She stumbled over to the bench and collapsed. Duncan handed her a glass of water, which she took and drank down gratefully.

"So, what did Richie tell you about immortals?" Duncan asked her once she had caught her breath.

"He said that you can't die, unless someone cuts off your head."

"Is that all?"

The girl nodded.

Duncan shook his head. Of course, Richie would leave it to him to do all the real explaining. "Well, there's a little more to it than that. You become immortal when you die. Before that, you aren't really an immortal, though people who are immortal can tell that you're a pre-immortal. We can live for centuries, millennia even. As you may have noticed, you can always tell when another immortal is around. We can only be killed when we loose our head, and when one immortal kills another immortal they take a quickening. They get all the other immortal's memories and strength. In the end, there can be only one. Now is the time of the Gathering, during which we all fight until there is only one left. One immortal with all the power and strength of every immortal that ever lived. The only place you are safe is on holy ground, because we cannot fight on holy ground.

"There are more rules about the Gathering, which I'll explain later. For now you must simply know that there are other immortals after you're head and if you're not careful and don't learn to fight, you will die."

Sherry sat in silence for several moments, processing what he had said. Then she looked at him quizzically, asking, "So how do you know all this? About the rules and the Gathering?"

Duncan was somewhat taken aback by her question. "My teacher told me."

"But how did he know? How do you know that it's true, not just some myth made up by your ancestors? And how does someone get to be immortal? Why doesn't everyone become immortal when they die?"

Duncan blinked, unsure of how to answer. "Well... I don't, really. And you can believe what you like, but every other immortal out there believes in the Gathering, so they'll be after you whether you believe in it or not. As for who gets to be immortal and who doesn't, no one knows. We just are."

Sherry rolled her eyes. "That's informative. So... who decides what is or is not holy ground?"

"What do you mean?" Duncan asked, confused.

"I mean, is it holy ground according to the Christian faith, or is it holy just according to the immortals in question or to everyone or what? What if I decide that the entire earth is holy? And if a church burns down, does the land remain holy even though the church is gone? And what happens if you do fight on holy ground?"

Duncan shifted uncomfortably. He had never really thought about that before. "I guess... I don't really know," he admitted.

Sherry gave a small, triumphant smile, which Duncan found unreasonably irritating.

"Don't you have to be somewhere?"

Sherry smiled. "But I can't defend myself," she pointed out sweetly. "So I can't leave here alone. Would you like to escort me to the nearest church?"

Duncan gritted his teeth. "Why don't you stay with Richie? He did find you after all. I'll even call him and have him come pick you up."

"That would be wonderful."




Richie could not have arrived soon enough for Duncan. After persuading Richie to take the girl, Duncan had been forced to spend the next twenty minutes listening to her chattering mindlessly away about nothing. It took 400 years of patience to keep him from strangling her right there.

When Richie finally did arrive, she insisted on calling Jerome to tell him where she was before leaving. Then she spent almost ten minutes chattering away on the telephone while Richie cooled his heels. When Richie finally got her out of there, Duncan sagged against the wall, feeling thoroughly exhausted.

A/N: Orange: I'll send it to you once I've got a reasonable amount written...