If some people can be said to be a chapter in the book of history, then others must be conceded, sadly, to be but a comma. Or, possibly, a dot in a long row of them. In fact, this would be most people. The real, unedited book of history would therefore be a rather peculiar jumble of much punctuation, actual vocabulary would be scarce, and never mind grammar. This is perhaps why personal journals are at times so much in vogue.

Faye did not hold with personal journals. Faye had little truck with vogue. Faye was a question mark in the book of history, in the most literal sense, the weird curly thing that even punctuation itself doesn't really know what to do with, squatting awkwardly at the end of the question, letting you know that this is where reason must give way to wonder.

When writing about Faye, one must begin by pointing out that she couldn't possibly be a protagonist. Antagonism would be more along the lines of her character, though even that would be stretching the concept very thin. To put it simply, if she were around to be asked to be in a story, she would most likely stare at you blankly for a few unnerving minutes, then turn and walk away, never to be seen or heard from again. This is what she is good at.

So, we catch her off guard. This is not as tricky as it sounds. Faye and 'on guard' are passing acquaintances at best. Which makes you wonder how she's managed to stay alive for so long. In this particular instance, we are assisted by a respectable amount of Belgian beer. Duvel, to be more precise, not coincidentally named after the Dutch word for 'devil'. It can easily convince the untrained stomach that it has horns and a long swishing pointy tail.

Joe had just refreshed her drink and eyed her sceptically, trying to decide whether or not to cut her off. He made up his mind that, for the time being, he would not, due mostly to the slim chance that anyone else was going to rid him of his supply of assorted Belgian beers that he had stocked up on a whim three months ago, and partly to her seeming quite harmless, as far as lonely heavy drinkers go, which is usually downhill, fast.

"Your good is beer," she said, fixing him unsteadily.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Um, hang on, that sounded different in my head. Beer. Good. That's the gist."

"Ah," said Joe, "that's nice," and sweetly slid a small bowl of peanuts her way. She was looking at it and muttering something below her breath, when quite suddenly she cringed as if hearing nails drawn across a blackboard.

"Hi," Joe heard behind him, and turned around to greet MacLeod, fresh-cheeked and damp from the downpour outside. "Some decent Scottish-like weather out there," the Highlander remarked, while scanning the room suspiciously.

They raised their eyebrows at each other in a telling way and Joe furtively thumbed over his shoulder at Faye. MacLeod's frown deepened as he spotted her. People often frown when faced with Faye. The sight more or less demands it. She was trying to pull the hood of her death-by-yellow oilskin abomination of a coat – for some unaccountable reason never taken off – over her face while muttering some more. The result looked something like a primeval canary in a stubborn mood.

The glass of Duvel disappeared under the hood, came out empty, followed by a distressingly moist-sounding belch, and suddenly everything happened at once. Joe moved to take it away and ask if it needed a refill when, with a move like a striking rattlesnake, her hand shot out and grabbed him by the wrist. He was dragged out of his per usual already precarious balance and fell heavily against the bar. The glass was shoved to the floor and shattered in the process, but never mind that, Joe had more Duvel glasses than he was likely to ever need. MacLeod jumped, toppled the person sitting next to him off his barstool. By the time he reached Faye and Joe, she had already released his wrist, having seen what she needed.

"Oh, bugger," said the hood.

All eyes in the place were, erringly, on MacLeod. He grinned wretchedly, picked his bewildered neighbour up off the floor and tried to settle him on his stool, patting him soothingly on the back. It took three tries and the offer to buy him a few beers. Meanwhile, Joe had his legs back under him, more or less, and Faye was trying to figure out how to get off her stool without hurting herself.

"Show's over, people, nothing to see here," said MacLeod, before intercepting Faye halfway down the stool. Of course, they didn't believe him and kept watching with mounting interest of the sort that compels people to drive very slowly and with morbid fascination past a recent pile-up on the freeway. Or, less spectacularly, the sort that lets fellows like Jerry Springer stay in business. Humans are a warped species of pack animal, and therefore very prone to this sort of thing.

MacLeod had Faye by the – for lack of anything better to grab a hold of – back of the oilskin and whispered sharply into the hood, "where do you think you're going? We need to talk."

"Razza hell fazza do," replied the hood.

"Pardon?"

The hood went down and two eyes like runny eggs sunny-side up – if egg yolk were grey, with a touch of muddled pea-green – glared up at him. "Like hell we do. I'm leaving."

MacLeod opened his mouth to reassert his request when a fierce tug ripped slick yellow plastic from his fingers. Someone was just at this moment opening the door from the outside, and Faye shouldered her way through, nudging an already soaking wet and rather bewildered Methos ass first into a convenient puddle in front of the door. As you'll always find, this puddle, and only this puddle out of the entire flooding parking lot, was at least ankle-deep and topped with a nice shiny layer of motor oil leakage.

"What the...?" said the ancient one, in the light-hearted tone of those who realize they have just been the victim of something so ridiculously slapstick that it is almost impossible to be really annoyed at it. The door rebounded and was easing itself shut again when MacLeod, in turn, came barrelling through it. Methos was just picking himself up and, incidentally, had his head in exactly the right place at the right time to be hit by it.

The obscenely yellow thing was by now nowhere to be seen. MacLeod grumbled a curse and turned around to spot Methos who was once again splayed in the puddle and looking like something crawling out of the primordial soup. They caught each other's look, and wisely said nothing.