The three of them had spent the night together. When it got light the next morning, Methos and Kronos got up but Christa remained asleep in the middle of the bed. Kronos, a mischievous glare in his eyes, grabbed the blankets and started pulling them down on her.

"What are you doing?" Methos asked.

Kronos didn't answer and instead pulled the blankets back and saw what Christa looked like in the daylight. It wasn't what he expected and it showed. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened. Christa had been starved for so long that her skin was drawn tight over her body and her bones all stuck out; to say she looked little better than a skeleton would be a gross exaggeration, in truth a skeleton would look better than she did. Methos saw this too and was too disgusted to say anything. Kronos however, had plenty to say and before he left the room he told his brother how sickening it was to see the bag of bones he'd spent the night with.

"Well that went well, didn't it?" Christa asked as she got up.

"He didn't know," Methos said.

When the two of them lived together in the village, it was often commented how alike the two of them looked, but now Christa was so boney that she made Methos look large by any standard.

"We have got to get you out of here," he told her.

"Lots of luck, I've only been saying the same thing for as long as I've been here," she responded as she laid back down and pulled the blankets up.

"The man who showed us in last night," Methos said, "Is he the only one running this inn?"

"Insofar as I can say," she answered.

It was night before Kronos returned, at which point he was so tired he was in no mood to talk, he wanted only to go to bed. He pulled down the blankets and got in next to Christa but she turned over and thrust both her feet at his back, pushing him out.

"What was that for?" he demanded to know.

"This bag of bones isn't spending the night with you," she answered.

"Where were you today?" Methos asked his brother. It was then that he saw the bloodstains on Kronos' clothes and his hands and he realized that Kronos had killed the innkeeper.

Kronos looked up at Methos and explained, "We're getting out of here," he looked to Christa and added, "All three of us."

Methos tried to wake Christa but couldn't and decided it didn't matter. He wrapped one of the blankets around her body and he and Kronos lifted her up and carried her out of the room. They got outside and untied their horses, Methos got up on his and Kronos put Christa up with him. Kronos mounted his horse and the two brothers rode off into the night.

When they found a place to stop, it was nearing morning and they knew the sun would be up before too long. Methos got off of his horse and brought Christa down next, putting her on the ground and unrolling her from the blanket. Her head swayed from side to side and she woke up and asked, "Where am I?"

Methos pulled her up and took her down to the river. First she drank the water until her stomach cramped, then she bathed in the river and removed as much of the dirt and sand and grime as was possible. In the process however, her long, matted, unruly hair that went down to her thighs, became matted even more.

"We're going to have to do something about that," Methos told her.

"Tell me about it," she responded, "Now, where are we going to sleep?"

"Follow me," he said.

They tread through the sand for what seemed like forever before they came upon a large pavilion.

"Anybody live here?" Christa asked.

"We do," Methos told her.

They went in and saw that the tent was lighted by an oil lamp burning. Christa went over to the bed and collapsed against the furs and blankets.

"Who sleeps here?" she asked.

"Just Kronos and myself."

Christa looked at the bed and noted, "It's going to be crowded now."

Over the next several weeks, Christa's body started to fill out again and more skin showed through on her than bones, which returned some of the resemblance she bore to Methos, and when she'd gained back enough weight she was able to wear his clothes. Alone in the desert, the three Immortals lived as though there were nobody else in the world. For Methos and Christa, it was as though time had stopped and they had never been separated from one another. This was something that Kronos took an immense notice in.

When it had just been Methos and himself, there was something between them, they were equals and there was nobody in the world who could come between them. Now…now that they'd found this woman, it was as though he were an outcast. Between the three of them there was hardly a moment apart from one another, which made it hard for him to talk to Methos about his friend when she wasn't around. But at the same time, having somebody else around all day who wasn't his brother was a relief. As well as the two usually got along, often having no one else around got to be tiring on both men's nerves.

One night Kronos returned to their tent and Methos was already in bed with his back to Kronos. Kronos slipped into the bed and turned to his brother and poked him in the back to wake him up.

"Wake up, Methos, I've got something to tell you."

"What is it, Kronos?" Christa asked as she turned over.

Kronos fell off the bed in shock and when he looked up he saw Methos enter the tent and both he and Christa were laughing at him. He looked at Methos, then back at Christa, whose hair had been chopped off to match the way Methos wore his.

"Two of them," he said to himself, "I'm trapped."

They kept laughing at him and he laughed mockingly in response before jumping up and screaming, "That's not funny!"

"You think so?" Christa asked, "You should've seen the look on your face."

"Just what I need," Kronos said as he looked to Methos, "Two of you."

"So this guy, MacLeod," Crystal said later that morning as she got dressed, "How long have you known him?"

"A couple of years," Methos answered.

"What's he to you?"

"I'm not sure."

"Well how hard can it be to answer? Is he a friend, enemy…oh my God," she turned to look at him, "You're not sleeping with him are you?"

"Certainly not," Methos answered.

She laughed and remarked, "What do you know? I'm relieved."

"So what are you doing in town?" Methos asked.

"What am I doing here?" she asked, "I live here."

"What?"

"I bought a place up near the edge of town, you should come see it, you'd love it," Crystal said.

"I've heard that one before," Methos told her.

"Yeah, I've heard that one before as well," Crystal said as she combed her hair, "Why don't you just buy a place you can settle down in once and for all? You're worth $150 million, you can afford it."

"Wouldn't look good for my cover," Methos said, "You know what I'm doing these days."

"So?"

"So…Adam Pierson is a mild mannered graduate student, he can't afford to settle down in anyplace comfortable."

"So kill him off," Crystal said.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"He's good job security, as long as he's around, nobody knows I exist."

"But Adam Pierson can't live forever, he'll have to die sometime, and then what are you going to do?" Crystal asked.

"I don't know."

"Well you better think of it, Methos," she told him, "You could get shot down at any time in front of your Watcher friends and then what are you going to do? You know what you should do, you should move in with me."

"Like old times, huh?"

"Well not exactly like old times," she replied, "The house has electricity and the bed's on two mattresses instead of the floor."

Methos laughed and commented, "I'll think about it."

"So what are we going to do today?" Crystal asked, "I mean we're together again, two partners in crime, we might as well take advantage of it."

"I think we better go back and clear the air with our friends," Methos said.

"I don't have anything to answer for, Connor knows what kind of person I am."

"Yeah, but MacLeod doesn't."

"And why should he?"

"Crystal, please."

"Alright, we'll go."

"And as a favor to me, will you be nice with MacLeod?" Methos asked.

"If he's nice to me, I'll be nice to him, but he'd better watch himself. Knowing about him what I know now, I have enough on him to put him in the ground alongside Kronos."

"MacLeod should be so lucky," Methos thought to himself.

"Well this is certainly a cheap looking dump," Crystal said as she looked around Duncan's loft, "Ugly too. I don't know why you complain about the places Methos resides in."

"I don't complain about them," Duncan replied, "I just wish he'd stay there."

"Then you shouldn't have asked him to move in, it's your own fault."

"I never do," Duncan told her, "He always helps himself in."

"So get your locks changed then."

Duncan turned to Methos and commented dryly, "Your friend seems to have an answer for everything."

"Don't look at me, she's Connor's friend too."

On that note, Methos turned to Connor and said, "Exactly how long have you two known each other?"

"Well let's see, it was right after I got rid of this thing," Connor pointed to Duncan, "Probably, 300 years give or take."

"I see," Methos said, "And how well do you two get along?"

"If you're asking if we slept together, we haven't," Connor told Methos.

"Well I know that, she'd never sleep with someone like you."

"Certainly not, I have too much at stake to waste it on somebody like him," she said.

The elevator started and the four of them felt another Immortal approaching. When the lift reached the top and the door opened, it was Richie, who suddenly found eight eyes staring at him.

"Am I interrupting something?" he asked.

"No," Duncan replied, "You remember Connor…"

"Hi."

"Sir Lancelot," Richie commented.

"And Methos."

"Of course."

"And this is their friend, Crystal Monet," Duncan added.

Crystal got up from the couch, went over to Richie and gruffly jerked his wrist and shook it, "And who is this?"

"This is Richie Ryan, he…was, my student."

Crystal looked back at MacLeod through the corners of her eyes and said, "Your student?" She then leaned in close to Richie and said, "If you want my advice, run, get out of here fast and don't look back. You're only asking for trouble staying around that thing."

Richie looked at her, confused, and trying to take it as a joke, tried to laugh but couldn't quite get it out.

"So what brings you here, Richie?" Duncan asked.

"Oh, I came to tell you that I'm on for the race tomorrow."

"What race?" Crystal asked.

"Richie's in flat track racing," Duncan answered.

Crystal looked back at him and said, "Is your name Richie? Was I talking to you?" She turned back to Richie and said, "Well that's great…what number are you going to be in the race?"

"Twenty-seven."

"Cool, I'm going to that race tomorrow, I'll be in the front watching for you."

Having only known this person for about two minutes, Richie wasn't sure what to say about that but he managed to get out a brief, "Thanks."

"That's about the only sport Crystal's ever held an interest in," Methos commented.

"Well I should," she told him, then said to Richie, "I used to test race motorcycles for Harley Davidson in the 1910s."

"Really?"

She nodded, "Was messy work back then, of course you know back then they didn't have any way of keeping the oil inside of the machines so it would leak out all over the racetracks and we'd slam into the walls and wipe out. More trouble than it could ever be worth, but a damn good time trying to make it to the end of the race." She caught the odd look in Richie's eyes and added, "We didn't have television back then, we had to make our own fun."

The look on Methos' face made it clear that he was fighting very hard with himself not to laugh, and he seemed to be losing.

Just as Duncan opened his mouth to say something, Crystal looked at her watch and said, "Would you look at the time? We've got to go, sorry we couldn't stay, this is one meeting of the minds I'll never forget, goodbye." And with that, they were out the door.

"Well that was weird," Duncan said.

"That's Crystal," Connor told him.

"You say you've known her for 300 years?" Duncan asked his cousin.

"Off and on," Connor replied, "To be honest, I don't think if I had to spend too much time with her that either of us would survive."

Duncan looked at Richie and said, "I wonder exactly how long Methos has known her."

As Methos and Crystal headed down to the street, Crystal dug around in her pocket for something and said to Methos, "Listen, I know we're going to be together for a while…but I think you better take this incase we split up at some point."

She handed Methos a white card, he took it and looked over both sides and commented, "There's nothing on here."

Crystal took the card back and gave him another one, it had her name and a number she could be reached at on it.

"What for?" Methos asked.

"Incase somebody tries to contact your 'family', since I'm in town, if something would happen to you, I'd want to know," she told him.

Methos laughed and made it clear that he didn't think much of her concern, but he put the card in his pocket anyway.

"Well now that that's out of the way," he said, "Now what're we going to do?"

"I don't know but maybe you can explain to me what the attraction is between you and MacLeod."

"Excuse me?" he said as he turned around to look at her.

"You know the guy better than I do but I know enough about him to know he's a bastard, why would you ever be friends with that thing?"

"It's complicated. What about you and Connor?"

"Hey, at least Connor's fun to be around, he's semi-normal, I can understand him, I can't understand that ragweed cousin of his."

"Alright," Methos put his hands in the air in a mock surrender, "I'll admit, it's hard to put up with MacLeod most of the time."

"Uh huh."

"And being associated with him is often more trouble than it's worth."

"Uh huh."

"And he's nearly gotten me killed on countless occasions."

"Uh huh."

"But don't you see, Crystal? That's just it, he's like Kronos. That's why I put up with him."

Crystal laughed, "Kronos was nothing like that Scottish petunia."

Methos thought about it, "Maybe…maybe I just think they're alike…but there's something about MacLeod, even before Kronos died, there was something about his presence that was like being back with Kronos."

"What about now, Methos?" she wanted to know.

He looked up at her and met her gaze and said, "That's the oddest part…since Kronos died, whatever was there in MacLeod that reminded me of Kronos is gone…it doesn't make sense."

She looked at him oddly and remarked, "Maybe the reason you stay with him now is because of guilt."

Methos wanted to retort with his line of never feeling guilt since the 11th century, but it caught in his throat. She would know him better than that, even he knew better than that.