Who Watches the Watcher?

A Highlander novel by Sisiutil

This story is fictional and does not contain any references to any actual persons living or dead. All characters contained in this story who appeared in the Highlander franchise are the property of Warner Media/Davis Panzer Productions, Inc.

Chapter 4: Marcellus

A couple of hours later, Theresa still had not managed to fall sleep. She'd lain down on the bed fully dressed at first, but she never could sleep in regular clothes. So, despite her proximity to a mysterious and dangerous Immortal, she'd changed into a long, white cotton t-shirt she'd found in the spare bedroom's closet. It hadn't helped.

She was still too upset, overwrought by what had happened that night, by the drastic changes the events of a few hours had brought to bear on her life. That life had also never been so obviously in danger before, despite all the unsavory places she'd found herself while following Lizzy Knight. Theresa sighed as she thought about performing her duties as Watcher, first for Lizzy, now for Marshall. For twelve years, she had devoted her life to first becoming a Watcher, then being one. Now, that dream had died, killed by the night's events.

Even worse was the enigma called Lucas Marshall, sleeping on the other side of a concrete wall from her. She felt nervous, lying there, trying to sleep, this close to an Immortal. On top of that, the man was a ruthless killer and a drug-dealer. He'd been taking the heads of other Immortals pretty much non-stop since he appeared on the scene a year ago. And from what Theresa had seen, he derived a sadistic enjoyment from taunting his opponents before the kill.

And yet he counted honorable men like Duncan MacLeod and Reginald Blount among his friends. He'd avenged Blount's death and had seemed genuinely distraught over Mick Porter's. And he'd saved her life. Not only that, he was hiding her from those other drug-dealers. He hadn't tried to attack her, rape her, or even make a move on her. He hadn't harmed her, and didn't seem to want to. Her bedroom even had a lock on the door, which she'd used, regardless of his promises and the behavior that backed them up. She couldn't figure him out at all, but trying to do so was driving her crazy and keeping her awake.

And she was thirsty.

Theresa pushed herself up in frustration from where she'd been tossing and turning on the bed. As she stood up, the t-shirt dropped to her knees from where it had bunched around her otherwise naked waist. She unlocked and opened her door, poked her head out and glanced around to ensure the hallway was empty, then padded out of the bedroom in her bare feet. She walked past the living and dining room, stopped to turn on the light, and went into the kitchen. She poured herself a tall glass of cold water and gulped it down greedily. Then she poured herself another and began to sip it more casually.

Her eyes wandered around the sparsely decorated room and settled on the long, black velvet curtains that hung from the ceiling in the middle of the living room's far wall. Curiosity got the better of her. She looked back into the hallway and saw no light nor heard any sound from Marshall's room. She turned and walked to the curtains and pulled them back.

Hanging before her, in a shallow alcove hidden by the curtains, was a large oil painting. Theresa recognized the work as that of Thomas Gainsborough, one of the foremost English painters of that period. Its subject was one of the most beautiful women Theresa had ever seen—a full-length, life-size portrait of a young woman, perhaps in her early twenties, in the dress of a mid-eighteenth century English noblewoman. The woman's long red hair was curled and piled high on her head, but also tumbled decorously down her neck and onto her bare white shoulders. She wore a pale blue dress that had a plunging neckline surrounded by brocade, the fabric opening to a point just above a well-endowed bosom. A gold sash surrounded a slender waist before the dress broadened slightly around shapely hips.

Theresa's eyes wandered back up to the face in the portrait. Bright green eyes sparkled from within a slender, oval-shaped face and above high cheekbones. The woman had a delicate nose that turned up very slightly at the end. Her lips were full and lush, and the painting portrayed a hint of a smile at the corners of those lips. Theresa expected the woman to suddenly break out into a broad grin and a gentle, cultured laugh at any moment.

Theresa took a step forward and looked at a small plaque bolted to the painting's bottom frame. She saw, engraved in the brass plaque, the inscription: Lady Alodia, by T. Gainsborough, 1781. Theresa's eyes widened. Her head sprang up to look at the woman again. Alodia? she thought. No...it can't be...

"I remember the day that was painted," a male voice said from a few feet behind her.

Theresa gasped and turned around. There stood Marshall, clad in black silk pajama bottoms and a matching short black robe. The robe was tied with a silk cord around his waist; it was open beneath his throat and over his sternum, revealing a muscular, hairy chest.

"I apologize," he said smoothly, "I didn't mean to frighten you. You couldn't sleep either?"

Theresa shook her head nervously. Her hazel eyes remained wide, and she regarded Marshall warily as he came to stand beside her, ignoring her obvious agitation. His gaze remained on the portrait.

"I was watching Gainsborough paint it, which he disliked, but I was paying him enough to put up with it. Alodia kept making faces at me to make me laugh, and old Tom kept telling her to stop it. That's why you see that impish smile there. He threatened to give it up and return my money at least three times, and each time, she stopped him and coaxed him back. She could charm anyone into anything if she set her mind to it."

"Lady Alodia..." Theresa whispered, still unwilling to believe what the presence of the portrait, and Marshall's words, must mean.

"...yes, daughter of the Saxon Thane Aldred. Born 857 AD—by your modern calendar—became Immortal 878 AD. Killed...," his voice became tight and quiet, "...in 1915." He paused and drew a long, heavy breath as his gray eyes wandered over the painting. "It's a magnificent portrait," he declared softly, "but it doesn't do her justice."

"You...knew her?" Theresa asked dubiously.

"Knew her?" Marshall responded, looking at her as though she were insane. "I should say so! We were married for over a thousand years!"

Theresa's mouth dropped open and the blood drained from her face. She lost her grip on her glass. It fell but was caught by Marshall, exercising speed and reflexes that had been honed and battle-tested for hundreds of years. Theresa backed away from him gradually, her hazel eyes wide, her head shaking slowly from side to side. It made sense—the portrait, his masterful skill at swordplay, his knowledge of and friendship with so many other Immortals—but she couldn't accept it.

"No...," she breathed, "...this isn't possible! You can't be..."

"I am Lucius Gaius Marcellus, Citizen of Rome," he said, straightening slightly and raising his chin. "I was born two thousand, five hundred and thirty-nine years ago."

"But...but..." Theresa stammered, "you're supposed to be dead!"

The Immortal blinked, then the corners of his lips curled into a smile. "Ah. That."

Paris, 1985

In the small rectory of L'Eglise de St. Julien le Pauvre, three men sat down at a simple wooden table. One wore the unadorned habit of a priest; the other two were much more modern and stylish in their dress. One was tall and had dark hair pulled back into a medium-length pony-tail which hung down his back. The other, not quite as tall as the other two, had short, curly blond hair. They each had a mug of steaming tea in front of them and took turns reaching for the sugar cookies piled on a plate in the middle of the table.

"Well, MacLeod!" Hugh Fitzcairn declared. "An evening spent in the tee-totaling presence of a two-thousand year-old priest! You do know how to paint the town red!"

Darius and Duncan MacLeod laughed. Though Fitzcairn would deny it and declare with his dying breath his preference to spend the evening visiting every bar on the Champs Elysées, he had been looking forward to this visit with Darius for months. As had MacLeod. He would be leaving Paris soon, and had no idea when, or if, he would be returning. He wanted to bid farewell to his friend and to his teacher.

"It's good to see you as well, Hugh," Darius said graciously. He poured fresh tea for his guests. "It's been too long."

"Yes," Fitzcairn replied as he lit his pipe, "I suppose. It's just that every time I see you, I feel like I should go with you to the confessional. And since it's been at least a century since I last did that, we'd be stuck in there all night!" Again the three men laughed, especially because what Fitzcairn had said was probably true, given his eye for the fairer sex.

"So tell me, Duncan," Darius said, "how soon are you leaving Paris?"

"Leaving Paris?" Fitzcairn said in surprise. "Whatever for? Did Tessa catch you cheating?"

"Bite your tongue," MacLeod replied, laughing softly and pointing a warning finger at Fitzcairn. "We're heading to the States together."

"You still haven't answered my question," Fitzcairn insisted. "Whatever for?"

"I just told Tessa that I'm an Immortal recently," MacLeod explained patiently. "She had a hard enough time believing it, and now she's trying to get used to the idea. I don't want to dump everything else about it on her as well. And if I stay here, I might be forced to do that. So...I'm out of the Game. I'm withdrawing." He sipped his tea and waited for his two friends to react.

"You can't just pull out of the game, old man," Fitzcairn warned him.

"Watch me," MacLeod answered. "Darius has."

"Darius is a priest who lives on holy ground!" Fitzcairn exclaimed. "I doubt you'll find a brotherhood of monks willing to let you bring your woman into the monastery with you. I know they're very forward-thinking in America, but that might be pushing it."

"Duncan," Darius said gently, "believe me, I understand the desire to withdraw from the Game. I did it for love of God and my fellow man. You are doing it for love as well—the love of a woman. In your case, however, I feel I must warn you—you cannot completely escape who you are, and what you are."

"I know that, Darius," MacLeod responded calmly. "I'm just...tired of it, of the violence, the killing. I'm truly happy for the first time since...since I don't remember when, and coming from me, that's saying a lot! Maybe I can't avoid it completely, but I want to go some place where I'm less likely to run into our kind. Seems like Paris has a never-ending Immortal convention..."

"Well, I can't wait to hear what Marcellus has to say about this," Fitzcairn muttered, sucking on his long pipe. "Where is the old Roman anyway? I thought he'd be here by now."

Lucius Gaius Marcellus, one of the last of the ancient Immortals and a friend to all three men, had just returned to Paris after several decades abroad. He hadn't been the same since the death of his wife, and they hadn't seen much of him since that unhappy event, though several decades had passed. MacLeod had suggested inviting him tonight, hoping that Darius would have some words of solace for the Roman.

"I think I hear him," Darius said, and the three men suddenly heard heavy footfalls approaching the rectory from the church. They also felt the distinctive tingling in their heads and necks that indicated the nearby presence of another Immortal.

"Speak of the devil," Fitzcairn said.

A moment later, the door to the rectory burst open and Lucius Gaius Marcellus stood in the doorway. To say he looked agitated would be an understatement. His short black hair, combed into a widow's peak above his forehead, was mussed as though he'd been pulling at it. He was breathing heavily like an enraged bull. His gray eyes glowered angrily at all three of them before focusing on MacLeod. When he saw the Highlander, his upper lip curled into an angry sneer.

Marcellus strode into the room, walked up to MacLeod and, to the astonishment of all three men at the table, backhanded the Highlander across the face. MacLeod was a strong man and taller than Marcellus, but the blow knocked him out of his chair to the stone floor.

"Judas!" Marcellus shouted at MacLeod. "Brutus! I'll have your head, you Scottish swine!" He launched himself at MacLeod, but Fitzcairn caught him and pulled him back.

"Stop it!" Fitzcairn shouted. "Back off now, Marcellus!"

"Lucius!" Darius shouted, shocked and angered as he hadn't been in centuries, "what is the meaning of this?"

"What the hell was that for?" MacLeod asked as he wiped blood from his mouth and rose from the floor.

"You know what it's for, you bastard!" Marcellus shouted as Fitzcairn struggled to restrain him. Darius stepped around the table to stand between the two struggling Immortals and MacLeod.

"Lucius Gaius Marcellus!" he shouted. "This is a house of God. It is also my home! I will not have you behaving this way in here! Now calm yourself, and explain yourself, or all three of us will throw you out!"

Marcellus, breathing heavily, pushed himself out of Fitzcairn's grip. He took a step back from the other three Immortals and held up his hands. Still, he glared angrily at MacLeod. The other three men watched him warily, waiting.

"Fine, Darius. I'll calm down," he said, his voice low and rough. "But he's the one who needs to explain himself!" he shouted, pointing to MacLeod.

"Lucius...I don't know what you're talking about!" MacLeod insisted, his head shaking, his arms spread wide.

"Liar!" Marcellus snarled.

He reached into his long, heavy leather coat. The other three men tensed, worried that he might pull out a weapon. Instead, he retrieved a bundle of aged papers, bound with a decaying pale blue ribbon, from his inside coat pocket. He threw them onto Darius' table beside MacLeod.

"I went back to our home here," Marcellus said, his voice trembling with rage. "Haven't been there in years. I went through some of her things. I found a secret compartment in one of her old trunks. And what do you think I found there? Eh? Those! What do you have to say now, MacLeod?"

"Marcellus," Darius said, bewildered and gesturing towards the bundle of old papers, "what are those?"

"Letters," Marcellus spat out. "Love letters. From him," he said, pointing at MacLeod again. "To my wife!"

Darius and Fitzcairn's mouths both dropped open in shock. As one, they turned to look at MacLeod. The Highlander's lips had pressed into a grim line, and his dark brown eyes had become downcast. His ashamed expression told the other Immortals everything they needed to know.

MacLeod looked up to catch Fitzcairn's eyes. Though his friend didn't say a thing, MacLeod could read his thoughts in his expression: Bloody hell, my son, you are sodding in it now. Marcellus had been with Alodia for just over a thousand years. The only other thing he'd loved that much, and for that long, was Rome. And he'd fought and killed for Rome for a millennium.

"You see?" Marcellus said, drawing the attention of the other two shocked Immortals back to him. "You see his guilt? It's written all over his face. I brought you into my house, MacLeod. I trusted you like a son, like a brother. You barely knew how to wipe your own arse when I met you. And this is how you repaid me? By seducing my wife?!"

Marcellus' voice had gradually escalated in volume and agitation as he spoke. Fitzcairn moved to restrain the ancient Immortal if he tried to attack MacLeod again.

"Now, hang on, Lucius," MacLeod declared defensively, "nothing ever happened! Yes, I wrote the damn letters, and I'm sorry! She was beautiful, she was charming, she was like nothing I'd ever seen before! It was...the infatuation of an adolescent! Nothing more!"

"You were fifty when you started writing the damn things and sixty-five when they stopped!" Marcellus angrily declared. "That's a damn long adolescence!"

"Maybe, Lucius!" MacLeod shouted back. "But I'm telling you, nothing happened! She loved you," he said, gesturing toward the Roman, "not me. She didn't want to have anything to do with me!"

"Then why," Marcellus growled through clenched teeth, "did she keep the damn things? Eh? Answer me that!"

MacLeod glanced uncertainly at the bundle of letters, then turned back to Lucius, spreading his arms to protest his innocence. "I don't know, Lucius. I didn't know they still existed until you walked in here with them!"

"You're pathetic!" Marcellus spat out. "You expect me to believe that Duncan MacLeod, who never met a female that he didn't want to rut like a love-sick dog, wrote love-letters to a woman for fifteen years without getting any encouragement whatsoever? Do you think I'm a fool?"

MacLeod glared back at his former teacher and friend. He crossed his arms defiantly. "Maybe you are, Lucius, if you believe one of the finest women to ever walk this earth, who loved you more than her own life, would have even thought of cheating on you."

"Don't try to make this about her!" Marcellus shouted and took a step forward. "This is about you, you cuckolding bastard!"

"Lucius, please...!" Darius said, spreading his arms.

"All right lads, I think that's enough," Fitzcairn said, glancing at both men and gesturing to them to calm down. "We can go 'round in circles on this one all night. What say we go home and let our tempers cool, eh?"

"That sounds fine," Marcellus said contemptuously. "MacLeod and I can take this up later, when he's not quivering like a coward on holy ground." Fitzcairn rolled his eyes in exasperation. The Roman, he knew, could be like a dog with a bone once he got a notion in his head.

"Is that the way you want this to go, Lucius?" MacLeod asked, his eyes wide and dark brows raised in surprise, but his jaw set in determination. "You want this to go to swords?"

"Oh, I don't know," Marcellus said, a nasty smile suddenly coming to his lips. "Maybe we can just settle it by evening the score."

"What the hell does that mean?" MacLeod growled dangerously, glaring at the sneering Roman.

"Now, lads," Fitzcairn cautioned them. He could sense where this was going and knew it could not end well.

"I was just thinking how that little French tart you've hooked up with might enjoy a real man for a change," Marcellus snarled.

MacLeod launched himself angrily at Marcellus. Darius grabbed and held him, while Fitzcairn pushed Marcellus back.

"Both of you, stop this!" Darius shouted. "This is holy ground!"

"Father's right," Marcellus said in a condescending voice, as if he were talking to a child. "If we want to play rough, we should go outside."

"Fine by me," MacLeod growled back. He grabbed his coat from the back of his chair where he'd placed it, feeling the weight of his sword inside it. He gently pushed Darius out of the way and started to follow Marcellus out of the rectory. Fitzcairn and Darius looked at one another in horror. They turned and followed their two friends out the door.

"Marcellus! MacLeod!" Darius called after them. "Stop! This is madness! You're both friends!"

"Not anymore!" Marcellus shouted back as he walked down the aisle of the church. He reached the great Gothic wooden doors and threw them open. He walked out into the night, out of the churchyard, away from holy ground. MacLeod was right on his heels.

"Hugh, go after them!" Darius said, his head shaking and his arms thrown up in exasperation. "Try to talk some sense into them!"

"You don't have to tell me twice!" Fitzcairn shouted back as he ran down the steps of the church. He'd lost a great many friends in his eight hundred years on earth. He didn't want to lose another one tonight.

A few minutes earlier, across the street from L'Eglise de St. Julien le Pauvre, the side door to an unassuming black van slid open. A man stepped into the van carrying a bag of French pastries and a tray of take-out coffee, and was greeted enthusiastically by his colleagues.

"Evenin', Lads!" Mick Porter said. "Thought we could all use some nosh!"

"Mick, you beautiful cockney bastard," Tom Owens declared with a smile in his flat, mid-west accent. "You are a life saver!" Owens, Darius' Watcher, eagerly reached for the bag of pastries. It didn't take much effort to watch an Immortal who never left the same patch of holy ground, and Owens was proof of that. He'd learned French, converted to Catholicism, and had put on more than a few pounds in the fifteen rather easy years he'd been watching the Immortal-turned-priest.

"Marcellus just get here?" Joe Dawson asked. He'd been MacLeod's Watcher for about five years. The other Watchers marveled at how Dawson, lacking the use of both legs after stepping on a land mine in Vietnam, managed to keep up with an active Immortal like MacLeod. Dawson had never seen Marcellus before, but had assumed the man who had just entered the church was the ancient Roman Immortal. He didn't get a very good look at the man in the dark, but he seemed to fit Marcellus' description.

"Yeah," Porter answered as slid the door closed and settled into a seat. "He drove like a bat outta hell over here. Had a devil of a time keepin' up. Guess he didn't want to miss out on the fun." Porter had worked with Dawson when he'd first joined the Watchers. Dawson had a team of other Watchers, most of them learning the ropes under him, who kept up with MacLeod when he couldn't. Porter had performed that function for a time, learning how to keep an eye on the Immortals whose lives they recorded without ever being spotted, before drawing his own assignment just over three years before: Lucius Gaius Marcellus, the widowed ancient Roman.

"Now what sort of fun could four Immortal lads get up to in a church of all places?" Patrick Sullivan asked his older companions. He'd just started watching Fitzcairn a year ago, and as far as the young Irish Watcher was concerned, he'd drawn his dream assignment on his first time out. Fitzcairn seemed to know every bar and pub in every town in Europe, and Sullivan loved following him into them. And the women! The tall, handsome young Irishman, with his dark features and intense brown eyes, had almost as much success with the ladies as Fitzcairn. He often told other Watchers that when it came to drink and women, he was simply trying to catch up to his eight-hundred year-old charge.

"You'd be surprised," Dawson said with a smile. "I was a choir-boy. I could tell you some stories..."

"You? A choir-boy?" Owen said, disbelievingly. "No wonder the Catholic Church has fallen on such hard times."

The other occupants of the van laughed with the easy camaraderie of men in the same profession who were forced to spend what appeared to be a long, uneventful night together.

"Say, Joe," Porter said, "how come you're not lettin' one o' your lads take the shift tonight?"

"Ah, sometimes you gotta put in the hours yourself, Mick," Dawson replied. "Hell, I taught you that. And besides, they're gonna be sitting in a church for a few hours! It's not like they're gonna make me run any marathons tonight."

"Mr. Dawson," Sullivan said, "I've been led to believe that your lad has found true love, is that so?"

"Seems that way," Dawson said with a nod, then sipped his coffee.

"Ah, now that's a sad, sad thing, it is," Sullivan declared, shaking his head. "Another one bites the dust. If Fitzcairn ever catches the dreaded bug, I want a reassignment."

Dawson and the others laughed. "You might think you're lucky with the ladies, Pat, but MacLeod's got a record to rival yours and your principal's. But this woman...I've seen her. If MacLeod doesn't do everything in his power to stick with her, he's a fool."

"Is she Immortal, Joe?" Owen asked, not really interested, but making conversation to pass the time. He took a bite of a crueler.

"I'm pretty sure she's not," Dawson replied, a little sadly. "Can't imagine what that's like for them. Having to watch someone you love grow old and die while you stay the same."

Porter shrugged. "I dunno. On the other hand, there's my lad. Prob'ly thought his bird 'd be around forever."

The van was silent for a moment. "All right, lads," Sullivan said, "if you're all going to get maudlin, I'll be finding meself another van to sit in."

Suddenly, the doors to the church opened. The four Watchers looked on as two dark figures emerged from the church and stormed down the steps, one after the other. In the dim light cast by a streetlight, Porter and Dawson each recognized the Immortal they'd been assigned. Even in the gloom, the Watchers could see the two men were bristling and glaring at one another like pit bulls as they hit the street and turned, walking away from the church to an unknown location.

The Watchers then saw two figures appear at the top of the church steps. They could make out the silhouette of a priest's habit on the taller one, which meant he had to be Darius and the shorter man had to be Fitzcairn, which was confirmed when the latter ran down the steps and passed under the streetlight, then set off in pursuit of his two friends.

"Oh my God..." Dawson muttered.

"Bloody hell!" Porter exclaimed.

"Patrick, Darius just went back in the church," Owen said calmly to the Watcher behind the wheel of the van. "I'll get out and stay here with him. Start the engine and go down the road after them. Leave your lights off. "

Sullivan did as he was told by the older Watcher once he'd left the van. The three Watchers surreptitiously followed their three Immortal charges down a quiet Paris street to a quiet nineteenth century factory. From several yards away, they watched as Marcellus appeared to pick the padlock on a large garage door. He and MacLeod lifted the door, pushing it up on its rollers from opposite sides as they continued to glare angrily at one another.

Fitzcairn ran up to the door just as the two Immortals stepped inside. Marcellus drew his Toledo rapier on Fitzcairn, apparently ordering him to stay outside, then he and MacLeod allowed the large, heavy door to drop, shutting a visibly frustrated Fitzcairn outside. They watched him try to lift the door, but apparently the other two had locked it from the inside. Fitzcairn began to bang on the door before giving up and running around to the far side of the building, apparently looking for another entrance.

Sullivan opened the door to the van and sprang out, running after his principal who had just vanished from sight. He pressed himself against the side of the building, peeked around the edge, then disappeared as well.

"Shit!" Dawson cursed. "I don't believe this! Those two have been friends for over three hundred years, what the hell are they fighting over?"

"A woman, I 'spect," Porter said morosely. "It's always about a woman."

"Mick, get over there," Dawson ordered. "There's a fire escape on this side of the building, see it down the alley? Climb up it and see if you can watch the fight through one of those windows."

Porter opened the side door to the van and ran across the street and down the alley. Dawson could just make him out in the dark, clambering up the fire escape. He could also see lights come on inside the old factory, through the high windows at the top of the building. So it had begun. The remaining Watcher cursed himself for not having one of his more able-bodied assistants with him. And he felt certain that MacLeod, whom he had come to admire from a distance, would not survive this fight. He didn't know much about Marcellus, but knew the ancient Immortal had over two thousand more years of experience than MacLeod. He cursed again. He felt useless, sitting there in the van while others did his job. Then he frowned.

"Wait a minute..." he muttered as he reached back behind his chair and rummaged through some of their surveillance equipment. He found what he was looking for: a sensitive, long-distance sound-collecting microphone. It looked like a child's clear plastic umbrella with a handle at the top. He transferred himself to the front seat, rolled down the window, and pointed the microphone towards the factory, keeping most of it inside the van to hide it. He placed the microphone's headset over his ears and turned it on.

He could just make out the sound of metal striking metal—a sword-fight. He then heard a couple of male voices shouting, but couldn't make out what they said; the factory walls muffled the sound too much. Then more metal-on-metal. The sound persisted for several minutes. Then nothing for a few seconds. There was a loud squeal and Dawson grimaced and pulled the headphones off. He looked at the factory and saw flashing lights and explosions like a pyrotechnic display inside the old building—a Quickening. That went on for a minute or so, then nothing.

A moment later, Dawson saw Fitzcairn reappear from around the same side of the building where he'd vanished moments before, walking slowly, almost reluctantly, back towards the door the two combatants had entered. Dawson put the headphones back on. After a couple of minutes, Dawson saw the door open a foot; Fitzcairn caught it, lifted the door higher, and Duncan MacLeod stumbled out. Dawson breathed a sigh of relief and trained the collector mike on the two Immortals.

"My God, Duncan," he heard Fitzcairn say in his British accent, "Marcellus?"

MacLeod didn't say anything at first. He just shook his head. The mike picked up his heavy breathing; he was still exhausted from the fight and the Quickening. "He wouldn't...wouldn't let it go, Fitz," MacLeod eventually said. "I wounded him, told him that was it, that I didn't want to kill him. He just kept coming. Said things...things about Tessa to make me angry. It worked. Oh, Christ..." MacLeod's body slumped to the pavement and he sat there, his shoulders heaving.

Dawson lowered the microphone as MacLeod broke down and Fitzcairn laid a hand on his friend's shoulder. At moments like this, Dawson felt a little ashamed of his job. But he chided himself; he'd signed on to the Watchers for life, and he had a duty to fulfill, even if it made him sick to his stomach sometimes. He trained the microphone back on the two Immortals again.

"...same since Alodia was killed," he heard Fitzcairn saying. "He never got over that. Maybe he got tired of chasing Ortega and decided to take out his anger on you."

"I don't know," MacLeod responded. He looked up at Fitzcairn. "I don't care. You see why I want to get out of the Game? I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to kill my friends," he place his hand on Fitzcairn's shoulder, "over some stupid misunderstanding."

Dawson saw Fitzcairn nod sadly. "I understand, Duncan. I didn't before and I'm sorry. C'mon, let's get back to the church," he said, helping MacLeod to his feet. "I think we could both use Darius' company right now," Fitzcairn remarked with tremor in his voice.

Once the two Immortals had disappeared down the street, Sullivan and Porter returned to the van.

"What happened, Mick?" Dawson asked as Sullivan drove the van back to the church.

"They fought," Porter said sadly. "MacLeod won."

"Christ, Mick, I know that!" Dawson said angrily. "I know you liked Marcellus, but you're a professional, Mick! Come on now, report!"

Porter took a deep breath. "They were fighting, and Marcellus kept making these mistakes—like he was too angry to fight proper. MacLeod sliced him up a bit, then tried to walk away. Marcellus started yelling something—couldn't make it out, sounded like it was about MacLeod's woman—and they kept fighting. MacLeod got an opening and took it. End of story."

"The body?" Dawson asked. Sometimes Immortals took it upon themselves to hide the decapitated corpses they left behind; sometimes they just walked away from them and left the authorities pondering what appeared to be a grisly crime.

"There was a sewer hole in the factory floor," Porter answered, then said no more.

Owen rejoined the others, who related the story to him. The four Watchers sat in silence in the van for the rest of the evening while the three remaining Immortals consoled each other in the church. It was as though a strong, mighty oak, one they had all taken for granted and assumed would be around forever, had fallen. Lucius Gaius Marcellus, Citizen of Rome, approximately two thousand five hundred and thirty years old, would have no gravestone, no marker to indicate his passing. But he would live on in their Chronicles, and the Watchers took some small consolation from that.

"Duncan MacLeod took your head!" Theresa exclaimed.

"Really?" Marcellus responded superciliously. "I shall have to take that up with Duncan the next time I see him."

Theresa ignored his facetiousness. "Four Watchers were there the night you died! How can you be alive?"

"I was going to make some tea," Marcellus said as he walked into the kitchen and returned the milk to the fridge. "We used to use pure chamomile in Rome to help us sleep. Care for some?"

"Damn it, answer me!" Theresa shouted, following him.

"Watch your manners, girl," Marcellus said calmly but sternly as he turned to her. "I don't have to tell you anything. I've probably told you far too much already."

Theresa took a step back. She'd forgotten, for a moment, that she was a Watcher, in the presence of an Immortal, not to mention in violation of most of the rules the Watchers held dear, her Uncle Joe notwithstanding. Marshall, or Marcellus, had said he wouldn't harm her and hadn't, but it wasn't wise to provoke him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's just..." She stood before him, arms spread and palms up in supplication. She let out an exasperated sigh. "Never mind," she said, and turned to go back to her bedroom.

"Wait," Marcellus said. "What were you going to say?"

"Nothing. Why do you care?" Theresa said, turning to him and frowning.

Marcellus shrugged. "I find you interesting. Take it as a compliment. It takes a great deal for a mere mortal to stir the interest of a two-thousand, five-hundred year-old man." She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Oh, I don't mean like that!" he declared with a wave of his hand. "Although, come to think of it, you are very beautiful, aren't you?"

His gray eyes gave her a quick once over, and Theresa suddenly wished she had more clothes on. Fortunately, Marcellus changed the topic and turned away to make his tea.

"What I meant is that you have spirit, the way you demanded an explanation of me just now, as rude as you were. And you were brave—if foolhardy—following me into that lion's den earlier tonight." He placed a kettle under the kitchen tap and began to fill it. "So, I find you intriguing, Ms. McNeil. Now, what were you going to say? And please, have a seat. The tea has to steep for awhile."

Theresa couldn't believe any of this. She was in an Immortal's apartment. Not just any Immortal, but apparently one of the most ancient, who had just miraculously returned from certain death. And here he was, asking her to pour her heart out while he made her tea. Tea!

In fact, it was the promise of chamomile tea that won her over. She needed to sleep, and chamomile usually did the trick for her as well. And her mother had always told her that in an unusual and stressful situation, doing something normal would make you feel normal. What was more normal than hot tea? She sat down on the couch.

"If I tell you what I was going to say," she offered, "will you tell me how you convinced other Immortals and the Watchers that you've been dead for twelve years?"

"Deal," Marcellus said as he plugged in his kettle.

Theresa took a deep breath. "You're the reason I became a Watcher," she told him.