A/N: Thanks for all the reviews! I even got one pm'd to me in my Talkcsi account. Means a lot to me gang, it really does. Especially as we are nearing the end. I'm getting nervous about whether or not I can do this right. I have it written out, but keep going back to add this or change that...still debating with my betas over whether I need to add an epilogue. I'll give it some thought...

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The two men looked utterly shocked as they walked across the parking lot to their car. "So…..what just happened in there?" Duncan frowned as he and Methos climbed into his Thunderbird. "What happened to my 'great escape? I was supposed to jump off the roof for my theatrical death!"

"They didn't buy you as the killer. That nerdy looking guy that just sat there didn't believe you. I saw how he was watching you. He wasn't buying it for a minute."

"Nerdy looking guy?" Duncan roared with laughter. "You, Pot……Him, Kettle…….Both, Black!"

Methos sent him an annoyed glare and rolled his eyes. "Just drive the damn car, Highlander!"

"Have you looked in the mirror lately? You look as nerdy as that guy did!" Duncan couldn't stop laughing. "The Immortal bookworm had the nerve to call someone else a nerd."

"I'm just saying, you weren't believable as a serial killer." Methos huffed sounding exasperated.

"And? You would have been?" Duncan scoffed.

"MacLeod." Methos suddenly sounded like an irritable parent who had run fresh out of patience. "I've lived for over five thousand years. I've bloody well been one of the Four Horsemen. I am a killer."

"You were." Duncan corrected succulently, growing sober quickly. "In another life you did all that. You are Adam now."

"Methos is a part of me. I was a cold-blooded murderer. It will always be a part of me." Methos argued, shaking his head in disagreement.

"This is ridiculous!" Duncan shook his head, looking back at the building they'd just exited. "I've killed hundreds of men! Why can't I get arrested?"

"Warrick said his boss wasn't easily fooled. I'm guessing that nerdy guy was the brilliant boss. The way he just got up and left the room in the middle of the interview……he just didn't believe it."

"Yeah, the OTHER nerdy guy was the reason they didn't take the bait. The cop liked me for it."

"Next time, you be the lawyer and I'll be the bad guy." Methos declared peevishly.

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Richie squatted beside Greg's body and waited. He was glad Greg already knew what was going on. He didn't like the idea of having to explain all this to a frightened man. Greg had one up on him; he'd been told that he would be an Immortal. Duncan hadn't given him that imperative information until Richie had actually died.

Greg's entire body jerked as if he were a marionette whose strings had all been pulled. Richie moved forward to kneel on his knees, placing a comforting hand on the man's shoulder. "Easy Greg. Don't fight it." He murmured as Greg let out an animal-like sound of pain. Richie knew the intense pain and fear that went through you as your body healed itself and came back to life. The first time was the most severe and painful one.

Brown eyes opened to look into Richie's blue ones. The confusion and pain was so extreme, Richie could almost feel it.

"What happened?" Greg grimaced as he tried to sit up. His voice was raspy and hoarse.

"Hang on. Just lay still Greg. You've just received your first Quickening. It leaves you weak and vulnerable." Richie coached.

Greg lay back down as a wave of nausea overcame him. He looked up at his new friend with concern and bewilderment. "What? What happened?"

"You and I were shot. It was fatal for both of us." Richie grinned at the ability to say something like that.

"Fatal?" Greg repeated softly. Whether it was due to his confusion or that his throat hurt, Richie didn't know.

"Yes. Welcome to the world of Immortality." Using Nick's discarded shirt, Richie wiped at the blood covering Greg's neck. "You are officially dead."

"Nick? Sara?" Greg fought to sit up, looking frantically around him.

"They're both fine. I had Nick get Sara away before you rose from the dead." Richie moved back wiping the blood that had gotten on his hands, onto his jeans. Yet another reason black was a great color.

"Sara……saw me dead?" Greg whimpered, knowing that if Sara had witnessed his death, then there would be no getting around it. He was really and truly dead.

"Yeah, she held you in her arms as you choked to death on your own blood. You are dead. You have to disappear now." Richie explained to him gently. He knew what it was like to leave your life behind. Friends and loved ones would continue on, living life while believing you were dead.

"Sara held me in her arms?" Greg gave a shy smile.

"Yeah, she cried for you too." Richie added, giving the guy a little punch in the arm. "She was real upset."

"Wouldn't you know it." Greg sighed. "I've been chasing her for years and the only time I get any play from her, I'm dead!"

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Nick held onto Sara tightly as he prodded her forward. She kept wanting to go back to where they had left Greg and Richie. He kept hold of her, knowing that they couldn't go back.

Part of him wanted to go back too. His head was spinning from the confliction he felt. He wanted to go back and mourn his friend. He wanted to go back and see if he really was Immortal. Part of him wanted to believe that Greg would be just fine when he saw him next. Who wanted to see his friend die a terrible, senseless death like that?

However, another part, the realistic part, knew that he had felt Richie's pulse. Richie had been dead. Then moments later, Richie was beside him, talking to him. Richie had been dead, just like Warrick had when Duncan had slammed that knife into his chest. They had both been dead and had gotten back up. They were Immortal. Logic told him that what they said was true.

If what they said was, in deed, fact then Greg was not dead. He was most likely sitting up and talking to Richie right now. Nick felt better about that. He was glad the kid wasn't dead.

What he didn't like was the fact that this meant what they said about him was true. He was destined to be immortal too. He didn't want to be an Immortal. To spend the rest of his life struggling to stay alive in a world that was out to get him was not what he wanted to look forward to. To never grow old. To never have children and grandchildren.

No sir, this was not what he wanted in life. He wanted to find a special woman, get married and raise a passel of little Stokes'. He didn't want any more drama in his life than that.

'Just my luck.' Nick thought to himself. 'What else could happen to me? I've had just about everything imaginable happen to me and now the unimaginable was happening to me.'

"I don't understand any of this." Sara whispered in his ear, still sounding like she was crying. Nick had left the flashlight back with Richie and Greg, so he couldn't see her. It was better that way. He didn't think he could handle seeing the sorrow on her face. If Greg was alive, how would he go on, allowing Sara to think otherwise?

"I know what's going on, mostly." Nick replied quietly. "And I don't understand it either."

"This is all so senseless." Sara murmured as they felt their way around a corner.

Suddenly, as if a dark shroud was lifted, the corridor they were in suddenly became light. The brightness of the light was so blinding, Nick raised an arm to shield his sensitive eyes from it. Sara grunted, narrowly avoiding his fast moving elbow as he shoved her back around the corner, following her. "What is it?"

Nick squatted low to the ground, squinting into the painful light as he peered around the corner. "Floodlights."

"Floodlights? Why?"

"So that we can see the bait and walk into the trap." was Nick's heatedly growled reply.

"Bait? Trap?" Sara leaned forward, trying to see what Nick was seeing.

"Catherine is the bait." Nick explained, pointed out the small form in the middle of the spotlight. Catherine lay in a heap on the debris-strewn floor. She was too far away for them to see if she was alive or not, but that didn't matter. They were here for her, and they were going to get her back. "I'm not sure what the trap is, but we need to find out before whoever it is, knows we are here."

"So? What's the plan?" Sara asked. Nick looked at her in surprise. He had no idea what their plan should be. It normally wasn't up to him to come up with the plan. For the most part, he was the follower. Perhaps that was why he was always getting in the tight spots. He followed others into the mess and it all came tumbling down onto him. No, he didn't have a plan. All he knew, was that he had to be the one to take all the risks. He had to do it so Sara could remain safe. Suddenly, the possibility of Immortality didn't seem too bad at the moment.