"I told you last night how after the accident, I wasn't able to do anything for myself for 12 years, didn't I?" Louise asked.
"Yes," Methos answered.
"That's 12 years I'll never forget, and I'm sure Kronos won't either. It doesn't seem logical that one such setback could disable me so…but everything I ever did I went through with an evenly balanced, fully working body. Every part of me I had a use for and it all went to what I could do…the day I woke up after the explosion, I just wasn't good for anything. And your brother…" she laughed bitterly, "God take pity on him, the bastard…just about every day he'd have some new bright idea on what to try at an attempt to restore function to my arm…oh he tried everything. He used to go to medical schools and hospitals and watch the doctors perform surgeries and all sorts of new experimental physical therapies on people with paralyzed arms." She shook her head, "Nothing worked…and one day he got what I have to consider to be the dumbest idea he ever had. He bought a bunch of that modeling clay, or plaster…you know, the stuff they make face molds with…and he had to uncurl my fist and he would stick large pieces of that gunk in between each finger and he would leave it at that for hours."
"What on earth for?" Methos asked.
"He thought that the muscles would adapt to being straightened out instead of curled up as they had been for so long and quit balling up when he took it off. Sort of like when you put a weight down on a book that the flap's sticking up…eventually after having the heavy weight press down on it for so long, it returns to its regular position of laying flat. Dumbest idea a person could ever have…and you know it actually worked? He took the stuff off and my hand was straight for the first time in years. But all that time that he had to do everything for both of us…it was awful. I've used many choice words over the years to describe how it was but you really can't explain having to go through all that. Not only was it embarrassing, it was painful, and exhausting, and just plain tired. To this day I don't know why he never just up and left in the middle of the night and get away from it."
"Well," Methos replied, "That's not how Kronos does anything."
"It might've been easier if he had," she told him, "Sometimes I wonder if I made a mistake."
"What do you mean?"
"Shortly after the accident…I considered letting him go his own way and I'd figure things out for myself…but I never said anything to him, because I really didn't know if I could survive on my own, and he always stayed. That right away told me he wasn't too bright…anybody would've taken the first opportunity to get the hell out."
"Except that…"
"I know, I know, your brother isn't anybody, he is he, you think I don't know that? I've had to live with him for over a hundred years, I know exactly what kind of person he is…and I know what he's had to put up with over these past years. Some parts of it weren't so bad, but needing him to dress me every morning. That got old very quickly. Every morning having to fumble with corsets, girdles, slips, petticoats, whalebone hoops, garters, dresses with no buttons but hooks and they had to be hooked up in the back, always in the back. Finally he came to his senses and threw out all that stuff, and started dressing me in his clothes. It saved time and spared us both from plenty of agony." Her eyes looked away and she seemed to drift away as she added, "I'll never forget that period of my life as long as I live."
"I know it's not my place," Methos said, "But I couldn't help but notice the last couple days you've been out here, you seem rather…fed up with Kronos."
She looked back at him and answered, "I love your brother, try to understand that. But it's getting so damn hard to put up with him every day. The problem is that after the explosion, he had to do everything and he never really got over that. Even now he still has trouble accepting the fact that I'm not helpless anymore."
"He can be like that sometimes," Methos told her.
"Yes, but this has been going on for almost a hundred years," she replied, "Sometimes I really am sorry I didn't let him go when I had the chance. Those 12 years that he had to take care of me…it was nice that I didn't have to go through it alone, but I damn near went out of my mind. I wasn't born into royalty, I never knew what it was like to not do anything, from the time I could walk I was always working, always doing something. Anytime he learned of a new idea in the medical world that might work, he tried to get my arm to work again…I just focused on doing anything on my own again."
Kronos stood out in the middle of the yard looking up at the sky. The day and the night had been unusually warm and now the wind was blowing hard. He didn't know what it was but he had a feeling that something was going to happen tonight.
The door opened and he heard Louise call him as she came out. He looked to the front door and saw Louise standing on the porch in her nightgown and with his long duster slipped on over it. Over the last few weeks they both noticed that she was able to move her left arm a bit easier, though she still couldn't do anything with it just yet. He walked up to the porch and asked her, "What're you doing out here? You're supposed to be in bed."
"I was wondering what kept you," she replied.
"Well I'm back now, so get inside and," he reached around her and grabbed the front of the coat and started to slide it off her, "Take this thing off and go back to bed."
"This is…April, right?" Louise asked him.
"All month."
"Why's it so damn hot then?" she asked.
"I don't know," Kronos replied, "Must be going to be an early summer."
He hung up his coat and the two went back to their bedroom. Louise sat down on her side of the bed and laid herself out and drew the sheet up with her good arm. Kronos put out the kerosene lamp and got in beside her. The two gradually fell asleep and became oblivious to the howling screeching wind that was blowing outside.
Louise felt a light in the room shine against her eyelids and she woke up. The room was dark but she could hear the wind continuing to howl outside. She started to lie down again when a flash of lightning lit up the room, and it was then that she realized there was more noise outside than just the wind. Reaching over to the other side of the bed with her right arm, she shook Kronos and told him to get up.
"What is it?" he asked.
"What's that awful noise?" she asked.
"I don't know," he replied as he got out of bed, "It sounds familiar though."
Louise scooted off the bed and went over to the window and opened the shutters and looked out, and she screamed.
"It's a tornado!"
Kronos ran over to the window and when the lightning struck again, he saw it too. It was a large, thick, black funnel tornado on the ground and it appeared to be heading their way. He grabbed Louise and pulled her away from the window. As Louise started to ask him what they were going to do because they had no cellar to vacate to, the strong winds picked up and blew a rain barrel in through the window and hit Kronos in the back of the head and knocked him out. He fell to the floor and pinned Louise, her bad arm included, underneath him. Louise tried to push him off of her but he was too heavy when she wasn't able to use her full body weight against him. The noise of the tornado grew louder and the winds blew harder, and Louise lay as still and as flat against the floor as she could and started praying that the tornado wouldn't hit them.
When Kronos woke up, it was morning and the storm had passed. He wasn't fully awake yet and was only half aware of Louise crying. He knew she was right beside him but he didn't see her just yet.
"Louise, what's wrong?" he asked.
Hers was a pained response as she answered, "You're on my arm!"
With that, he immediately pulled away and sat up. "Louise, I'm sorry!"
She grunted as she drew her left arm up and put her fist against her forehead as she recollected the eight hours she spent pinned beneath him.
"Louise!"
"What?"
"Your arm!"
Louise looked and realized she had been able to pull it above her head for the first time in 12 years.
"Oh my God," she said.
She tried to wiggle her fingers but they barely moved at all.
"I can't move my hand very well…but the feeling's starting to come back in my arm."
"It must just take time to recover," Kronos said.
"12 years, I'd say it damn well takes a long time, oh but this is wonderful," she said as she got up, "At least one good thing came out of that tornado."
"What hit me last night?" Kronos asked.
"I don't know," Louise replied, "I just saw something big get blown into the room and then next thing I knew, we were both on the floor," she said, "I was never so terrified in my life. I thought for sure that cyclone would come this way and snatch us both up."
"Whatever it was," he replied, "It must have hit me pretty hard if it was eight hours like you said."
"I counted every minute of it, believe me, it was. Kronos."
"Hmm?"
"Let's get out of here, I don't want to be here anymore," she said.
"Louise, it doesn't matter where we go, they still have tornadoes anywhere we could go."
"I know, but I just don't want to stay here anymore, do you understand?" Louise asked.
"I think so," Kronos replied, "We'll get everything of ours that's not broken and we'll get out of here."
There wasn't anything Kronos could say at that time that could make Louise any happier than she was when he said that. She ran over to him, jumped on him and swung her arms around his back and held on as she kissed him. He put her down and said, "Don't get so excited just yet, we have to get out of here first."
"How?" Louise asked, "How will we get out?"
"If that thing didn't get down to the railroad tracks, we'll hop on the next train leaving town," Kronos told her.
There weren't many of their belongings left that were in one piece; most of their stuff had blown away during the storm and much of what was left was ruined. Kronos dressed in the one suit he had left and Louise put his coat on over her nightgown as she had no clothes left. Kronos went over to the bed, opened a hidden compartment in the headboard, removed a handful of 50 dollar notes; the last of his more recent bank holdup.
"How much do we still have?" Louise asked.
"Enough," he replied, "Come on."
He grabbed her by the sleeve of his coat and they walked out of their house for the last time. They had to walk through and jump over an obstacle course of everything the storm had blown through during the night. The town they had lived in for the last 15 years was no longer recognizable by any standards. Homes were destroyed; people were dead, glass crunched beneath their feet as they stepped over the things that had been blown out of the windows. As they made it halfway between their home and the train tracks, they passed by the remains of a clothing store; the panes of glass smashed and half the inventory hanging out the windows. Kronos got an idea and headed over there with Louise right behind him, demanding to know what was going through his head now.
Shoving the door in, Kronos stepped over the broken furniture and started digging through a pile of discarded coats and furs that were on the floor.
"What in the hell are you looking for?" Louise asked.
It was at that moment that he found it and picked up a long fox fur coat.
"Take my coat off and put this on," he told her.
Not sure why she was humoring him, Louise did as she was told. The coat was too big and the sleeves were too long; given the everlasting condition of her left arm, it was exactly what she needed.
"Now what?" she asked.
"Now we get to the train."
"Back to Texas," Louise said as they got off the train and took in their surroundings, "You're not too imaginative, are you?"
"You just said you wanted to get out," Kronos said, "You don't want to stay here, fine, we'll find out where the train here is going and we'll get on it."
"Oh never mind, we're already here, we might as well make the best of it," she replied as they started walking, "Now we have to start all over again and get another house, more furniture, new clothes, make up new names and life stories."
"You remember what it says in Ecclesiastics," Kronos told her.
"There's nothing new under the sun," they both answered.
"And when," she said as she turned to him, "Did you ever read the Bible?"
Half of his mouth crept upward in a demented smile as he answered, "You'd be surprised what all I've done in my time."
Louise guffawed as she said to him, "Ain't nothing you can do to surprise me, you never could. I've always known you better than you know yourself. That's why it works the two of us being together. Although, I suppose it'll work, us coming back here. It has to have been long enough nobody would recognize you."
"And definitely nobody is going to recognize this," Kronos said as he grabbed a handful of the fox fur, "You forget when we left Texas you were wearing my coat because you didn't have any other clothes."
"And we returned to Texas in the same situation," she replied, "But Kronos, we have spent the last 20 years chased by I don't know how many lynch mobs and lawmen, this time, try not to get the famous Texas Rangers and their friends involved."
With a snort, Kronos responded, "You leave their friends to me."
"Still a few old scores to settle," Louise commented as she hiked up her nightgown and kicked him, "You never could do anything right, could you? Couldn't just finish that bastard off and be done with it. No, you had to wind up getting shot for the 20th time and buried yet again. And who had to come and dig you up when everybody wasn't looking?"
"Louise," Kronos said to her in a warning tone, "If we have to go through this again, I swear to you I'm walking into the next tornado we see."
"Kronos," she replied in a tone to match his, "If I have to go through this again, you won't have to walk, I'll push you."
"Your brother and I never did get along too well, but we always managed to survive one another," Louise told Methos, "And all in all I don't think we've done so badly."
"It still blows my mind that you two were married for so long and Kronos never said anything," Methos said.
"Well you know your brother, he doesn't like others keeping secrets from him but he does fancy keeping his own," Louise said.
"Yes but I still can't figure out why he would want to keep this from his own family."
"Your guess is as good as mine, though I suspect it's because he's embarrassed of me," Louise said, "After my little accident I was for quite some time what you might call 'damaged goods', and I still am."
"Surely you don't think…" Methos started to say, but was cut off.
"Your brother is not a man of vanity, this I know. However, Methos, you do have to admit there's quite a world of difference of having a six inch scar running down your face and this," Louise held up her arm, "What he has, you can explain…I can never explain this, not to anybody. Don't think it's my idea of a good time to bundle up in black gloves and furs in 85 degree weather. Oh no, that is your ingenious brother's idea. Don't misunderstand, I couldn't care less if you all knew, I'm holding it over his head right now…but I won't. For some reason it means so much to him that nobody find this out, you'd almost think he was the one deformed instead of me, but..."
"But why does it matter?" Methos asked, "And why would it to him especially?"
"I don't know," Louise said, "I've tried figuring that out. The only thing I can think of is we've kept it a secret from the whole bloody world for so long now; perhaps it's just a habit hard for him to break. He can be stubborn like that, you know."
"I know," Methos replied, "I've put up with him off and on for four thousand years, believe me I know."
"And how, I ask," Louise said, "Have you managed not to take his head yet?"
"I never wanted it," Methos answered.
"Neither do I," Louise replied, "But that doesn't stop me from thinking about it. Oh, of course I would never do it…but you know, divorce just wouldn't be enough to finally be rid of that pest. He gets on my nerves so much lately I'm amazed myself that I haven't broken his neck yet."
"I have no doubt that you could," Methos told her, "From the moment I saw you it was very obvious."
"What was?"
"That Kronos found and married a woman who was like himself," Methos answered.
And it was in the moment that he said that, that it came to him again. He knew that he had seen this woman somewhere before, but he couldn't figure out where. But he felt he was so close to the answer, it was only a matter of time before he found it.
"Some might call that narcissism in its severest form," Louise said, "Except that half the time your brother can't even stand himself."
Methos nodded, "I know that too."
"Also," Louise told him, "There is one big difference in him and myself. Though to be perfectly honest it's not exactly us wherein lies the difference. You see, your brother, he's a man and man has two heads, and usually he thinks with the wrong one. But that's beside the point…men, they storm off into battle and they prepare to slaughter many, and what's the end result? Most of them come back to be buried. Now, women are smarter in this area because we don't go charging off screaming like a bunch of idiots…oh no, women will sit and be idle and calm and they will just think. They'll sit and they'll think for a long time and if it's called for they'll lay awake nights too until they've figured out the perfect plan. Then we act on it, and few of us are ever caught or held accountable. Which is why," she concluded, "I've spent the last 100 years digging up your brother from a grave 40 times, instead of him unearthing me. Men want to get away with murder, but it's usually the women who usually do…not quite as flashy as the men would do it but their victims aren't any less dead when it's all done."
"You don't say," Methos said, not sure if he should laugh or worry.
"Oh yes, that's the secret. Men like to think they know what's going on, but their wives know more than they ever will; which is why your brother is still somewhat happily married, because he is blissfully unaware of what goes through my head most of the time."
"No offense but that just seems to add to the theory of he married somebody exactly like himself," Methos told her.
"I keep wondering," Louise said as she looked to the windows, "When his time comes, who will it be to make the killing strike? Me, another Immortal, or himself? It's rather unnerving when you look at your marriage in that perspective of will you kill your husband first, or will he beat you to the punch and do it himself?"
"You really think Kronos has it in him to do a thing like that?" Methos asked.
Louise looked back at him with full amazement in her eyes and asked, "Don't you?"
Methos had no answer.
"It'll be getting light out soon," she said as she got up, "I better get back before he wakes up and finds out I'm still gone. There's already too many dangerous ideas floating around in his head, I don't need him coming up with anymore where I'm concerned."
As she went up for what was left of the night, Methos closed his eyes for a moment and yawned. This was getting to be exhausting and he was still as confused now as he was when this whole mess first started.
He didn't remember falling asleep, but the next thing he knew, the sun was shining into the living room and Caspian had come down the stairs and into the room.
"What's the matter with you?" he asked.
"Now I know how King Shahryer felt listening to Scheherazade every night," Methos commented.
"What?"
"Nothing, where's Kronos?" Methos asked.
"I haven't seen him," Caspian answered, "Why?"
"No reason," Methos replied, "Caspian, didn't you say that around the turn of the century you had a job in the boiler deck of a steamboat?"
He had to stop and think. "I suppose so, why?"
"What happened? I mean why did you quit?"
"I didn't quit, the boiler exploded," Caspian replied.
"Right, and what happened to the people on the boat?"
He had to think about that too. "Most of them were killed in the initial blast, it was a small boat."
"Right, but what happened to them?"
"What do you think happened? They were blown apart, body parts flying all over the boiler deck, arms over here, heads rolling down there…and the ones that weren't blown up fell overboard either from the quake of the explosion or from panic, and those who were the latter drowned."
"When it blew up," Methos said, "Was anybody trapped in the room? I mean when the boiler exploded and it broke apart, did it fall on anybody?"
"It all happened so fast you couldn't tell what was going on at the time," Caspian responded, "A couple were though, I think…"
"And…nobody pulled them out from under it, did they?"
"They were either dead or almost there, nobody who wanted to stay alive saw much point in it," Caspian replied, "As for me, the blast threw me out of the room and knocked me against the deck's railing so hard it cracked my skull. Why?"
"No reason," Methos shook his head, "Except, I can't help but wonder if those people trapped in the boiler room had been pulled out from it all, what their bodies would have looked like."
"Burnt to a cinder most likely," Caspian answered, "It doesn't matter now, they're all dead, and they've been dead for over 100 years, and even if they hadn't been blown up they probably would've died soon after anyway. So what difference does it make to anybody now?"
Methos said nothing and only nodded in agreement.
"What're you doing down here anyway?" Caspian asked.
"I couldn't sleep," Methos replied, "I've had a lot to think about lately."
And right now he was thinking about something else Louise had told him before she had gone up for the night. About how women would sit idle and lay awake nights planning to kill someone. These last few nights that she had stayed up with him, Methos knew was just the tip of the iceberg. He couldn't prove it but he knew that Louise had been going without much sleep for quite some time; and it was starting to show, and it wouldn't be long before Kronos noticed it too. He couldn't help but wonder; whose demise was she staying up nights to plan out?
At about half past nine, Methos saw Kronos coming down the stairs and he also noted that his brother was alone.
"Where's Louise?"
"She said she wanted to go into town and get something. She didn't say what, and I've been married to her long enough to know not to ask."
"How long ago was that?" Methos asked.
"Half an hour ago, why?" Kronos asked.
Methos didn't say what was really going through his mind and only responded, "I didn't see her come downstairs."
"You must've just missed her, I saw her leave," Kronos insisted.
"Well…it's about an hour's drive to town and back," Methos said.
"Not the way we drive," Kronos told him.
Methos nodded, "True."
He looked back to the windows and noticed that it was getting dark out.
"Looks like it's going to rain," he said, "I hope Louise gets back before the storm hits."
"She'll be alright," Kronos replied, "She's a tough bird."
"Is that why you married her?" Methos asked.
Kronos didn't say anything for a minute and he refused to make eye contact with his brother. With a knowing smirk on his face he answered, "That might be part of it."
"What's the other part?"
"I love her."
"How did the two of you meet?"
"That was a long time ago," Kronos said, "Let's see…I was in Texas in…1857, and Louise was working in a saloon as a…" he smiled as the memory came back to him and he changed his original answer, "Well she worked there for a while, but the night after we met, we both left when the Texas Rangers came looking for me."
"You never knew how to stay out of trouble, did you?" Methos asked.
"Not really. After we left, we held up a bank and hopped on a train heading for California. Not too long after we settled there, we got married."
"I can just imagine," Methos said, "She probably dragged you by the ear all the way to the church."
"No, actually it was my idea," Kronos replied, "I figured if we were married I could keep a better eye on her and she wouldn't get us into so much trouble. And boy was the joke on me. It seemed we got in even deeper after we married."
Methos was cautious not to accidentally bring up anything Louise had told him and not Kronos. "And…did you stay in California long?"
"Nope, there was always somebody coming after us, fortunately none of them were ever any Immortals. We went back and forth for a good number of years, first California, then Mississippi, then the Arizona Territory, then Louisiana…"
"And eventually back to Texas," Methos guessed.
"More than once. The first time we went back there, it wasn't long before the Texas Rangers came for me again, and they'd brought a friend."
"An Immortal?"
"First one I'd encountered beside Louise in 15 years. And if I ever see him again…"
"Who was it, do you know?" Methos asked.
"Duncan MacLeod as my memory recalls."
Methos said nothing and tried not to look as if he knew anything about that.
"I guess it must've been about 20 years before we went back to Texas after that," Kronos told him, "We probably never would have returned except a tornado blew through our home in Alabama and Louise wouldn't stay still for anything after that. So we hopped on the first train heading out of state and when we got off, we were back in Texas."
"That's a long way to go just because of a tornado," Methos noted.
"Actually, we stopped in Louisiana first and tried settling down there. But something happened during that time that neither one of us wanted much to stay afterwards."
That struck a nerve of curiosity in Methos. "What happened?"
Louise had gradually been getting some use back into her left arm and had insisted she could look after herself again and there was no need for him to sit around the house all day with her. Kronos was hesitant at first but he knew she was right. And that had been where the whole mess had started that he found her out in the front yard, half alive and bloody. Even though she had recovered by the next day, he refused to leave her alone after that for three weeks.
"You're just being childish," she had told him one night.
"I am?" Kronos asked.
"Yes, you think because one bad thing happens to me that if we're not joined to the hip it'll happen again."
"Louise, when I found you, you didn't wake up for over 12 hours, I don't want to take a chance on you losing your head next time."
"That's not going to happen and you know it," she responded, "Kronos, I appreciate your concern but you're not doing either one of us any favors. If we have to spend another day together like this I think we're both going to kill each other. Or at the very least, I'll kill you. Mankind was meant to marry and be together, but not like this. You need to get out of here and find something to do. I know you too well. If you're not busy with something, you get bored and then you get into trouble. You need to get out of the house and do something that'll keep your mind, and your hands occupied. If you stay here with me all day, before long you'll go crazy."
Kronos said nothing in response and still didn't like the idea of leaving her alone. Louise less than subtly sat on his lap and put her arm around him and said to him, "Nothing's going to happen to me. You can't protect me forever, Kronos, I've taken care of myself for over four thousand years without anybody's help."
"I know that, Louise, but things are different now."
"Not so much…a few more years and I'll be able to do everything I used to, but it doesn't do me much good you trying to coddle me all the time. Nothing bad is going to happen to me, Kronos, you have to believe that."
"I want to," he replied.
"Then do, and tomorrow morning, leave me alone and go find something to do."
Morning came and against his better judgment, he left her alone for the day. When he returned at night it was with great relief that he found she was alright. For the next few weeks he'd leave in the morning to work, return home at night and find everything was fine. It was when he finally started to relax and think Louise was right and that nothing bad was going to happen that things took another turn.
Louise had been in the kitchen for hours working on dinner for when Kronos got home, which would be soon. It would be a while before she had to worry about anything burning so she decided to go into the front room, lay down and get off her feet for a while. It was still getting dark early and it wouldn't be long before the sun was completely down. After a few minutes of trying to relax, Louise heard something through the window. It sounded like somebody was outside, but it wasn't time for Kronos to return yet and they never had any visitors.
Not saying anything and acting very calmly, Louise got up from the couch, went over to the rack where Kronos hanged his extra coat, reached into it and took a pistol out of one of the pockets. She cocked the hammer back and very slowly and quietly made her way to the front door and slipped outside. Looking around, she saw a man trying to sneak around to the side of the house; Louise noticed that he wasn't Immortal, so she stepped off the front porch and stalked behind him and decided to have a little fun.
It was at this time that Kronos was returning home from work at the blacksmith's. He was exhausted and just wanted to eat, get drunk and go to bed. As he neared home he heard the unmistakable noise of a gunshot and he knew immediately where it had come from; and as he ran he only prayed that the right person got shot.
"Louise!"
She stood by the side of the house, looking very unaffected by the sight of the dead man laying on the ground with the blood pouring out from the back of his head. When Kronos got close to her he grabbed her up in his arms to make sure she was alright. As he looked her over he felt something press below his stomach. He pulled away and saw she still held the gun that had killed the man; almost as if she wasn't even aware of what she'd done.
"Louise, is this the man who attacked you?"
She never answered him, all she said in response was, "It's over."