A/N: Right, this SHOULD be the last hideously boring chapter I write for a while. God, this was hard to get out (so flattery about how good it is will get you anywhere!) The next chapter is my favourite one so far... :) This is also a short one...

If I get enough reviews I might even post it this weekend... ;)

Scarily, I did a check on what I thought was the longest fanfic I've ever written - 'Til Death went past it in Chapter 10. :P

Chapter 12

Duo had complained about the pilot's skills at least fourteen times by the time the plane landed in Paris, Duncan had counted each and every one and made the appropriate noises, before giving up and buying a pair of headphones from a stewardess and putting up with the in-flight movie. He wasn't sure what was worse, a historical romantic comedy which had so many anachronisms that he had to resist laughing at the parts that were intended to be serious, or a running sarcastic critique of the pilot's abilities, especially when they hit turbulence.

Collecting their baggage from the carousel, they picked up their guns from the airport security who insisted that no handguns were carried on civilian flights, even by Preventer agents. Duncan quietly arranged to collect his sword case later in the day when Duo was safely settled in his own hotel, and he felt almost naked without it as they followed the stream of people towards the exit.

The American pilot stretched, working out the kinks from being stuffed in a plane seat for an hour or so - it appeared Preventer didn't do luxury air travel either. "So, straight to headquarters then? I need to go and pick up a car from there - if I see the inside of one more damn taxi I'm gonna go nuts."

"Lucky that we can walk it then, isn't it?" Duncan replied returning his partner's grin before slinging his backpack over his shoulder and picking up his holdall, "It's only fifteen miles."

"Only fifteen? Oh, man..."

"Or we can get the train."

"Train. Definitely the train."

Duo followed his partner through the bustling station, letting Mac navigate their way through the crowds as he walked out the nervous tension he got when someone other than himself, or someone he trusted implicitly, was flying something that had the possibility of plummeting to the ground in flames. The list of those he trusted unconditionally to safely fly a shuttle had a grand total of six people on, including himself, and five of them he'd never tell they had that status.

A short train journey later and a much shorter walk and they reached Preventer headquarters in Paris which was based in an elegant old house, a far cry from the gundanium, steel and glass of the Brussels main building. The security, however, was just as tight with their identity cards scanned at several gates before they were permitted entry to the main building set slightly back from the main road. The atmosphere thawed somewhat then as the receptionist dialled through to Intelligence to let their contact know they'd arrived.

They didn't have long to wait as a dark skinned woman stepped out of one of the lifts and glanced around, before making a beeline towards where they were sitting. She was probably a bit older than Mac, Duo estimated as they stood up to greet her, her soft black curls beginning to pepper with grey and a few lines around her eyes betrayed her fit and trim body.

"Agent Panther, or Nula Ashrit" she stated, a mild French accent tinging her words as she held out her hand., "I'm in charge of the Intelligence team you'll be liaising with while you're here. I doubt you'll require our expertise, but if you do, please feel free to ask me."

"Agent Night, or just call me Duo," the pilot responded with a smile, taking her hand as she raised an eyebrow and raked dark eyes over him. "Yeah, I know, I'm young, I have a weird hair style for a guy, but I'm still competent."

The woman shook her head, "Actually, I was just going to ask if you were one of the Gundam pilots, I heard that the Commander had managed to recruit them all and you look of the right age."

"Ah, yeah, I was, I piloted Deathscythe," he shrugged, turning his smile up a notch. "Is that a problem?"

"No, not at all." She pulled her hand back sharply with a smile that looked more like a grimace before turning to Duncan with a real smile, effectively putting herself between them. "And you'd be Agent Cloud?"

"Yes, although I generally go by Duncan MacLeod," the Scot replied easily. "We're just dropping in to get cars sorted out from the garage, and we'll be back tomorrow to settle in properly."

Nula nodded, her curls bobbing over her face, "Not a problem - I'll show you to the office so you can make your own way there when you're ready."

Duo followed the other agents up a sweeping staircase, gazing around at the luxurious surroundings. It felt he was slipping into some kind of ancient romance, Mac even looked like he belonged in the opulent hallways of burgundy wall covering, rich red carpet and dark wood highlight. When the French agent pushed open to gesture them into what looked like a real wooden door into a hub of activity, he noticed that even amongst all the wires and technology of the very modern office there were still period features. From an elegantly moulded, although chipped, cornice running around the edge of the ceiling to a richly painted oil painting covered by a protective case on one wall; even the wallpaper looked old to his eyes.

"It's expensive for Preventer to maintain the historical side of the building, especially with all the technology required for us to function, but the war meant that many places were destroyed, most by mobile suit battles, so we find it worthwhile to do the best we can."

Nula's voice came from behind them and he turned to see their escort frowning at him as she spoke. He sighed. So their liaison with Preventer in Paris had a thing against mobile suit pilots and the war. Wasn't that just fantastic.

"You'll be working here, if you need to use Preventer systems," the woman continued, equally coldly, ignoring his reply as she pointed out two empty desks. "If you need to, you can log in from an external computer, but you will not have full access. I'm afraid we don't have the spare offices currently to give you one of your own."

Not that I can't get full access anytime I want, Duo mentally stuck his tongue out at the woman. He knew damn well that he was being childish, but something about the older Agent just rubbed him up the wrong way.

"Thank you, this will be just fine, Ms. Ashrit. So, I assume the garage is in the basement?" Mac asked smoothly, turning his gorgeous smile onto the woman much to the pilot's relief.

"Call me Nula, Mr. MacLeod," Panther replied, smiling back, a faint blush suddenly appearing on her dark cheeks, "And, yes it is. I'll take you there now, if you'd like to follow me?"

"Well then, you must call me Duncan. I was wondering, it's a lovely building you have here, Nula. Do you have any files on the history of the place?"

Duo shot a grateful glance at his partner as the woman started to elaborate on the history of the mansion as they headed downstairs again. Well, not everyone could be precisely happy about the war and the destruction that several 16 meter high mechas could cause, but he'd never really considered how much had been lost in the fighting other than lives. That was definitely an uncomfortable thought. Pushing it away for consideration later, he resisted the urge to slide down the banister and, once Mac had extricated himself from the female agent, followed his partner towards the stairs down to the Preventer garage. At least there was some use for Mac's seemingly effortless charming of women, even if he'd much prefer it if the guy was trying to charm him, he was not looking forward to spending much time in the company of one Agent Panther.

After a quick explanation of the few driving laws that were different in Paris, and a detailed scrutinising of his new license and insurance details, Duo found himself in control of one of the sleek black sedans that he'd been admiring in Brussels. Tucking the paperwork into the glove compartment, he switched on the sat-nav to find that his hotel was only a couple of streets away from the headquarters. He was sure he could find some reason to take the car out for a spin, but getting to and from the office didn't appear to be one of them. He grinned suddenly as an idea struck him, they wouldn't be going into the office until the next day anyway, and no one said that he couldn't go for a drive to get the layout of the place, right?

Mac's own black car streaked out ahead of him, heading out to his own hotel, and Duo followed for a short distance before peeling off and speeding up. God he'd missed this. OK, so it wasn't 'Scythe, but it was still a machine he was in control of, that moved to his every command and it purred along the road at a speed that was at least half way decent. Grinning, he took off down the Parisian streets, allowing the wind to whip in through the window, ruffling his hair as he rejoiced in his newly acquired freedom.

Eventually, he found himself outside his hotel and grimaced as he collected his keys from the dingy reception, the gentleman handing over the keys leering at him before he checked the reservation and paid attention to the uniform coat the pilot was wearing. Sighing, Duo took his luggage up to the tiny room where he shrugged off his jacket and chucked his suitcase on the chair in the room before frowning at his surroundings. There was barely enough room to swing a cat in the room, and, yep, if he spun round, the end of his braid swept up against the far wall. He knew Preventer was on a tight budget, but this room was ridiculous.

He dug his laptop out and set it up on the rickety desk, half surprised they even had electricity and network access in the place, and made a mental note to complain to Finance once they'd returned to Brussels. Once he'd figured out the access, and set up sufficient security to secure his computer on the godawful network provided, he promptly started searching for somewhere to get some food from; he really didn't want to risk eating whatever slop the hotel decided to serve up, paid for by work or not.

For a while Duncan also just enjoyed driving around the city, taking in the scenery, from the modern skyscrapers to the small old houses that had been preserved for centuries. Granted, many of them were crumbling and had scaffolding around them, but they were still there, still standing through wars and time. Many of the places he passed still held echoes of the Paris he'd lived in so long ago, a couple of the houses looking familiar under their decay.

He found himself on the Champs Elysees almost without thinking, the old avenue still a major thoroughfare even after all the years that had gone by. From there he could see the ruins of the Eiffel Tower, the top half almost bent over after a plane had flown into it centuries ago, the Arc de Triumph also crumbling from age, the delicate carving worn away by time and age.

He closed his eyes for a moment, before turning the car round and heading back to the airport to pick up his sword. It felt almost like he was running away. He'd only been back to the city a few times since, since Richie, and he'd known that the sights and sounds of the city would bring back memories as always. Some of his best and worst memories were from the City of Lights.

An image of Tessa floated into his mind's eye, with her blonde curls that tumbled down her back and blue eyes that lit up so vivaciously, lying in his bed on the barge, relaxed and sated after an evening of love making. He still missed her. He still mourned for each and every one of his past loves, and he was cursed to carry on, alone. Even Amanda was gone now, the only Immortal he'd ever managed to keep a romantic relationship with without it going horribly wrong in some way.

Glancing at the Eiffel Tower again before it slipped out of view, he remembered dancing on the top of the tower with the master catburglar, before Kallas's attempt at outing Immortals to the world, her laughing face flickering in his memory as he spun her round, waltzing above the city at what could have been the end of the them all.

Parking the car, he stayed with his head bowed over the steering wheel for a long moment. And then there was Richie. He'd never managed to return to the racetrack after that day, from what he'd heard it had been torn up and turned into housing centuries ago. In a way he regretted that, never being able to get closure from visiting the site where he'd taken his student's head, in others he was grateful for not having the reminder. Richie. His greatest regret and failure. Except for driving Methos away. Damn it. He was not going to spend the entire time in a hotel brooding again.

After picking his sword case up and ducking into a side street to sheathe it in his coat, Duncan headed over to his hotel, quickly collecting his keys and making his way up the narrow staircase.

He'd only just reached his own room and hung his coat up when his phone rang, the sound shrill in the basic room. Glancing at the unrecognised number, he debated not answering it for a moment before sighing and pressing the accept button. Given only a handful of people had the number anyway, it'd probably be either a sales call anyway.

"MacLeod." He sat down on the single bed, leaning back against the headboard and toeing his shoes off before swinging his legs up onto the mattress.

"MacLeod, where the hell are you?"

The Scot sighed at the familiar voice, the Watcher's tone was both irritated and relived in equal measure. "Hello Des. Isn't it your job to know that?"

"All I know is you got sent home with a migraine yesterday, and you'd not been seen since. Now, given I know for a fact that Immortals don't get migraines, I was a little worried. Especially as I heard your partner went psycho, and you weren't at your barge or any of your other hangouts."

"So, no one told you I was going on a mission in Paris for a few days?"

"Paris? MacLeod, I've not got the holiday to come to Paris to watch you!"

He chuckled, "And that's why most Watchers don't have full time jobs outside of watching. I know I'm a pretty easy man to keep tabs on, but even so." He shook his head, continuing before the other man could speak. "Look, Des, I'll do what I've always done in these situations and send you a nice little report you can copy and paste into my chronicle."

"Missing out any important juicy information that you'd rather didn't get reported."

"Of course. Unless you want to contact the French branch and ask for a Watcher to be temporarily assigned?" Even as he asked he knew that it wouldn't happen - the Watchers were constantly short staffed due to the fact that it wasn't exactly a glamorous job that you could brag about to your friends, and your life was dictated by your Immortals.

"Mac..." Des groaned, "Don't even go there."

"Is that all?"

"Just don't lose your head, OK?"

"I always try not to."

Closing the phone, he lay back for a moment, revelling in the feeling of not being watched every damn moment, letting it overwhelm the grief he'd felt before. Granted, he could lose a tail easily enough, but from experience the organisation could be pretty damn persistent when they wanted to be, and his reputation for being an interesting Immortal to follow around meant generally they did want to be in his case.

He was unpacking his holdall, making use of the cupboard provided to store several pairs of work trousers and white t-shirts to go under his Preventer jacket or a shirt, when the phone rang again, this time with Duo's number popping up on the display.

"MacLeod." He propped the phone between his ear and shoulder as he finished putting away the civilian clothing he'd brought with him.

"So, where are you going to take me out for a meal?" His partner's voice almost bounced down the phone.

Duncan sighed, getting to his feet and sitting back on the bed. "Don't you get fed in your hotel?"

"I've had the old guy on reception eye me up, the room would be claustrophobic if I wasn't used to piloting a mobile suit, and I've had to triple the security on my laptop in order to even think of using the hotel's network. I don't care if they serve fricking five star luxury cuisine - I'm not eating here."

"And this means that I get to pay for dinner because?"

"Because you're the one that knows how to fill out the expenses forms."

Duo groaned, stretching to work out the kinks in his neck. He was getting soft - a year of sleeping in a comfortable bed and suddenly his muscles complained from a night on a lumpy mattress. A warm shower later and his muscles had relaxed sufficiently to get dressed and switch his laptop on to shoot an irritated email off to Finance to see if they could change his hotel. Enough was enough. Even if the breakfast buffet was amazing, there was no way he was spending even one more night in this fricking place.

He wound his hair into a bun under a cap to ensure that there was no doubt that he was, in fact, male and made his way downstairs into the tiny dining room where the buffet was just as poor as he'd suspected. He managed to down a few slices of dry toast and a pot of weak tea before giving up and deciding to pick something up on the way to the office.

Ducking into the room that Panther had shown them to the day before, he made his way to one of the empty desks, relieved that the senior Agent wasn't in evidence as he sipped his strong, rich coffee. The next job was to pull up the addresses of their suspects on the system and start planning how to track them down.

When Nula arrived, she greeted him with a sharp nod before heading to her own desk at the head of the room before promptly ignoring him, which suited him just fine.

He'd just managed to hack into the city's CCTV cameras when an email pinged in from Duncan who'd headed off to the bank first thing, eliminating the banker and administrator from their enquiries. His partner had traced the accounts for both of them and proved they weren't involved in the organisation they were tracking. That left the student, the gangster and the shop assistant, all of whom had addresses within the central Paris area. Not that he expected for a moment that any one of the five address for the crime boss would be legitimate.

A couple of hours later, after a fruitless conversation with the Universite de Paris, and a just as fruitful short hacking excursion into their files, plus an hour or so setting up some new queries on various databases to look for more suspects, he decided to drop in on the address he had for the shop assistant's work address while he was getting lunch. After all, he decided, the easiest way to eliminate him would be if he was working on the days their suspect had been seen around other places.

His luck was in, and the assistant was out for his own lunch when Duo walked into the small convenience store and asked for the manager, flashing his Preventer identity card. A few minutes later, he walked out with a pre-packaged sandwich, bottle of coke and a chocolate bar, as well as the information that meant he could also eliminate the assistant from the possibilities.

Driving back to headquarters, he met Duncan in the reception and updated him, earning a frown from his partner. "So that leaves the student, or we're looking in the wrong place." At Duo's confused look, he continued with a sigh, "They arrested Monsieur Lukas Negen last night in Sanc. Where he's been hiding for the last six months."

"So, tomorrow we go and see what we can dig up on Monsier, um... Benjim Keturi, right?" The pilot grinned as they entered the office, ripping open his food to a glare from Nula. "I've not been able to find anything from his University. He's a postgrad in modern history, pays his bills on time and has had good comments from his supervisor so far. There's precisely nothing unusual about him other than the fact that he's living in an apartment that he shouldn't be able to afford on his stipend, and the fact that he apparently did miss one or two meetings on a few days when our suspect would have been elsewhere as well. No family alive, no siblings. I assume you checked out his bank details?"

"Nothing unusual on his main account. Weekly paycheck from the University and so on. The apartment rent however appears to be paid in cash though, regularly every month, and it doesn't come out of the account."

"In other words a dead end. And still suspicious as fuck." He pointedly ignored the glare his swearing earned from the older woman at the head of the room, instead collapsing into his chair, propping his feet up on the desk, which earned him a loud cough, also ignored.

"Actually, I thought you'd like to go and see if you can get a look at our target." Duncan replied, "Until we get any other leads he's our best hope. You never know, he might do something while you're watching."

He couldn't help the snort that erupted. "Yeah, right, like that's going to happen. But, hey, I'd rather be outside than in here, so if you want me to go play surveillance, that's no problem for me. So, what's the plan for the afternoon?"

"Keep looking."

"I was worried you'd say that."

Five minutes later and Duncan was only half paying attention to the screen in front of him. He was starting to get a bad feeling about Benjim Keturi. The secretive nature of a simple postgrad, the avoidance of cameras, the strange amounts of money, all pointed to an Immortal in his mind and that complicated matters beyond anything he'd expected. Damn. And he was sending Duo out to watch the guy. Not that his partner was complaining at all.

He fired a quick email off to Des, asking if he'd ever heard of an Immortal called Benjim Keturi, in slightly more subtle language and included a throw-away email address for him to reply to. He knew he was pushing the boundries that the Watcher was prepared to go past, but mixing business with the Game never worked well, and if there was any risk to his partner, or of said partner finding out about Immortals, he'd find some excuse to do the surveillance himself.

It didn't take long to get a curt negative response, luckily for his patience, along with a reminder to send the Watcher a report of anything interesting that happened. That didn't entirely ease his worries, there was still the University photo of Keturi that reminded him of someone, but given how many people he'd known in his lifetime that wasn't exactly surprising. However Immortals from his past had had a habit of cropping up before and there was always a chance they'd start to once again.

So, hopefully either a mortal, a very new Immortal or, the worst case, an older one under a different name or without a Watcher. For a moment he considered pulling Duo off trailing the man anyway, but the ex-pilot was suspicious enough that any excuse he could come up with would likely lead to his partner trailing both of them. It was, however, highly unlikely that anyone would Challenge an Immortal during the day, especially nowadays, so as long as he made sure Duo returned before dusk, and stayed in communicator contact, he should be fine. He hoped. Or the man could just be the mortal he appeared to be and all his worrying was for nothing.

"Woot!" Duo's exclamation distracted him, "Finance have booked me a better hotel, and they won't be using that one again," his partner added smugly as he peered round his monitor to see a pleased smile on the pilot's face.

Shaking his head, he smiled over at Nula, who kept shooting worried glances his way and irritated ones towards Duo, before continuing his trawl through the bank details and running analyses of all their information to try to eke out any more suspects or possibilities.