Disclaimer: Highlander belongs to Davis/Panzer. They are being borrowed and returned hopefully in about the same shape they were taken in. Jeff, Emmy, and just about everyone else, belong to me. You can use them if you like, just return them please.

Chapter 28

Jeff entered his apartment at 9:46. He looked at the clock and then sighed. Tonight he was cheating. There was no way he was going to study for the GRE. He was taking a long, hot shower, and going to bed. No more thinking tonight, just a comfortable bed and some good sleep. He had slept at his desk last night. He was not doing it again tonight. He was just taking off his shirt when his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID, it was Rick. Answering, he asked "What?" with exasperation.

"Hi, good to hear from you too," Rick began.

Jeff cut him off. "Dude, I'm not up for it. I just drove an hour and a half to and from Miami, had to talk with Daniel Goodman, and search through twenty-five different Immortal files, and I've still only narrowed it down to ten for you. I couldn't get a cross reference with Marcus for any of them. Which could be 'cause of my access, or it could be because the chronicles aren't always kept well. Either way, I'm tired, I'm grumpy and I just want to get some sleep. Oh, and doing this has kept me away from one more day of studying for the GRE." Jeff did not usually vent. He felt that girls vented and guys dealt with stuff, but he was tired. More importantly, he was tired of Rick for the day.

"Okay, I get it. I'm just calling to find out if you have a current passport."

"It's a mandatory requirement for being a Watcher that you have a passport at all times, why?"

"Because once this whole mess with Marcus and the two mystery Immortals has been taken care of, we're heading to Paris."

"Great, just what I wanted to hear," Jeff replied and he hung up the phone.

He lay staring at the ceiling. He had woken up about an hour ago with no desire to get out of bed. Getting up meant he had to deal with Rick, and probably Emmy as well. It also meant having to explain about last night, and Jeff was not sure he wanted to talk about it yet. He was not sure what was going on himself, right now. Somewhere in the last four years, he had lost track of his life. He had become, in a sense, almost exactly like his Immortal. He had stopped worrying about time, about the future, and just started living. Now he thought maybe that was a mistake. Here he was, four years later. He had a bachelor's degree in communications, a minor in photography, and now his career seemed to be taking him places. Only he was not sure that was what he wanted to do. Why was he studying for the stupid GRE anyway? Ms. Green had picked him out, probably randomly from a hat, to be her successor, and now he was jumping fences? He looked at the clock; it read 6:00 AM. He yawned, stretched, and headed to the bathroom to jump into the shower. He was out and dressed ten minutes later. He grabbed his camera and car keys and headed out the door.

Three hours later, he was staring at a full memory card of pictures. He had forgotten how much he loved just taking pictures. It has always been his thing to just go out and take pictures. Some people got their stress out by writing journals, others listened to music, and Jeff took pictures. This is what he wanted to do. He wanted... no, he needed to change his lifestyle, and soon.

For the first couple of years of college, while he had been working with Rick, he had been a freelance photographer for many of the papers in the area. He even sold a few of his shots to some papers in Miami. Then student loans had started to pile up and he needed a steady income, so he became a regular camera man and somewhat of a reporter for the local paper. It paid well. He kind of set his own schedule, and had a really steady income. It was only Rick's sudden desire to fly to Paris that had shaken him from his little hole in the ground. He had spent the last few years working a job. A job he could not stand sometimes, and that in his opinion did not pay enough. That was not what he wanted. He wanted a career. He wanted something he would enjoy doing every day. He knew the difference. A job was something you did to get paid. A career was something you did because you liked to do it.

It was time that he really did follow in the footsteps of his Immortal friend, and chased something he was passionate about. He looked over at his car, and suddenly flying to Paris did not seem like such a bad thing. He knew that he would be spending a lot of time in Paris taking pictures. It was time to re-center his life.

"Jeff," growled Editor-in-Chief Green, whom Jeff referred to, in his head and outside the office only, as the Dragon Lady. "Where have you been all day? Press wants a longer article about this arms deal. They want to fill a page with it."

Jeff shrugged his shoulders, "That's not my problem. The article's complete."

Her eyes narrowed. "The article is complete when I say it's complete."

Jeff crossed his arms and stared her down. "Only in your dreams. The only reason I'm here today is to tell you I quit."

"You can't quit, you're our best photographer." She looked positively shocked.

Jeff shrugged stubbornly, "Should have thought of that before you started trying to turn me into your newest reporter. I like to take pictures; I don't like to write about them." He started to head toward the exit, knowing it was for the last time, and turned as he was going out. "Have a nice day," he offered with a cheesy smile and breezed out of the door.