Rebels and Russians

Sequel to "The Russian Prince." It can probably stand on its own, but some of the back references won't make much sense without reading the first story...well...first. Familiar characters still aren't mine. Connor and Duncan belong to the Highlander people, Reggie Bartlett, the Jacobsens, and the state of the world belong to Harry Turtledove. (though his fate belongs to me)

As with before, dialogue contained in - - is spoken in the original language of the speaker. That means Russian for Karolek and Gaelic for Connor. :)

Chapter 1: Arrival in New York

Penn Station New York City

April 2, 1936

Penn Station, he decided, was a perfect microcosm for New York City as a whole. It was smoky and entirely too crowded, with people rushing madly in every direction and often talking loudly at one another in a cacophony of languages. It all lead to the inevitable conclusion.

Karolek Romanov had been spending too long in cities.

The Russian-born Immortal sighed heavily at the prospect of spending yet more time in New York. While Connor seemed to thrive on the place, Karolek hated it with a passion. He couldn't remember anything good ever having happened to him here, and he still had some horrid memories of winters spent with George Washington, looking for a way to unseat the British from the city. The city was also some sort of Immortal beacon, right up there with Paris, and Challenges were nearly unavoidable. Not a thrilling prospect for a man who'd been doing a great deal of fighting of late. Yes, it could be safely said that Karolek was not a fan of New York City.

"-So the question remains, self. What exactly are you doing here?-" The intrusion of an all too familiar sensation on his thoughts, followed by a cheerful shout of his name brought him back to reality. "Oh yeah..."

Impatiently, Connor MacLeod called out to his friend again. "Karolek!" Satisfied that the impertinent former prince was looking in his direction, he made a motion with his arms that all too clearly said "Hurry up."

Laughing to himself at Connor's obvious annoyance, Karolek made a great show of collecting his suitcase before bending down and even more deliberately reaching for the long case which held the sword he'd so recently taken from Jacob Book. Before his hand could get there, another shot in front of him and snatched the case from the ground.

"You're a pain, you know that Romanov? A royal pain." Connor chuckled at his pun, while Karolek simply groaned. Loudly.

"I've been told once or twice. So sue me. I hate trains. Whatever happened to horses? At least a horse has a personality. You can talk to a horse. Trains are noisy and gritty and they smell."

"A fact which I notice does not stop you from using them." The Highlander pointed out, making for the exit "You sound old, Karo."

Karolek shrugged. "I am old." He pointed out. "It's been a long month, Connor. The kind that makes forever seem even longer."

"So your telegram said." The two Immortals walked out into the sunshine, deciding to walk in the semi-warm air rather than trying to hail a cab in the station crush. Well, warm if you did your growing up in Moscow or in the highlands of Scotland, anyway. To the general population of New York, it might well have still been winter. "-Book went down hard, I take it?-"

"-And then some.-" Karolek agreed. "Nowhere near the fighter I remembered him being. Not even the fighter I expected him to be. Two in two days, Connor? Don't recommend it."

Connor looked over at his friend. Karolek looked, to put it quite mildly, like hell. Dark smudges were evident under his eyes. There was a tired air about him that Connor didn't remember seeing on the Russian since Sabine had been killed and he'd fought ben Saul 70 years ago. The ironic, occasionally obnoxious personality, that he'd so briefly glimpsed on the station floor seemed gone. Were he not an Immortal, he'd probably look a good deal worse. As it was, he looked every bit of his 417 years. The fight with Book had taken a lot out of him, as had the piggybacked Quickenings, but Connor suspected more than the physical. Washington had done a lot to remind Karolek of the sort of person he'd been 250 years ago...the sort of person the Russian no longer cared to remember he'd ever been. "Noted."

Karolek looked over at Connor, willing the man to understand that the last thing he wanted to do was talk about Book and his fights in Washington. The prince wasn't entirely sure that he'd processed everything that had happened in the two weeks since, and was looking to avoid the general topic of Immortality altogether for the time being.

"You game for going out later tonight?" Connor inquired, walking towards the entrance to the building on his property. "Or worn out from your arduous train journey."

"You jest." Karolek complained. "But I had to sit next to this annoying young woman who kept trying to...to be honest, I don't know WHAT she was trying to do. But I made it very clear that I wasn't interested, and she still kept doing it."

"Oh, the horror of being attractive to the opposite gender." Connor snickered, pulling his keys from the pocket of his overcoat. "You and my kinsman, I swear you get almost all of the good women."

"Hey, I remember a VERY appreciative tavern maid in England during the French Revolution." The Russian complained, continuing, "I thought she and I might have really had something."

"You had nothing. Not even the remotest glimmer of a chance, Karo. That accent of yours scares people at times. Now a good Scottish brogue."

"Which bears no resemblance to anything coming out of your mouth for 50 years or more." Karolek retorted, following his friend into the building. He dropped his bag next to the front door, figuring that by the time he and Connor came back, he'd be lucky to make it to the couch, much less into one of the spare bedrooms.

Connor went to hand Karolek the sword case, but the Russian vigorously shook his head. "No. Put it up in storage for me? Till I can collect it and take it back to Moscow?"

"If you like." Connor agreed. Karolek's often transient nature meant that he had no place to keep things while he was on the American continent. Connor often kept things safe for Karolek, until the Russian could bring them back to his family's palace just outside of Moscow, which the prince still owned. "Mind if I take a look at it?"

"Suit yourself." Karolek consented, shedding his own overcoat and flopping down on one of the armchairs.

Connor snapped open the flat carrying case, revealing a gleaming silver blade and the blued-metal basket of Jacob Book's schiavona. He picked it up and gave it a few experimental moves, testing the weight and balance of the piece. "Tis a good blade, well balanced." Karolek called his agreement. "Are you planning to sell it?"

Karolek pivoted in the chair, hanging his booted feet over one arm and propping his head and shoulders on the other. He brushed some cornsilk hair out of his eyes, fixing pale gray orbs on Connor. "Not sure. It IS a good piece, and there's a fellow at the palace who'd probably take it at a fine price. Then again, Mackenzie's 160th is in two months, she might like it as a present."

"She'd not start using it." Connor pointed out. "She'll use the piece her father made for her until she dies, or it breaks, whichever comes first." The first of Karolek's untrained students and the Georgian-born daughter of an Irish blacksmith had always had an eye for swords. Even before she'd become Immortal, even before both Karolek and Connor had done some training with her, she'd been fascinated by them. "There's also the small matter of her being in Jamaica. I don't think the Rebs or the British enjoy having people ship arms into what they think are their islands."

"True enough." Karolek agreed. "But she might like it all the same. And if she doesn't...it's a hard won sword, Connor. Just put it away somewhere." He sighed, rolled off the chair, and made for the spare bedroom. The door closed behind him with a very final click.

Silently, Connor packed the schiavona away in the case and locked it shut. The case went on a shelf in the large storage room at the back of the building, until Karolek decided what he wanted to do with it. Coming back into the room, he looked steadily at the closed door of his spare room. 'And he claims Scots do all the brooding.'

~~~~~~~~

"It's not that the football game wasn't enjoyable, Connor," the Russian groused, glaring at his friend, "but must you keep gloating that the New York team beat the Washington Barrels?"

"Why not?" Connor laughed. "My team won."

"GAAAH." Karolek yelled. "Washington is NOT my team, Scottish dunce! I am not FROM Washington. I do not ROOT for Washington. I don't even LIKE football."

"I know. I just wanted to see how long it would take before I got you good and angry."

"You, mi compadre, are a pain in the ass."

"I've been told." Connor laughed again. "Come on, a few beers. Loosen yourself up. Stop thinking so damned much. That's the problem with you educated chess-playing types. You overthink everything, and it's bloody depressing."

Incredulously, Karolek asked, "This from the great brooding champion of our times?"

"Duncan's not here."

Groaning again, Karolek dropped his head to the table while Connor disappeared from the table to grab the first round. Tilting his head to the side, he began to size up the hole-in-the-wall that Connor had dragged him into, near the new football stadium. It was dark and crowded, with a lower level in addition to the street-level that the Immortals were sitting in. The bar, which had no name that he was aware of, was filled with men and older boys in working class clothes, a few low-level clerks and business workers mixed in for good measure. In the din of the bar, he could make out conversations taking place in English, Italian, Yiddish, Russian, and a few others in mixed-up combinations of one or more languages that he could barely follow. Most of the patrons had come from the football game, and with New York having won, were in good sprits. There were worse reasons, he supposed, to hoist a few. Lord knew he was working through more than his fair share.

Damn it! Even though the bastard was dead, he couldn't get away from Book. It had nothing to do with the man's Quickening, which had been annoying enough to process. He'd taken the glares and disapproving lectures from Nellie Jacobsen for a day, allowing her to think he was drunk. For the two after the Inauguration, he really had been. No, Book's essence had left him alone. His ghost, however, was much harder to get rid of. The nightmares kept coming...the Challenges kept coming. No matter what he did, what his name, or where he went, they always seemed to find him.

A flash of light across his eyes, pressure at the base of his skull, and a humming sensation in his ears. Another Immortal. He glanced back in the direction that Connor had disappeared. The Highlander was still in the crush at the bar, paying the bartender and waiting for his change. He was out of Karolek's range, and hadn't noticed the sensation of the new arrival. So the newbie was probably just that, and was on the lower level of the bar.

Slowly, Karolek pushed his chair back and stood, under the guise of stretching out some of the cramps in his back. His metal-gray eyes began to survey the room, looking for the likely suspect to be the newly arrived Immortal. No one else seemed to be obviously scanning the room.

Connor, arriving with their drinks, noticed Karolek's alert posture. The sensation of a third Immortal washed over him, and he joined the Russian in the search. Pointing to a tall, gangly man with dark hair, dressed in jeans and a long coat, he suggested, "That one, in the corner."

"Nyet."

"And why not?" Connor argued.

"Because it's that one." The Highlander followed Karolek's pointed finger to a small table nestled into the corner by the stairs which allowed patrons to move between the street level and the lower level. The man that Karolek had fixed on was sitting alone, pushed as far back into the corner as he could possibly get, arms resting on the table.

"How do you figure?"

Biting his lip for a moment, Karolek explained, "He looked pained when he sat down, but I thought maybe he was just a Barrels fan." Connor chuckled. "Until you came up. Now he's pinching the bridge of his nose like he's trying to ward off a headache. Tell me that's not how you reacted before you knew what an Immortal felt like and got used to it." The Scot made no such admission. Instead, he caught the sleeve of Karolek's coat as the Russian pushed past him towards the stairs.

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

"To investigate, of course."

"I thought you had sworn off fighting for a while."

The Russian grinned his first honest grin since he'd arrived in New York. "Said nothing about fighting. Investigating. We must work on your listening skills, MacLeod." Connor responded with a rude gesture. "That fellow look like he's in any position to fight anyone? If he's putting one on, he's the best actor I've seen among us in a long time. He's no Martins. If he's not what he seems, YOU fight him and I'll run away." He slipped from Connor's grasp and descended to the main floor, leaving a deeply disgruntled Scot in his wake.

He moved easily through the crowd, carefully protecting the sword tucked into the left side of his coat. While not exceptionally tall or burly, there was an air of menace about him that prompted even the biggest coal- shovelers to move out of his way. Perhaps it was the half-deadened look in his gray eyes. Maybe it was the confidence in the way he carried himself. Maybe it was the ponytail and the black clothes. None of the New Yorkers could have said why they darted out of his way, nor would they have been able to pick him out of a lineup. For an Immortal, a god-sent gift.

Karolek slid noiselessly into the seat across from the brunet stranger. The man continued to rub the bridge of his nose, not even recognizing the presence that was now sitting at his table. After studying the other Immortal for a moment, Karolek decided that he was right. This guy was young. Probably no older than 30 or 35, physically, which was older than both Karolek and Connor. Yet since he hadn't even looked up as the Russian's presence increased, Karolek was willing to bet most of his fortune that the man hadn't met many other Immortals, if any at all, and hadn't the first clue what he was.

"Hello."

The man looked up, dropping his hand but blinking hard against the continued buzzing in his head. Someone sitting down to have a conversation with him. Joy. Not only did he have this newly developed killer headache to deal with, he had to hide his accent, too. "Hi. Not much for talking, ok?"

"Right." Karolek agreed, trying to sound upbeat and agreeable. He folded his arms and leaned against the table, studying the other man. His brown hair was short, but combed neatly back from his face. Brown eyes reflected a sense of physical and emotional pain that Karolek was more than familiar with. He lowered his voice and leaned closer to the man. "So you're from where.the Carolinas? No, not slow enough to be from there. Further north. Say, Virginia? Richmond?"

The unmasked Confederate blanched sheet white. "H-h-h-how how did you...?" he trailed off, unable to say anymore.

Shrugging, Karolek allowed his faint Russian accent to get a little thicker. "It's a gift." Actually it was a skill he'd picked up over the years, and a very useful one as the world's borders had been divided, rearranged, and fooled with. Sometimes an origin of accent was all a person had to distinguish their nationality...well, that and a fair amount of hatred for their enemies. "So when did it happen?"

"When did what happen?"

"The war?" Karolek pressed. "Or after?"

To a younger eye, the abject fear in the Confederate's face would have gone unnoticed. To a man 400 years old, who had spent most of his life reading the emotions and intentions of others, it was as plain as a verbal declaration. Karolek did give the Rebel credit, he steeled himself pretty well and did try to cover, keeping his voice low to keep the New York crowd from hearing his now unmasked Virginia accent. "I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."

A wolfish grin appeared unbidden on Karolek's young face. "Sure you do. You got shot, or maybe it was stabbed. Could have been shrapnel. You swore you were dying, only then you woke up, and your wound was gone. Poof. Like it was never there. And all of a sudden, you never had another cut or bruise stay around for long."

"Oh my god." The brunet breathed out slowly, trying frantically to process what he'd just heard. This random stranger knew. He KNEW. "Y-y-y-you c-c- can't be serious. How could you...you couldn't...how in God's name c-could you KNOW that?"

"Because the same thing happened to me..." Karolek paused, waiting for the first part of his sentence to sink in. ".in 1540." The look on his face convinced the Virginian that he was most definitely not kidding. "You have a name?"

"Reginald Bartlett. Reggie, for short." The young man replied almost inaudibly. "In 1540? Really?"

"Yes, really. I'm Karolek Romanov." He introduced himself. "And you, Reggie, have got a lot to learn."

"Learn about what?"

"Things I have no intention of talking about in a bar." Karolek said by way of an answer. "Come on."

"Why?"

"Because I'm older and I said so." He stood, gunmetal gray eyes fixed on Reggie until the new Immortal stood as well. Again, Karolek moved through the crowd, repeating his circuit from before. A strong hand brought Reggie along with him, to the table where Connor had been intently watching the conversation. As they walked, Karolek took note of the way that Reggie held his left shoulder, and the slight limp in his walk. He'd been in the war, of that Karolek was sure, and he'd been wounded pretty good while he was there. The look on Connor's face said that he'd noticed the injuries as well. Training would not be easy.

The pair stopped at the table, standing under Connor's watchful gaze. "Reggie, this is Connor MacLeod. He's been around as long as I have. An old friend. Connor, this is Reggie Bartlett."

Connor grimaced slightly at Karolek's easy distribution of is real name. It wasn't information he liked to pass out on a regular basis. Kept the crazies away. But now was not the time to pummel his old friend for his mental laziness. Better to appear like some semblance of a sane person. "Nice to meet you, Reggie."

"Likewise." Reggie replied hesitantly, unsure of the situation. Things had happened so fast over the past few minutes...and his head still hurt like hell. More so, even.

"Connor, we're in need of a long chat with Reggie." He raised an eyebrow and mouthed the words "doesn't know." Connor's eyes widened a fraction, and he nodded ever so slightly. "I think we're going to need someplace more private to talk."

"Sure." Connor stood, pulling his coat around him. "We'll head back." The three Immortals exited the bar and quickly set out for Connor's home.

~~~~~~~

Seated in Connor's comfortable living room, glasses of good scotch in front of them, the elder Immortals began their subtle examination.

Taking the lead he'd already established, Karolek opened with the first question. "When did it happen, Reggie?"

"1925." Came the slow drawl. The two Immortals exchanged wide-eyed looks that Reggie missed. Immortal for 11 years and not a one of them had found him? "I got into a fight with some of the Freedom party goons over some posters. One of them got a hold of my gun. He shot me. I woke up that morning, and there wasn't any wound. I didn't know what to think. I ran back to my apartment, took what little money I had, and ran like hell. South through Mississippi and Alabama, west through Texas. Did some odd- jobbing to keep myself alive. When the Freedom party started getting strong again, I snuck across the border into Houston and did the same thing there and in Colorado and Kansas. I thought it might be safer to hide from them in the US. What if their goons knew I was alive and came looking for me? I was working my way back to New York. It's so big, I thought it would be the perfect place to hide." He laughed, softly and a little bitterly. "I've only been in town a week."

"You have things?"

"Yes." Reggie said. "Some clothes, book. They're back at the motel, the one near the bar."

"We'll go get them later." Karolek promised.

Reggie raised his brown eyes to meet Karolek's pale gray ones. "Karolek?"

"Da, Reggie?"

The Confederate rolled his shoulders, willing away the ache from his old war wound. "What am I? What kind of thing heals like I do? Like you said you both do too? How can you both be 400 years old?"

Connor shrugged his shoulders at Karolek, clearly indicating that this was the Russian's show. He figured that ultimately the prince would either take on Reggie as a student, or maybe connect him with someone who could, like Mackenzie.

"You're an Immortal, Reggie." Karolek replied directly. "That's why you heal up so quickly. It's why you came back to life. And it's why, under the right circumstances, you'll live for a very, very long time."