"Maybe I'll have a drink before I explain," Crystal said as she got up, "I think I'm going to need it, what do you have?"

"What do you need?" Amanda asked as she showed Crystal to the kitchen and led her over to the 'bar'.

"Ah, a scout kit," Crystal said, "Prepared for everything, gin, brandy, wine, whiskey, rum, I'm becoming a vodka person myself…like it mixed with Sprite."

"That sounds good, I'll mix us a couple," Amanda said.

Crystal gawked around at the kitchen and commented, "This is a very nice place you have here, why do you go slumming over at MacLeod's place?"

"Well if I didn't go over there every once in a while," Amanda said, "What would he do? He's the damn hero, always needs a damsel in distress to save, and I'm the most likely candidate, and most recurring."

"You do that intentionally?" she asked.

"I don't need MacLeod around as much as I make him think I do," Amanda explained as she prepared the drinks, "I can take care of myself just fine, but for his benefit I make him think I depend on him for my survival. I can hold my own in any fight a lot better than I put on, but like I said, I hate taking the quickenings, they take too much out of me at my age…so, to make sure no questions are asked, I play the weak kitten and run sprinting for MacLeod so he can have all those headaches instead of me. But I'm more than twice his age, I didn't get to be there depending just on my feet and my back to get me through life."

"I didn't think so," Crystal said, "You know I've heard a lot about you from people, and not much of it is good."

"That's because I'm so good at what I do," Amanda said, "Nobody wants to see the woman be the hero, she has to be the ill-fated victim that the hero can come rushing to the rescue of, or she has to be the hero's whore, I can play the part of both very well but in reality I am neither. But it's by the whole world not knowing this that I've managed to keep my head so long. So what were you saying about Kronos?"

"Well," Crystal took a swallow of her drink before continuing, "MacLeod may have made the final killing move, and I have every intention of hating him for the rest of his life for what he did, but I have to confess to my own part in it…if it wasn't for me, Kronos would've never found Methos and they wouldn't have been in Bordeaux and Kronos wouldn't have died."

"I don't follow," Amanda said.

"You remember when I told you Methos made me swear I would never tell Kronos where he was, or even that he was alive? Well I'll tell you, Amanda, I kept that secret for almost 900 years without fail…but you can only keep a secret like that from your family for just so long, and no longer…and one night a few years back I finally couldn't take it anymore…"

Methos had gotten an advanced warning that Kronos was on his way to visit with Crystal for a couple weeks, so he had quickly packed up his things and left his sister about as quickly as he had arrived; he told her that he would be staying in an apartment a few miles away and gave her the number incase anything happened. Crystal made her rounds through the house making sure Methos hadn't left anything behind. In hindsight she supposed that was why she was always dragging Kronos out of the house when he came to see her; to make sure he couldn't be there long enough that if any of Methos' things were left behind, Kronos would have time to notice it.

Kronos arrived two hours after Methos had performed his infamous disappearing act, and as far as Crystal could tell, he was none the wiser about what was going on.

"I brought you something," he said as he took off his coat.

"What's that?" she asked.

"It's a glass box," he said, "Supposedly there's some kind of curse or something on it that it's never to be opened," he snorted, "If you believe that stuff."

She took the box and looked at it. There was a lock keeping it shut, and neither one could see anything inside the box.

"I hope you didn't pay a lot for this thing."

"I found it at a junk market in Arabia," he answered.

"Figures," she said, "Well I appreciate it anyway…maybe we'll get lucky and there's some 10,000 year old genie in it or something."

She took it into the bathroom and set it on the counter by the sink and left it there. Then she joined him in the living room and they spent the night drinking heavily and catching up on what had happened since the two had last seen each other. Crystal suddenly became very tense when Kronos started talking about Methos and the old days when it was just the three of them, and then when it was the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse; fortunately though Kronos was too involved in what he was saying to notice the change in her disposition.

It got late and the two went to bed. Crystal shed her clothes like a snake its old skin and crawled into a black off the shoulder nightshirt and climbed into bed alongside her brother. They didn't speak much to each other and figured they were settled in for the night. That was what they thought anyway, but sometime in the night, Kronos woke up when he heard something from the other side of the bed. He turned over and saw Crystal was rolling back and forth on her side of the bed and mumbling something in her sleep. He reached over and grabbed her to wake her up, but what happened next nearly knocked both of them off the bed when she woke up and practically jumped up in bed screaming, "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! I'll confess! I'll confess!"

Before Kronos could even ask 'confess what?' she flopped over onto her side and looked up at him with wide, wild eyes as she said, "Kronos, I've never told you this, I've kept quiet about it for almost a whole millennium and I can't take it anymore. I can't sleep from the guilt and I can't live with the constant worrying anymore…Methos is alive, I know it, I've known it since he first left you and went out on his own. He made me swear never to tell you because he was frightened to death of what you might do to him if you ever found out that he was still alive. I still keep in contact with him, I see him all the time, practically the whole time you're not here, whenever I found out where you were going, I told him so he'd know not to go there to risk running into you. I've said from the start that the whole thing was stupid but I agreed to it, and for hundreds of years I've restrained myself from telling you what I knew, but it's all over now. Now you know…and when Methos finds out what I've done, he's going to hate me!"

Crystal sprang to her feet and ran out of the bedroom screaming like a madman; Kronos followed and found her in the bathroom, standing hovered over the sink, she was crying now. He slowly came up behind her, still staying far enough back that she couldn't grab him at a moment's notice and attack him.

"Crystal, why didn't you tell me this before?" he asked her.

She shook her head and said, "I wanted to…God, Kronos, I've wanted to for the longest time…but I couldn't, he made me swear I'd never tell you, and you know as well as I do that we never went back on our word…" she leaned her head over the sink and started crying again.

"Did you really think I'd hunt him down out of spite for what happened?" he asked.

"I knew you wouldn't, but I could never convince Methos of that, it's a thousand years later and he's still terrified of you," she told him, "He's still running from you and I can't figure it out because I wasn't there and I don't know what happened. You told me, you've both told me your own versions of what happened when he left…and I remember when I first found you and you were calling him a traitor and swearing your revenge on him, but that was over a thousand years ago and you've changed since that, I can't figure out why he's still so afraid of you."

Kronos didn't say anything after that. He took a step closer towards her and reached his hand out and touched her shoulder but she swung at him like she was trying to hit a bat in mid-flight, screaming, "Don't touch me! Get out of here, Kronos, before I kill you…the way I feel right now it wouldn't take much for me to do just that…I don't know why but you're the cause of everything that's been going on, and I think I could just kill you."

She lost her strength and placed both her hands on the counter surrounding the sink to balance herself. He made another feeble attempt to touch her by putting his hand on the back of her head, but she cringed violently like she couldn't stand even being near him anymore.

"Crystal, you don't have to worry about Methos, he's not going to hate you because he's not going to find out you told me anything," he told her, "I won't go after him, I have no interest in revenge against him for anything. But I'll leave you alone for a while…he's within reach now, isn't he?"

She weakly nodded.

"Call him up, tell him I've gone and tell him to get over here," Kronos told her, "I'll leave you both alone but I don't like the idea of you being here alone in a condition like this."

Crystal never looked up or turned around, but she heard him leave the bathroom, and soon after that she heard him leave the house. She waited until she was sure he was gone before she ever moved from the sink. Finally she stood up straight and looked up at the ceiling, letting the bright lights sting her eyes. She stood there for a few minutes, wondering what the hell she was going to do now, but she had an idea. Running down the hall, she turned on the lights in her room and picked up the phone and, hardly even seeing the buttons, dialed the number Methos had left her.

"Adam Pierson," he answered after the second ring.

"C-Can you come over?" Crystal asked.

There was a slight pause before he responded, "What's the matter? Is Kronos there?"

"No, he left already."

"How come?"

"Oh we got into a big fight and he stormed out of here," Crystal told him.

"What was the fight about?" Methos asked, knowing that nothing had ever happened that Kronos would walk out on his sister.

"I don't want to talk about it," she said, "But can you please come over?"

"Sure, I'll be over there as soon as I can," he told her.

"Thank you, brother."

She hung up the receiver and tried to think. What the hell was she going to do? She stood there in a daze for a few minutes before it occurred to her that she was covered in perspiration and needed a shower; she peeled off her shirt and tossed it aside like garbage and stepped out of her underwear and went back into the bathroom and turned on the water and stepped in the tub and let the cold water wash down on her like a wakeup call. He would know. Methos had known her for thousands of years and she had never lied to him before about anything, if she tried to now, he would have to see right through her.

After a few minutes she shut off the water and got out of the shower and didn't bother to dry off. She stood before the bathroom mirror and saw herself, and then her eyes moved down and saw the glass box resting on the counter. With no forethought to what she did next, she grabbed the box and smashed it on the floor into a million pieces; she fell to the floor in a crumbled heap among the glass and resumed her fits of screams and cries at the realization of what she had done and that her life for the past several centuries had been reduced to this.

The next thing she knew, it was morning and she was back in her bed, and the sunlight was pouring in through the windows. It took her a few minutes to fully realize where she was, and she also found out that she was covered in only the bed sheet; she was as naked now as she had been the night before. But what had happened last night?

Her head started throbbing when she felt another presence and she immediately considered the possibility that that bastard brother of hers had to have come back in the night.

She was wrong.

"Well," Methos said as he appeared in the doorway, "You're awake finally, are you feeling better now?"

"Methos?" for some reason she couldn't believe that he was there, "When did you get here?"

"About an hour after you called me last night," he said, "Came over and found the door standing wide open, and you were in the bathroom lying on the floor, big mess in there, glass all over everything…exactly what the hell went on here last night?"

"I wish I knew," she tiredly responded.

"Well what was the fight about?" he asked.

"Oh who remembers?" she asked, "There was a lot of yelling, things got broken, Kronos walked out…I shouldn't have bothered you but it was just a bad night and I didn't feel like being alone."

"Well I'm glad you called me," Methos told her, "All things considered I hate to think what would've happened if another Immortal had come along during the night."

Crystal looked up towards the ceiling and shook her head, "I don't know what the hell went wrong...I really don't."

Methos tried to be reassuring but knowing as little about the matter as he did, he knew he couldn't be of much help to her, all the same he tried to sound sure of himself. "Don't worry, it can't be as bad as you're making it out to be…besides, I'm here now."

Crystal managed a weak smile and said, "That's what I like about you, Methos, you always try to look out for me…" her look changed as she added, "But for once could you just hit me and get it over with?"

He ignored her comment and told her to try and rest, he was going to get a quick shower and then he'd make them breakfast. After he had gone into the bathroom, Crystal sat up in the bed and said to herself, "Three billion guys in the world and I get the only two who won't hit me, what're the odds?"

The phone by the bed rang and she answered it quickly, "Hello?"

"Is he there?"

It was Kronos, and Crystal felt her heart lunge into her throat for a second.

"Where are you?" she asked.

"Would you believe I'm on my way to revisit the scene of the Dachau massacre?"

"No," she bluntly answered.

"That's because you're too smart for that," Kronos said, "I'm about to board a plane leaving for London. So, is he there?"

"Yes," she said, "He came over last night after you left."

"Good."

"Your glass box met with an unfortunate accident last night," she told him.

She could almost hear him grinning. "It was a piece of junk anyway," was his response.

"Well so far things seem to be going well," Crystal told him, "He doesn't seem to know anything."

"Of course he doesn't," Kronos told her, "Why should he? You've kept his dirty little secret for 900 years, why should he have any reason to believe otherwise after all this time?"

"The whole thing's still crazy," Crystal said, "It's idiotic, why can't you two morons get together?"

"I wish I knew," Kronos responded, "I'd think after all this time Methos could get his head around the fact that I lost my grudge against him long ago."

"I know," she replied, "I guess I should hang up before he gets back."

"Alright," he said, "I love you, Crystal…I know you can't tell Methos, but I love him too, I hope one day I have the chance to tell him."

"I hope so too," Crystal said, "Goodbye, Kronos."

"It's horrible," Amanda said when Crystal finished her story, "I can't imagine what you've been through, but I still don't understand what you mean when you say you killed Kronos."

"Well you see," Crystal explained, "A few months back Kronos came to see me…for what was to be the last time, only I didn't know it…I could tell there was something on his mind that he was dying to get off, but he never told me what it was. Before he left he gave me an envelope and told me not to open it under any circumstances at the time. But, he said, if he didn't come back within two months, to open the letter…two months later Methos comes to my door and he's in tears, hardly able to talk, when I am able to get something coherent out of him, he tells me Kronos is dead. I found the envelope and opened it, he wrote a letter explaining he had found Methos and was going to get him. Thinking back now, I don't know if I ever read that whole letter, when it hit me that Kronos was dead I just fell apart…we both did…it still hasn't been so long since Kronos died, a few months at best…and it's still an eternity to me. Don't you get it, Amanda? Kronos had looked for hundreds of years, never found anything, he never even knew where to look, finally giving up because, although he would never admit it, he feared Methos was dead. But then I told him Methos was alive, and he started looking again and he found Methos and he died because of…wrong place, wrong time, something, I don't know…but if I'd kept my mouth shut, it never would've happened, he would still be alive."

"My God," Amanda said, "It couldn't have been healthy keeping shut about it all those years."

"And I still haven't told Methos," Crystal said, "And I can't tell him."

"What?" Amanda couldn't believe it, "Why not?"

"You still don't get it," Crystal said, "I'm 5,000 years old, and in all that time I never once let myself get attached to anyone other than those two knuckleheads that were my brothers. Now Kronos is dead, and if Methos finds out what I did and he walks out of my life because I betrayed him, I'm not going to have anybody left. And I may not be a sociable person, Amanda…but I can't survive without my family and Methos is all I've got left. Whatever it takes, I have to hold onto him."

"Crystal, you can't really believe that Methos would hold it against you," Amanda said, "For God's sake your whole wellbeing was at stake…nobody could keep a secret like that for so long from anyone."

"Oh yeah? You tell MacLeod about everything you do?" Crystal asked.

"That's different, I never kept a secret for nine tenths of my life," Amanda told her.

"Your life, what's 900 years to me?" Crystal replied, "Little over a fifth of my life, and if it kept Kronos alive during that time, it was worth it."

"Crystal," Amanda seemed to be having much trouble comprehending what Crystal was saying, "You have to tell him."

"No I don't," she replied, "So the guilt keeps me awake, I don't sleep, I can live with that so long as he doesn't shut me out of his life…if he were to do that, Immortality or not, I wouldn't survive."

"I'll admit I don't know Methos as well as you do but I do know him…he is not going to blame you for what happened," Amanda told her.

"I hope you're right, Amanda," Crystal said, "But this goes beyond anything anybody ever did to him before, and who knows? He just might consider it the worst thing anyone had ever done to him."

"I don't know, Mac," Richie said as the two Immortals walked down an empty street on the following gloomy Sunday morning, "I mean you knew Kronos for what…two instances in your life? With what, 130 years between each time? I mean I'm not saying he wasn't nuts by the end of it…but to hear Crystal talk about him, it just doesn't sound like the same guy that you killed."

"You weren't there," Duncan replied defensively.

"Yeah well you weren't there for the thousands of years that those guys knew each other either," Richie said, "I'm just saying there had to be more to the guy than just what you saw. Crystal said it was more of a reputation thing, kind of like you."

"What!"

"I'm just saying, the guy made a name for himself, he was expected to live up to it, and for other people's benefit anyway, he did, he lived up to the name he made for himself…that's what you do, you're the great protector, the defender of innocents or whatever…that's what you do, that's who you are, I don't know what Kronos was but whatever he was, he seems to have put as much effort into preserving that name for himself."

"You can not seriously be comparing me to him," Duncan said.

"I don't think I did," Richie said, "I just said…"

Their conversation was cut short when they felt another quickening nearby. Down the road was a church, and outside of the church they saw…

"Crystal!" Richie went over to the woman who sat perched on a marble yard marker in the church's front yard and asked her, "What're you doing here?"

"Oh, Methos is inside talking to a priest he knows," she said, "I'm waiting out here for him, I haven't set foot in a church in over 560 years, and I've no intention of breaking that record now and he knows why."

"How come?" Richie asked.

The front doors of the church opened and Methos stepped out and saw his friends gathered around and inquired as to what was so interesting. When Richie told Methos what Crystal had said, Methos replied, "Oh yes, that, my sister hasn't had anything to do with religion since 1431 when they burnt Joan of Arc at the stake."

"Heresy, do you believe that?" Crystal asked Richie, "She delivers her people, defends them against the English soldiers, and how do the sore losers retaliate? They call her a witch and burn her alive, after throwing her in prison, leaving her open to rape and shaving her head. That's a good Catholic?"

"You knew her?" Richie asked.

"Very briefly," Crystal answered, "But she was a good woman, she deserved a hell of a lot better treatment than that, she should've been revered…it was very minor consolation when she recently was named a saint."

"As you can see," Methos said, "The whole souring experience caused my sister to lose her faith in God."

"Not in God," Crystal corrected her brother, "It's the church I got no faith in, the members of the church, the men who built and run the church, them I got no faith in anymore, not God. I don't need to step into a place like that," she pointed to the church, "To get close to Him, what goes on between Him and me is strictly between us and nobody else, no interceptor in a black coat, no priest to use as a middleman, they can't do anything for anybody, they only make people think they can, that they're of any use, that they serve any purpose, well they don't. They're just around to be comforting, and my relationship with God has got nothing to do with comfort."

"And people say I'm a hard cynic," Methos said.

"We're not in this life for comfort, or peace or any crap like that," Crystal said, she seemed to be addressing Richie specifically, "We need only worry about our own inner sanctum, the only peace we have to make is with ourselves, everybody else can go to hell and most of them will…you don't live as long as we do to make friends with people, you live as long as we do for the sake of staying alive and doing with it what you will…our lives, our rules, and we're entitled to change those rules whenever we see fit because until any of us is dead, we don't have to answer for anything…that's why you learn early on what it takes to survive, you forget about honor and dignity and what's right and what's moral…honor and dignity don't keep you your head, only survival does that…and that survival has to be obtained by any means available, you can't focus too much on the 'rules' because nobody else does."

"We don't need a priest," Methos commented half to himself, "Put her in front of a pulpit and we'd still have a sermon, just a very different kind of one…but I don't know that she doesn't serve a purpose in making her point."

"Immortality is a real joke," Crystal said, "Nobody who deserves to be one ever is one…it's people like us who would've been better of dead thousands of years ago who get it…Joan of Arc, why couldn't she have been one of us? Or Amelia Earhart, Anne Frank? Anybody who deserved to live long and prosper never did and they still don't, the good still die young and yet we bastards remain. That's the rule of life, you play by the rules and you get walked all over and ultimately killed…but you say to hell with the rules, and you'll be standing on the earth until doom cracks. It's all a very cruel, impractical, unfunny joke, that's about all life ever is. You have to make your own rules."

"You really believe that?" Duncan asked her.

"I'm still here, aren't I?" she defiantly asked in return, "And believe me, I didn't get here on merit of what's right, what's honorable…I have no honor, never did, and it's certainly done me no harm. Now Kronos, he had honor, and you saw where it got him."

Methos watched MacLeod's expression in response to her statement and he noted that MacLeod looked like he'd just gotten hit with 10,000 gallons of ice water at what she said.