"What do you mean your brother?" Duncan asked.

"Simply just that," Crystal said, "Methos and I have always been together, like brother and sister."

Methos saw the way MacLeod reacted to hearing that word, 'brother'. This would've been a fine conversation for them all to miss but it seemed they were stuck in it now.

"Well Methos," Amanda said, "How come you never told us?"

"You didn't ask."

"Besides," Crystal said, "Around the time he met you guys, we weren't seeing each other too much…Kronos and I…"

"Kronos too!?"

She looked at MacLeod, "That's right, MacLeod…Kronos too…a long time ago it was just the three of us together and we made the most of it, you have a problem with that?"

Duncan looked disgusted. He turned around and headed to the kitchen. Crystal started to get up and said to Methos, "You want me to tell him about it?"

"No, I'll do it," Methos said as he got up, "You stay here."

Once Methos was out of hearing range, Crystal sat up in the bed and said, "Well, at least he's gone."

"Why, is something wrong?" Amanda asked.

"Yeah, that man I killed earlier," Crystal said, "Methos doesn't remember him."

"You do?" Richie asked.

"Oh yes, in a previous life his name was Robert Leed, studied medicine at the same time, in the same place Methos was. He was a very smart man but also evil…he wasn't quite the Josef Mengele of his time but he was close."

"Well, what was he doing coming after Methos now?" Amanda asked her.

"Oh the two of them got into a fight about…200 years back, destroyed everything Leed was working on at the time…but the fight was interrupted and Methos took off, as he usually does. I guess Leed couldn't let go…so, somehow, I don't know how, he found out about Methos' new life today and was following him. He poisoned Methos."

"Is that how he wound up in the hospital?" Richie asked.

"Yes…the doctors told me he reeked of absinthe when they brought him in…well, he gave that up a long time ago…they pumped pills out of him, he never takes those either."

"What about the heroin?" Richie asked, "How'd they get that out?"

"Damnedest thing," Crystal told him, "It was all in little capsules that hadn't dissolved yet, about 40 of them…I guess Leed worked on that idea in his spare time."

"But how did they wind up in Methos?" Amanda asked, "That's what doesn't make any sense."

"We'll never know for certain now," Crystal said, "Leed won't be doing any talking from where he is, and even if he did I doubt he'd tell the truth…however I'm figuring that the pills were put in Methos' food at that restaurant we were at yesterday…and the heroin was in things so small, they could've been put in there as well and he wouldn't have known it. As for the rest of it…I can only guess that Leed somehow managed to contaminate the food Methos had delivered here over the past few weeks."

"With that stuff?" Richie asked.

"Oh no, for that he would've taken a more…botanical approach. There was a plant in our days that...now that I think of it, looked like white holly leaves…ate it…you'd throw up and you'd be paralyzed, and also in intense pain...I guess the damn plant stood the test of time…either that, or Leed was much older than we took him for, and kept the plant alive to use in his experiments. He was a sick person and I'm glad he's dead, but I wish he'd go bother somebody else now," Crystal said.

"But why didn't Methos remember him?" Amanda asked, "200 years wasn't that long ago."

"No, you're right, but Methos has great trouble remembering some things," she said, "He has for a long time now."

On the other side of the loft, Methos was trying to explain everything to Duncan, which was no easy task.

"Her and Kronos?" he asked again, "It doesn't make sense."

"Not to you," Methos replied, "But even you have to understand that Kronos wasn't always evil. In the beginning..." Methos gave up on that explanation, "If you had been there, you would've understood."

"Understood what?" Duncan asked.

"Crystal and I came from the same village in the beginning…when we got older we went our separate ways, I met Kronos, and two of us rode together. One night we found Crystal, the next night, when we rode out, she came with us."

The gears were turning in Duncan's head as he asked, "And how did Kronos take to that?"

"He was thrilled, it had been just the two of us for about a month, after that he would've been thrilled with anybody else around who wasn't me. He liked Crystal," he saw the look on MacLeod's face and just about laughed, "Get your head out of the gutter, MacLeod…the three of us were as close as real siblings."

"And what happened with Crystal?"

"Kronos never hurt her, he couldn't, he was always trying to protect her."

"From what?"

"From everything." Methos started to laugh in recollecting the old days, "She was the only sister he ever had, and he loved her…both of us did…but Kronos…oh boy…"

Methos thought back to one night in particular from thousands of years ago.

It was late and Kronos was about ready to go to sleep. He passed by Crystal's tent and in the dim light from the fire, saw movement inside. Stepping in, he saw over at a corner, Christa was there, but she wasn't alone. There was a man with her, they were grabbing at each other and Kronos saw that his sister was naked from the waist up. He let out an animalistic howl and charged at the man. The intruder managed to escape, leaving Kronos with his disgruntled sister.

"What in hell did you do that for?" she demanded to know.

Kronos wouldn't look at her, instead he kept his back to her and stared out into the night.

"He didn't force me," Christa said as she got right up behind him, "If that's what you're thinking."

Kronos turned around and looked at her and said only in response, "Put your clothes back on."

"No!" Christa shoved him and he fell back and hit the ground. He got up again, grabbed one of the blankets from the ground and threw it around her to cover her.

"Go to sleep," he told her.

She growled and jumped on his back and the two fell out the entranceway and into the sand outside. They rolled around on the ground, her trying to choke the life out of him and him trying to throw her off, when Methos came by, and not paying much attention to what they were doing, said only in passing, "Play nice you two."

"That was the first and last time Kronos ever caught her with a man," Methos told Duncan, "Hell, 4000 years later I still don't know if she's ever slept with anybody. As long as Kronos was alive, he kept coming to see her."

"And you?"

"I went whenever Kronos wasn't there," Methos said, "He thought I was dead…and I was for keeping it that way."

"But the three of you were together?" Duncan asked.

"Now you're getting it," Methos said.

"Until when?"

"Until Kronos found Silas and Caspian. Crystal figured that there wasn't any place for her with us anymore, so she left early one morning. She never tried to get along with those two…I suppose I can't blame her. We spent so much time living by ourselves just the three of us…I remember the night those two came with him…Crystal and I both knew that it was a mistake, but we never said a word about it to Kronos. You couldn't talk to him, which isn't too different from trying to live with you," Methos told him, "As for the Horsemen, I've already explained my part about that…and I won't repeat myself."

Over in the bedroom, Amanda, Richie and Crystal were continuing their own discussion.

"For a long time it was just the three of us," she explained.

"Didn't that get tired after a while?" Amanda asked.

"You don't know my brother very well, and if you knew Kronos…hmmm…bad idea…well, life seldom got boring living with those two," Crystal told her.

"Yeah, but what happened when you wanted to…" Amanda was fidgeting for want of explaining her thought without saying anything, "Enjoy the company of another man?"

"Men back then didn't have any company to enjoy," Crystal said, "Today it's different."

"How long were you guys together?" Richie asked.

"Oh boy…must've been near a hundred years I guess," she said, "Although…"

"What?"

"One night there was a terrible storm and the three of us got separated…it took Kronos and I six months to find each other again."

"Hell of a storm," Richie said.

"Methos was lost for nearly 20 years," Crystal added, "We searched all over the continents for him…you have to understand, living out in the desert, a man with his skin tone would be hard to miss, but nobody we spoke to ever said they had seen him."

"So what happened?" Amanda asked, "I mean you found him eventually."

"Eventually sure, but by that time the damage was already done," Crystal said.

"What?"

"He'd been sold to slave traders and carted off to a little island somewhere…I think today it's near Greece…anyway, Kronos and I finally found out about the place and went out there to get him back. It was a nightmare."

The two Immortals had been told of the things that went on on the island and both had tried to prepare themselves for whatever they might find when they arrived that day. When they reached the shore, they saw nobody around, and the island appeared to be deserted.

"They're here somewhere," Kronos said, "We'll have to start looking."

They searched high and low and for a long time, found no sign of human life on the island. But as they tread further into the strange land, they heard tribal chants off in a distance.

"I don't know what it means," Christa said, "But already it doesn't sound good."

"Come on, we have to be close," Kronos told her.

The wind blew at them from a different direction and both took in a mixed aroma that worried them deeply; burning wood and burnt flesh.

They came upon what appeared to be a sacrificial ritual. Lying on the ground in a pile were blackened bodies that were shriveled and most of their flesh had been burnt off. Several of the inhabitants of the island chanted and danced in a circle around the corpses while others beat on drums. Kronos and Christa looked around at what was happening, in shock, and amazement. They were too far away to feel another Immortal's presence but Kronos caught sight of a thin, pale man with long dark hair who laid on the ground a few feet from the ceremony.

"It's Methos!" he told her.

"There must be 30 of them," Christa told him, "What're we going to do, kill them all?"

"Or die trying, then come back and start again," Kronos answered.

"If they don't set us on fire too, you mean," she said.

It was a long and bloody battle; most of the people they took by surprise and killed them quickly, but others were armed and some proved to be hard to kill. Methos got up when he saw them strike down the apparent leader of the tribe and they rushed over to him. But while they were relieved to see him again, when they grabbed him, he screamed and tried to get away from them. They both grabbed hold of him and they all fell to the ground, with Methos squirming under them, screaming and crying.

"Methos, what's wrong?" Kronos demanded to know, "What happened?"

Methos said nothing and instead, continued to cry and attempted to get away from them.

"Whatever they had put him through," Crystal said, "It had done enough damage that his mind was destroyed. He didn't know who we were, he didn't know who he was, he didn't even remember how to talk, all he could do was cry and scream his head off, he had regressed so far back, to the point he was a six foot tall infant."

"My God," Amanda said, "What did you do?"

"The only thing that we could do," Crystal explained, "We took care of him. Good thing Freud wasn't alive 4000 years ago, he would've loved getting us on his couch, two brothers and a sister suddenly turned into a baby and two parents. We took him back home, to this day I don't know how because he nearly killed us always tilting the boat the entire time…and it was the three of us again, quite differently though."

The days passed as Kronos and Christa worked with Methos. After a few days he stopped screaming every time they came near him. They spent the days trying to get him to talk, trying to get him to do the things he had been able to before, but most of all they tried to get him to remember; remember who he was, remember who they were. Every day they tried and every day passed without any success, but they kept trying. They alternated between the days; one would feed him, the other would wash him and both kept an eye on him at all times to make sure he didn't wander off.

About two months since they had returned home, Kronos was becoming increasingly frustrated with the fact that despite everything they did, Methos didn't seem to get any better. And it had started that Kronos often took his anger out on Methos, which always got him in trouble. One day he lost his temper and screamed something at Methos, who dropped on the ground and started crying almost instantly. Christa came running and dropped down beside her brother and put her arms around him as she asked him, "What wrong, Methos? Did that mean man frighten you?"

"No," Kronos replied, "His brother did."

Christa held Methos in her arms and rocked back and forth with him as she told her other brother, "Kronos, you've got to do better than that. I know it's hard, but you have to try."

"I do!" Kronos told her, "Every single damn day I do, I get up and see he's still the same! He's not getting any better, no matter what we do, he never does!"

"Be quiet," Christa warned him, "He can understand you."

"No he can't!" Kronos responded, "He doesn't have one idea what we're talking about!"

"No?" Christa asked, "Why do you think he starts crying when you yell at him?"

"Because I'm loud."

"You're always loud, you idiot," she said, "He knows you're angry at him."

"I am not!" he insisted, "I'm angry at what those bastards did to him!"

"Then yell at them," she remarked, "Not Methos."

Kronos started to say something else but Christa cut him off and said, "I know this is hard, I know how frustrating it is, go somewhere and relax, I'll take care of him."

Kronos walked away without another word, and Methos tightened his hold on Christa and tried to bury his face in her shoulder.

"It's alright, Methos," she told him soothingly, "The bad man's gone now."

A few hours later, Kronos returned and found Christa lying on the ground asleep, and Methos was pressing down on her trying to wake her up.

"Don't bother your sister," Kronos told him.

Methos looked up at him with wide, curious eyes. Kronos pulled Methos to his feet and embraced his brother and said quietly to him, "If you can understand me, I'm sorry."

One good thing, probably the only good thing, about Methos' current state of mind, was that he had no comprehension of holding a grudge against anybody and was usually quick to forgive someone.

Kronos walked Methos down to the river to wash up. This had proven to be one of the most difficult parts of taking care of him; it wasn't so much that Methos hated the water or was scared of it, but he hated being cold and so often tried to get out of the water as fast as they could get him in it. Today however, he went without resistance and stayed still as Kronos bathed him. When they finished, the sun was starting to change positions and Kronos knew it would be getting dark soon. He took Methos back and they saw Christa was awake now.

"Just in time to go to sleep," she noted as she saw them return, "How was he today?"

"Less trouble than usual," Kronos answered.

They entered Kronos' tent and the three of them went to sleep together; Kronos on one end, Christa on the other and Methos in the middle so he couldn't get away from them in the night without their knowing.

"He is kind of cute this way," Christa said.

"Cute I can do without," Kronos remarked, "I just want my brother back."

"You mean your older brother?" she asked him.

"I suppose I do."

"How long did it take for Methos to recover?" Amanda asked.

"By this time, I'm not sure," Christa said, "Months, definitely…I'm sure he got his memory back before a year had passed. Though mind you, he never got his whole memory back. He'd managed to block out the 20 years he was on that island, but in the process he also blocked out bits and pieces from the years leading up to that as well," Crystal told them, "That's why Methos can't remember how old he is. Whole parts of his life are gone from his brain, and if he hasn't recovered them by now, probably for good."

"So he doesn't remember any of that?" Richie asked.

"I doubt it…I don't think he realizes what Kronos went through during that time, waiting for him to get better…his position of authority had changed quite a bit."

"Yeah, but I thought Kronos was always the leader," Richie said.

Crystal looked at him, "MacLeod told you about the Horsemen?"

"Some."

"Kronos is like a big dog…has a built in instinct to dominate over others, he wasn't comfortable when he wasn't in a position of power," she explained.

"I don't get it thought," Amanda said, "How was Kronos the leader if Methos was the smart one?"

"Because Methos could come up with a plan, Kronos was the one able to carry it out," Crystal answered, "At least that's the way I understand it…I didn't see them when they were the Horsemen of the Apocalypse."

"2000 years you didn't see your own brothers?" Amanda asked.

"No…I ran into Methos shortly after he had left them…he wasn't a Horseman anymore, but he was still vastly changed from the last time I'd seen him."

"And Kronos?" Richie asked.

"I met up with him a while later," Crystal answered.

Amanda looked surprised, "You mean you knew both brothers were still alive and you never told Kronos about Methos?"

"Oh no, Methos was scared to death what Kronos might do to him if he ever found out, so he swore me to never tell Kronos."

"I can't imagine what that must be like," Amanda said.

"Wasn't easy, believe me." Crystal laughed, "Kronos always thought he knew what everybody else was doing before they were even aware of it…but he never suspected his sweet little sister capable of concealing something like that from him."

"His what?" Richie asked.

"That's what he used to call me…'Sweet little sister', not an endearment I'd have picked, but it seems suiting, just as Methos was always his 'Dearest Brother', even when he was the only brother."

"One hell of a family," Richie commented.

She laughed, "You have no idea. But that was always Kronos' greatest problem, he underestimated us. He never thought I'd leave him…then he never thought Methos would leave him, but we both did, and I suppose when the only world you've come to know, falls apart like that, you do tend to get a bit defensive."

And in the kitchen, Methos and Duncan were entering the 5th round of going on about the same thing.

"I don't know why you should be so surprised," Methos said, "Did you really think Kronos was incapable of it?"

"I just don't understand why you never told me about this before," Duncan said.

"To avoid having a discussing like this, and yet here we are regardless," Methos answered, "Yes, Crystal was our sister, yes the three of us were together long before Kronos and I were the Horsemen of the Apocalypse…and now my brothers are all dead, and my sister is the only family I have left, and I'll not lose her to you or anybody else. If you don't want her here then I'll be glad to never darken your doorstep again either; because if I have to choose between you and her, I'm going with my sister. Believe me when I say she's proven through the centuries to be far better company than you."

Duncan's head was spinning and nothing was making sense; the only thing he could think of was that that woman in his bed, who had been with Kronos for hundreds of years, was the same woman who had been friends with Connor for 300 years, and now seemed to be moving on to Richie. MacLeod remembered the man he'd known as Melvin Koren, he remembered Kronos at the power station and in Bordeaux, and he couldn't help but think that somehow, history might be getting ready to repeat itself as he looked over at that woman and saw her glaring back at him.