A series of guttural moans escaped Amanda's throat as she rolled around back and forth on the sheets of MacLeod's bed. The hideous green striped things were ice cold to the touch and took their sweet time to warm up under your body temperature, but she didn't care, it was a bed, a real bed, a soft bed, the mattress felt so good under her. She could sleep on this thing, like the dead, she was sure of it. It had been so long since she'd slept in a bed, especially a comfortable one like this: the soft blankets, the large, soft pillows, the exquisitely large, soft mattress. Just like Goldilocks in the baby bear's bed, just right.
"Amanda!" Methos said in an annoyed voice as he came over to her, "Will you shut up already?" He went back over to Richie, who was freshly bathed, and although largely oblivious to what was going on, Methos placed his hands over the kid's ears and said to Amanda, "Are you going to knock off those obscene noises, or am I going to have to turn the hose on you?"
"Oh, Methos," Amanda moaned, and finally sat up, "You've got to try out this bed."
"No thanks," Methos replied, "After that little episode, I'd be bound to catch something off of it."
Amanda moaned again and rolled from side to side again, "I could get used to this, Methos, no more sleeping in churches on those hard pews, no more sneaking into movies through the fire exit and sleeping in the balcony for two hours at a time…this is…heavenly!"
"Yeah, well don't get used to it," Methos told her, "Until we know what we're dealing with, we can't afford to get too comfortable anywhere. At any time we'll have to pick up and take off again, and we have no idea where our next destination will be, remember that."
Amanda shrugged her shoulders dismissively, "Little young to be such a grumpy old man, aren't you?"
He looked at her and said simply, "I have no idea."
Amanda pursed her lips together on one side and just slightly nodded her head in silent understanding. Finally, she gave in and stood up and headed over to the bathroom, "I need to get my clothes, I'm going out."
"What on earth for?" Methos asked.
Amanda stopped at the doorway and turned back around and faced them and explained, "I'm going to go out and get us some new clothes, you're the one always going on about not drawing attention to ourselves…well after a while people are going to notice if you keep wearing the same clothes every day, incase you haven't noticed, this isn't Scooby Doo."
"And how do you propose to do that?" Methos wanted to know.
Amanda went over to her backpack and unzipped one compartment and took out the credit card, "I found MacLeod's credit card in the dresser, we can get some new clothes and charge it."
"Charge it, terrific, we'll be arrested for credit card fraud," Methos said.
Richie turned his head towards Amanda and said tauntingly, "See?"
"Nobody's going to arrest us for anything," Amanda insisted, "MacLeod left it here, in his home, therefore it's not missing, the store runs the credit card," she shook her head, smiling, "It's not going to turn up stolen, by the time MacLeod gets back and sees the charges, we'll be long gone, we'll be history."
"That," Methos responded, "Is exactly what we're trying to avoid."
"Oh Methos will you relax?" Amanda asked as she sashayed back towards the bathroom to get dressed, "When is an ample opportunity like this ever going to fall in our laps again?"
"And I suppose you think you're going to be going out there alone," Methos said.
"Why not?" Amanda asked, "People will look for the three of us together, one of us going alone makes it harder for us to find."
"Also easier to be ambushed," Methos told her, "We're safer together."
"Methos," Amanda came out of the bathroom scurrying on her toes so frantically she almost knocked Methos down and said to him, "There're 50,000 people in this city, so we can likely deduce there's roughly some 10,000 teen girls running around here, what's one more in the crowd going to make any difference? I'll be fine."
Methos folded his arms tight against his chest, pursed his lips, curled his top lip under his nose, and replied unenthusiastically, "If anything goes wrong, I'm not coming after you."
"Fine," Amanda sat down long enough to get her roller skates on, "Suit yourself, but feed the kid, will you?"
"You're crazy," Methos told her, "You know we've got a price on our heads, and you're going to go out there like a lamb walking into the slaughter. Amanda, what the hell do you think we've been running so long for?"
"Well I don't know about you, Methos," Amanda said as she put on her jacket, "But I figured since we were on the dead run for so long, two days without even stopping long enough to eat anything, that we would've bought ourselves enough time that we can act like people and not have to spend every minute hiding."
"That is precisely the point, we have no idea who all we have to hide from," Methos told her, "We don't know how many of them there are, we can't begin to imagine where they all are."
"Methos," Amanda said simply, dismissively, "I'll be fine."
Giving in, he finally responded, "I hope so."
Amanda skated over to the lift, raised the door, got in, lowered the door, and started down. As the elevator neared the ground floor, Richie asked Methos, "Do you think that's a good idea?"
"She'll be back," Methos replied, not sounding particularly concerned.
Their attention was quickly turned back towards the elevator which had started again and was now coming up.
"You see?" Methos asked.
A minute later, Amanda surfaced again and lifted the door and said, "Alright, I'm back."
"What did I tell you?" Methos asked the boy.
Amanda slapped him on the chest and told him, "Don't get cocky, Methos, I'm back because there's a police car going around the block down there and I'm not in any mood to go to jail."
"Good point," he replied.
Amanda skated over towards the couch and sat down to untie her skates.
"Well," she said, "Anybody got any other brilliant ideas?"
As the afternoon passed, the sky became darker than usual and before 5 P.M. it was already starting to rain. Amanda, Methos and Richie spent the afternoon on the couch watching TV, it was a luxury they'd really taken to over the past couple weeks when and where possible. So many channels to go through, so many things to see: MTV on one, on another an old black and white movie about gangsters, and on another a game show with people dressed up like chickens, and after that, an all day 3 Stooges marathon.
"Oh joy," Methos dryly remarked as he folded his arms against his chest and crossed one leg over the other.
"Oh come on, Methos, they're funny," Amanda said.
"To people with the IQ of a lima bean maybe," he replied.
Amanda turned and looked towards him and raised one hand and extended her index and middle fingers and aimed them in his direction warningly. Methos made a mock gesture of surrender and scooted away from her on the couch, and proceeded to watch as Amanda and Richie both laughed themselves sick over the three nitwits in black and white on the TV. After about an hour of eye pokes, face slaps, head bops, tongue pulls, pies to the face, heavy objects on feet, and other assorted physical forms of mayhem, the three of them decided to start on dinner.
"We can try cooking the steak," Amanda said as she took it out of the fridge.
"One steak for the three of us?" Methos asked.
She just shrugged and replied, "It's a big one, no bones, not a lot of fat either. We can make extra potatoes instead."
"Beautiful," Methos said dryly.
"Now who's the one getting used to the conveniences here?" Amanda asked smartly.
"Ha-ha."
Amanda rolled her eyes and moved over towards the window and looked out into the storm. "I wonder how long that fool MacLeod will be gone?"
"Not long enough for my comfort," Methos replied.
Amanda thought of something else and asked him, "Who do you think that old man was that went with him?"
"I doubt it makes any difference," Methos answered as he emptied the sack of potatoes into the sink to peel.
Amanda looked over to him and asked uncertainly, "You think he knows something?"
"I doubt he knows anything," he told her.
"We can hope," she replied. She went over to the table and looked at the steak and asked Methos, "How do you cook this thing anyway? I mean do you boil it or…will it fry in a skillet? Or does it even matter?"
"How the hell should I know?" Methos asked.
Amanda shrugged her shoulders, "Oh well, so long as it eats I guess that's all that matters. We can always try again tomorrow if we don't get it right tonight."
"Again, don't get used to it," Methos said, "We might have to leave here at any time."
"I know that," Amanda replied with a pout, "Doesn't mean I can't enjoy myself while we are here."
Considering the three of them together knew very little about cooking, dinner went well and the steak had been at least edible. After dinner, they returned to the living room and continued to watch TV while it poured down rain outside. Going through the channels they soon came to an old black and white horror movie.
"If this gives him nightmares," Amanda said to Methos, glancing over towards Richie, "He's sleeping with you tonight."
"So what else is new?" Methos replied.
"I mean it," Amanda told him.
"Does that mean you won't be joining us in that bed?" Methos asked her, "Making those disgusting noises again?"
"You two can take the bed," she said, "I'll take the couch."
"The couch, Amanda?"
"Well," she folded her arms against her chest, "It still beats sleeping in a church." She turned to Methos and asked him, "I don't get it, if they want people to come to church, let alone actually pay attention in church, why the hell can't they do any better than those hard wooden pews?"
"Too uncomfortable to fall asleep in," Methos answered.
"Amen to that," Amanda snorted as she absently rubbed her backside, "All we ever got to show for it was a few splinters and a stiff and sore everything else."
"That's how they make sure they get everyone's attention," Methos said, "Or at least try to, they don't realize the attention then gets divided to counting the minutes until the service is over."
Amanda looked at him and asked, "Speaking from experience, Methos?"
He thought about it for a minute and concluded, "I don't know."
It was something they had agreed not to talk about, but it still weighed heavily on their minds.
"Who are you?"
The two of them had never met before. Neither one of them knew anything about where they were or why, or who was keeping them there. Neither of them even knew how far back they could remember, it didn't seem that they could too far, but there were some things they knew that they didn't know how they knew, it just seemed that all they could remember were the white walls, four walls, every day, every day of pacing around the room in circles, staring at the walls, wondering when somebody would come. Then one day someone had come, and taken each of them out of the white rooms, and then down a long, eerie corridor, to another room, one they couldn't remember being in before. And they were left there, together. She stood leaning back against one of the mirrored walls, dressed in a long white nightgown, similar to the ones people wore in hospitals, much like the one he wore himself, her dark hair tied back and hanging down to her waist, absently chewing her nails and sucking on her fingertips. She looked at him like a cat sizing up a bird before pouncing on it and breaking its neck, and she'd been the first to ask, and caught him off guard.
"I…" he'd started to answer.
She stopped biting her nails and looked at him in earnest curiosity, wondering if he even knew.
"I think…" he said hesitantly, "I think my name is Methos." Then it was his turn, "Who are you?"
She half shrugged and replied, "I think my name's Amanda. How'd they get you?"
"I don't have any idea," he answered.
"Me either," she said almost dismissively, as though it didn't mean a thing in the world.
"Were we ever out of here?" he asked her.
"Got me," she said as she leaned against the mirror again and folded her arms, "I guess we must've been though, but I can't remember it."
Methos shook his head, "Me either."
"What do you think they want with us?" Amanda asked.
"I don't know," he said.
She looked around at the mirrored walls and asked, "Think they're watching us?"
"Probably," Methos answered, "Want to see what we'll do."
"I wonder what the right thing is they're expecting," Amanda said.
"Beats me," Methos replied with a shrug.
"Well," Amanda said to him, "How many more of us do you think there are?"
He looked to her, "More of us?"
She nodded, "Yeah, there's a little kid around here somewhere, I saw him earlier. They have him in another room."
Methos inhaled slowly and looked like he knew something about what was going on, even though he didn't and couldn't possibly know, and he said to her, "I wonder what they're doing to him."
"I wonder what they're going to do to us," Amanda said to him.
Neither one of them particularly cared to give that question much thought.
Amanda folded her arms and leaned back against one wall and said to him, "If we ever find a way out of here, let's take the kid with us, whatever's going on here, it wouldn't be right to leave him behind."
Methos thought about it for a minute and nodded. He knew he didn't like being here, wherever here was, one damn bit, and he couldn't imagine anyone else liking it any better. He didn't remember much about the people there, but he knew that he didn't like them, anything about them; he didn't like their soulless eyes that blankly stared at him like a specimen and he didn't like the cold, robotic way they addressed him, no ordered him, commanded him. Above all else he hated the fact that every time any of those people came to see him, it always ended with them leaving the room and him being locked in again for another day, or however long it was until they came again.
"If we ever find a way out of here," he told her, "Let's burn the place down when we go."
Amanda held out her hand, "Sounds like a plan to me."
Amanda changed back into one of MacLeod's shirts to wear to bed, and she sauntered over to the couch and piled a couple large pillows on one end and draped a couple sheets over it she found in the closet. They'd made sure the doors were locked, the windows were locked, if anybody tried getting in here tonight, they'd not only know since they'd also booby trapped the entrances, but if anybody managed to get in, they'd be sorry. Amanda climbed into her makeshift bed and stretched out, bed or no bed, this was still heavenly after the places they'd been sleeping. She rolled around on the cushions and moaned softly.
"Now don't start that again!" an annoyed voice called over from the bed.
Amanda sat up to look over the back of the couch and saw Methos and Richie laying beside each other in the big bed at the end of the loft.
"Goodnight, Methos!" she waved comically, "Goodnight, Richie."
"Goodnight, Amanda," they called back to her, Methos gruntingly because he was tired and just wanted to go to sleep, Richie's was peppier and he still seemed to be wide awake.
"Alright, Richie," Methos yawned and stretched out on his side of the bed, "Let's go to sleep."
"Not me," Richie replied, "I'm not sleepy."
Methos scowled at the boy through one half open eye, then sat up and scowled at him with both eyes, Richie just mockingly returned the death stare.
"Now look, Richie," Methos pointed a finger at him, "We talked about this."
"Yeah, but I'm still not sleepy," he answered.
Methos inhaled slowly and told the boy, "Either you go to sleep or I'm going to rock you to sleep."
"With a real rock?" Richie inquired.
"Yes!" Methos answered.
Richie seemed to think about it for a few seconds, then promptly remarked, "Goodnight, Methos,", and laid down and started snoring immediately.
"Oh brother," Methos rolled his eyes and flopped back against the mattress.
Amanda smirked from where she lay on the couch since he couldn't see her. She rolled on her side and burrowed under the sheets and blankets. Shortly, the three of them were fast asleep in the first and possibly only peaceful sleep they'd ever known, certainly the only one they could remember.