It was a rather foggy and cold autumn day which made them quickly discard the idea of walking all the way to the Louvre. Like many other people they decided to take the metro instead, which turned out to be a bad idea. It seemed to be rush hour, because the wagons of the trains were overcrowded. After they had already let two trains pass them by, apparently both of them shared a dislike for huge crowds of people, they finally had to bite the bullet and get into the next one.

Liz couldn't help but feel a bit like a human-sized sardine. Currently she was in a rather awkward position, stuck between Adam's chest and the leather suitcase of some businessman. For the up-tenth time she muttered an apologetic 'sorry' to her companion. She did like him, but being that close to him now was forced and premature and also a bit ridiculous. And although she liked smoking cigars, mostly she did it for the shock-value and because she enjoyed provocation, she was starting to regret having smoked that particular cigar this morning. Surely she smelled of it. Cold smoke wasn't a pleasant smell. Not one she wanted to be associated with.

Fortunately they had to get out at the next stop. Liz inhaled a generous lung-full of fresh air once they were outside again and no longer underground. It calmed her nerves and her frantically beating heart. He took a step closer to her. There was worry in his eyes – the genuine kind. She smiled at him and shook her head. His almost-gesture and the expression on his face appealed to her. They indicated that behind his abrasive remarks there was much more. Not that she hadn't suspected it. He was probably as multi-faceted as a diamond...

They started walking, for once without saying a word. Her eyes drank in the beauty of the city. The Arc de Triomphe was visible somewhere in the distance, half-immersed in mist, and of course there was the Louvre Palace and the Pyramid. She had not been in Paris since the 80s so the sight of the impressive glass construction left her in awe.

As always there was a queue in front of the museum, albeit shorter than the last time she had been there. They passed the time bickering back and forth, so the wait was not quite as long as expected.

Once inside Adam quickly discarded his coat, stuffing it into one of many lockers the museum provided for its visitors. Well, maybe stuffing wasn't the right word. But his behaviour was most definitely suspicious. The way he folded it carefully into a bundle, but tried to be almost too casual about it, let her suspect that he had his sword hidden in it, but she didn't comment on it. Now that he no longer wore the coat, she first became aware of how lean he was. Though he was far from the physical presence of a Duncan McLeod, he was in his own way imposing. How he managed to be both wiry and imposing was beyond her. Usually those weren't two adjective she would have combined, but to be able to describe him adequately she was forced to do it. There were many things about him that were confusing, so this quite obvious contradiction was just one more mystery to add to the vast collection of mysteries that surrounded him.

"So where to?" he asked nonchalantly. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, regarding her expectantly as he was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

She looked down at the brochure in her hands which also held a map of the museum. "Maybe we should go about this chronologically and start with the Egyptian collection?" she suggested. He just nodded and so they made their way up to that particular part of the museum.

As expected the Louvre hadn't lost any of its fascination and charm since she had last been there. There were a lot of things that mesmerised her, like for example the huge sphinx statue that awaited them in the first huge room and completely captured her attention. Her feet just stopped in front of it and wouldn't move any more until she had taken in every single detail about it. Quite inevitably a lot of questions popped up in her head like when was this statue created, who created it and however did they manage to move rocks as massive as this from one place to another. Apparently those questions had been evident on her face because almost without her noticing he stepped up to her and whispered some interesting and bizarre tit-bits of information in her ear that made her smile.

Surprisingly he seemed to take pleasure in acting as a her guide. Without having to be told, he steered her towards the most interesting bits of the collection. And even though he was equipped with the kind of scathing sarcasm that could potentially reduce people to tears, he never so much as made a snide comment when she asked another one of those simple questions that might have sounded stupid to him. She appreciated his attention and his thoughtfulness, even enjoyed it. This more scholarly side of him was certainly quite charming.

He was about to lead her off to another part of the museum, they had seen almost everything in the Egyptian section, when she spotted a particular piece of art that peeked her interest. It was the statue of a man carved into a brownish, beige rock. His facial features were serious, his posture kind of stiff. She looked at the plaque curiously. "Statue of Akmene...," she tried and had to give up at the middle of the lengthy name. It was almost like pronouncing the word 'supercalifragilisticexpialid ocious' for the first time.

"Statue of Amenemhatankh?" he supplied with a smile. The way the name rolled of his tongue so effortlessly let her turn her head and look at him in wonder.

"Next thing you're going to tell me is that you can read hieroglyphs," she joked. In response he just shrugged his shoulders casually.

"Well can you?" she inquired not satisfied with just a non-verbal reply.

"The inscriptions say that he was a high priest."

"Adam...," Liz started, but before she could finish he interrupted her with an indulgent smile on his face. "Before you get your knickers in a twist, it's what the plaque says."

His comment almost immediately guided her eyes towards said plaque and she could help but read it, in order to verify his statement. He was right. It did say that. But how could he have seen it from this angle? She tried to rationalise the whole thing by telling herself that maybe he hadn't wanted to show off too much, but from that moment on the incident was stuck in her head. She just couldn't shake it. It was still there even as they walked through the Near Eastern section and after that the Greek, Etruscan and Roman one.

By the time they stood in front of the famous winged statue of the goddess Nike, which was about two hours later, she couldn't take it any more. She just had to ask him about it or else the thought would be haunting her for the rest of the day. But she couldn't just blurt it out. That would be tactless, inelegant and would probably also not lead to the desired result. She took a sidelong glance at him. He had just rounded the statue and was now standing there looking at it with a faraway expression in his eyes. The fact that he was lost in thought conveniently provided her with a few moments to contemplate how best to approach the subject. She finally tapped him on the shoulder almost hesitantly. "How about a cup of coffee?" They had spent the last hours exploring the museum, so it was not an unreasonable request. He nodded.

About twenty minutes later they were sitting there at a round, white table on the balcony of the Louvre facing the Pyramid. Their cups of coffee were in front of them, the hot beverage forming clouds of steam in the crisp autumn air.

Thanks to her blazer she wasn't cold, but he was only wearing a sweater. "You'll catch your death out here, sitting around like this." Before she could stop herself the words were out of her mouth. They sounded sort of motherly, not at all like her. She felt slightly embarrassed. He was certainly the last person who needed mothering. Maybe those screaming brats did that were running around the café that was bustling with tourists, but most definitely not him.

He took the cup of coffee in his hands and leaned back in his chair with an enigmatic grin. "So what did you want to ask?"

Always straight to the point, always bull's eye. Why was it so easy for him to read her when it gave other people a lot of trouble most of the time? It was irritating... no, fascinating. Maybe it was a little bit of both.

"Old Man isn't exactly a nickname, is it?" she asked bravely, hiding her expectant face effectively behind her coffee cup from which she quickly took a strategic sip.

"No," he grinned.

"So?"she supplied. He was stalling. She was by now used to that.

"Tit for tat," he said simply, picking up on what she had told him during their last meeting. "Tell me something about yourself that I don't already know."

She put the cup of coffee back on the table, immediately sitting a bit straighter. Inside the cup the milk and the coffee were forming interesting little swirls. A little boy jogging by let out a loud scream, his feet pounding loudly on the stone pavement. He was shortly after followed by an older man, probably his father, trying to chase him down, because he wanted to put an anorak on him.

Adam, however, was not distracted by the commotion. He was still looking at her expectantly. His face was a mask of calmness, which seemed unfair, because inside of her a battle was raging. His simple request had triggered a conflict in her. She was curious to know more about him, but then again she wasn't sure it was wise to tell him about her past. What if that was the wrong way to go? What if he didn't understand? What if, what if, what if. Her own hesitance and insecurity were starting to irritate her.

'What ifs' were tiresome. They were nothing but meek excuses. And since when did it matter what other people thought about her? It was unlike her to be scared or to shy away from something. This trait of character was usually the reason why she ended up in trouble most of the time, but then again what was life without a little bit of trouble? Boring. He certainly was trouble. And he certainly wasn't boring.

"So?" he mimicked her earlier question. His smooth voice ripped her out of her thought process and brought her back to the present.

She cleared her throat. It suddenly felt so tight. "Alright," she raised her chin in defiance. "Once I went by the name of Lola. I told people that I was a dancer. From Spain. Attracted the right people's attention. It got me famous and caused a massive scandal. End of story."

"Do you really think..."

She cut him off, quickly and determinedly. Her infamous temper was flaring. He wasn't aware of what he was about to say. Of how insulting it would have been. She had come clean, utterly and completely and he wasn't even aware of that. He wasn't even aware of how much that meant. "No, Adam it is. Just go home and type it into your computer or something... It's more than enough. Just don't believe in everything that you're going to read about me on the Internet."

"What exactly am I going to read there?" he leaned closer, his eyes narrowed a bit, making his slight crow's feet more visible that way.

She gulped. This part wasn't easy. "That I'm a liar, a whore, a fraud...," she watched for his reaction. There was none. So she continued, because there was nothing else she could do at this point. It would have been silly to stop now. "Some call me that."

"And what's the truth?" he asked simply.

She sighed, tucking a bothersome strand of hair behind her ear that had escaped her ponytail. What's the truth? She sometimes wondered about that as well. "The truth is sitting in front of you. The truth is what you choose to believe."

"Lola," he repeated the name as if he wanted to find out whether it agreed with him or not. She stayed silent and waited. Waited for his verdict, for him to finally stop toying with her like a kitten with a ball of yarn. She was already starting to have second thoughts about telling him. He didn't seem to be in a hurry to uphold his end of the deal. How stupid of her! He had played her. Her of all people.

"So what should I call you now? Liz or Lola?"

"Pick one." She was nonplussed. "Or stick to the pet names. I don't care."

"You're angry," he observed.

"Whatever gave you that idea?" A slight flush was creeping up her neck, she could feel its tell-tale warmth spreading through her body. "This is not tit for tat... You just wanted to coax that information out of me..."

"You're rather temperamental."

"Sometimes. When I have good reason to be," she ground out trying hard not to show him exactly how temperamental she could be. There would have been a time when she would have screamed bloody murder and smashed everything breakable in her reach to little bits and pieces. But she wasn't that immature and emotional anymore. Her nostrils flared ever so slightly. Other than that there was no visible sign of her anger.

"Am I really supposed to tell you what you want to know?" he thought out loud. "Looking at it objectively these are my options: Number one...," he held out the palm of his hand to emphasize his words, "... you are inquisitive. You won't let it go. Yes?"

She looked at him with a confused expression on her face. Where was this conversation heading? Despite the fact that she was puzzled by his words, so puzzled in fact that she forgot about her anger, she nodded mechanically.

"Okay, so yes. Number one... I don't tell you, which will upset you even more. As a consequence you will either stand up and walk away or you'll keep digging until you find out what you want to know. And of course, no matter whether you stay or go, you will still be angry with me because I haven't told you. Your level of anger will either be intensified by what you will eventually find out or it will just stay the same. No matter what happens, you will still be angry at me. Call me paranoid, but angry Immortals are never a positive thing."

"Taking all that in consideration, maybe you shouldn't have encouraged me by letting me guess your name," she gave to think, finally able to muster enough rationality to actively take part in the conversation.

"You think it was a lapse of judgement?" he looked at her interestedly.

"That or maybe you underestimated me...," she threw him a thin smile, devoid of any true humour.

He let out a dry chuckle that even sounded slightly menacing. "Underestimated you? I think not. Maybe we should proceed to option two, which is that I tell you."

How did he manage to make that option sound dangerous yet appealing? It was what she wanted, wasn't it? She couldn't chicken out now. She knew how to play the game and apparently he did to. All the more reason to not shy away from playing it now. It would have been like declaring checkmate right at the beginning of a really good game of chess.

"What happens if you tell me?" she finally asked.

"I can keep the situation contained. At least concerning the anger bit. The only thing I still have to worry about is what you will do with what I tell you. Which brings me to two very crucial questions: When I hesitated to tell you, there was an emotional response from you. Are you already emotionally invested in our relationship?" he ironically air-quoted the last word. "Or is it just that you are a sore loser? Because maybe you shouldn't play if you can't stand to lose. Which you will. Inevitably."

She let out a little disbelieving gasp, mostly because he was onto her. "Do you mean to threaten me?"

"Only if you force me to," he replied seeming somewhat regrettful about it.

"How?" Liz threw him a challenging look.

"You have no idea who you're dealing with. Nor what I'm capable of. If you abuse my trust, you will soon have a pretty precise idea of what kind of man I am." Apparently he meant to sound intimidating, but she wasn't impressed.

"Nice," she smiled, but her smile was only a smoke screen, "nice delivery, very convincing, that whole talk about options. What you haven't mentioned yet, though, is whether you want to tell me or not. You're tempted, aren't you? I'm sorry to say, but the fact that you actually encouraged me to keep digging for the truth already implied that much. So what now? Do we end our little game here or do we keep playing? Do you want me to walk away? This would be the very last you'll see of me..."

"Why is it that you insist so much on knowing my name? Why am I that interesting to you?" he was sitting on the edge of his seat now. His hands were resting on the surface of the table, the cups had been pushed a side. There were a couple of sugar grains that had spilled out of the tiny paper package she had ripped open earlier to sweeten her coffee. He brushed them away casually with the back of his hand, then his full attention was on her again.

"Your slip up back at the museum, that wasn't accidental, was it?" she asked on purpose not answering the question he had asked before.

"No. It was bait. I wanted to see whether you would be clever enough to put two and two together," he said with a smirk.

"Well, I am. What now?"

"Again, I'm asking, what is knowing my name to you? What are you going to do with that particular piece of information?"

"Look," Liz let out a sigh. "the fact that you're stalling tells me two things. You're not regular Average-Immortal-Joe. And knowing who you are will afford me some kind of power." He was watching her wordlessly. This was a stalemate, but she wanted to move that conversation along. She wanted to move it to the point where he actually told her who he was. "Taking about power - you already know who I am. Or at least you have the key to finding out everything that is to find out about me."

"And how does that help me?" He asked curiously.

"It helps you in so far as you know more about my past than regular people."

"Aha," he said slowly, somehow not sounding particularly overwhelmed by her revelation. He had leaned back in his seat now, his feet stretched out underneath the table were invading her personal space, but she didn't mind. His index finger was resting against his temple. Maybe she needed to tell him what she wanted from him?

"Look, Adam, or whatever your name is, there are generally two types of people in the word. Liars and the ones that are being lied to. Take us two, we are expert liars. Now don't bother denying that." He just smiled enigmatically at her perceptiveness and let her continue talking. "We lie to a lot of people on a daily basis. Because it's convenient, because we want to protect them, because it affords us an advantage. There is just one tiny problem about this. The problem with expert liars like us is they know when they are being lied to and they don't particularly enjoy it."

"True," Adam conceded after a while.

"Why bother with getting to know someone when even their name is a lie?" she asked sort of casually picking up her teaspoon to carefully lay it down on top of her cup just so it rested neatly on its curved rims.

"What does a name even tell you? It says nothing about a person's character. It's just a name. Nothing more and nothing less," he tried to reason with her. "Next thing you're going to tell me you need to know the size of my shoes."

She smiled at his remark. "There you are mistaken. I can already tell you a couple of things about you."

He was intrigued. She could tell by the way he was looking at her. "Do tell," he said simply.

"Shoe size? That's what? An eight on the other side of the Channel, here that's a 42, right?"

"Very nice parlour trick," he praised her ironically.

"Oh, you think?" she smiled sweetly. "Doesn't end there. Here's what I already know about you. You're not English. You don't like wine too much, but you drink it when it's offered to you by a friend. A good friend. One you don't want to disappoint. You don't strike me as the type to do niceties, so you drank it because it was MacLeod who offered it to you. You dislike Amanda, but that's only for show, because you actually enjoy trading insults with her. You're secretive, but you pretend not to be because this way you can avoid having to answer pesky little questions all the time."

"Very observant," he said, smirking at her. "I see editing crime thrillers for a living does make one more perceptive."

She pointed her index finger at him admonishingly. "I'm not done yet. Ready for the cherry on top?"

"Why not?" he shrugged.

"You like being a researcher because it affords you the possibility to hide and blend in. Who better to overlook than Adam Pierson, the dutiful researcher and bookworm? Because all you really want to do is blend in, right? Starts with your sweater, the jeans, the posture, but boy, have I bad news for you... Unfortunately your tongue's a little too sharp..." Over the course of her little monologue she had leaned closer to him, almost conspiratorially. The people around them had lost importance by now. All she was interested in momentarily was him. Him and his little mind games.

"Your point?" Adam finally said, slowly righting himself in his seat to mirror her posture.

"You can't keep a secret from me. Well, unless you walk away, then you can. Do you want to Adam?"

He gave her a long taxing look. She held it. Seconds trickled by, slowly, very slowly. He finally blinked. "Do you think you're holding all the cards?"

"No, I think you know probably as much about me as I know about you," she answered, her voice even as she continued to hold his gaze.

He nodded. "That might be true."

"Might be? Come on tell me, what you've found out. It might be fun," Liz grinned. "Maybe you're wrong."

He hesitated. "Well, for one thing you're about as English as I am. In fact you're Irish..." Her smile broadened at his comment and she nodded, so he continued. "You like to be the centre of attention. You can't stand being ignored. Maybe it's because you're trying to cover up an inferiority complex." Her smile didn't fall at his words, but the expression in her eyes became slightly darker. It was clear, at least to him, that his comment had hit home. "You lie to other people but you don't like being lied to. You're like a bloodhound. Once you're onto something you won't let it go. You always want to figure everything out. People. Things. That's got to be a bit exhausting."

"I'll tell you what's exhausting," she said softly. "This conversation. It's very circular. Though I shouldn't be surprised. You're not a risk taker, are you? You like to play it safe. Pity though, safe is not very exciting."

"I don't need exciting," he told her. "Exciting gets you killed."

"Telling me you're name won't get you killed," she tried to reassure him.

"Says who?"

"Me," she said.

"And that's supposed to reassure me?" he threw her a tired smile. "Never trust an expert liar."

"I just did. I told you my real name," she gave to think.

"That's because you're crazy and apparently you like doing risky things. You don't just go around rubbing your past in other peoples' faces."

"I'm only rubbing it in your face, darling. Big difference."

"Why?"

She sighed. "Because... Because... Because... Oh, Adam! Life's too short, to be reasonable all the time. Ask yourself, how many conversations like this have you had in your life and how many more of them are you going to have!"

"You make a convincing argument, but I disagree," he said.

"About what?" she sasked.

"About the fact that life's too short." She dimly noted the soft screech of metal on stone when he moved his chair closer to hers. His low voice was close to her ear now. She could feel his breath tickling her ear. "Do you really still want to know?"

She nodded, then hesitated. "Wait, if I say yes, are you going to try to make a deal with me? Sorry to say, but you can't have my first born, Rumpelstiltskin."

"Cute, very cute. But try to remember if you double-cross me, you will have to watch your back. All the time. Are we clear?" his threat was toned down a notch by the clearly audible smile in his voice. Despite his intimidating words she had to smile as well. To an outward observer the must have looked like an arguing couple about to make up. Pity though, that she didn't give a damn about outward appearances.

"Crystal, love, crystal," she conceded. "So how much older than me are you? A hundred? A thousand years?"

"I'm older than Amanda or McLeod."

She paled. What did he mean? Amanda was over a thousand years old. She turned her head to look at him in surprise. Only now did she notice how close he actually was. His face was right there in front of her. She studied it thoroughly and could immediately see the amusement dancing in his eyes. "How much older exactly?"

He looked her straight in the eyes and never so much as even batted an eye when he told her. "I'm 5,000 years old. Give or take a few decades." His voice sounded awfully nonchalant as if he had just told her today was a particularly rainy day or that he had just bought a newspaper.

She stared at him wordlessly for a while trying to wrap her mind around that figure, trying to understand that those very eyes that were looking at her now had actually witnessed the rule of Pharaohs and Roman emperors. "What's that like?" she finally choked out.

"Long."

She had to smile despite herself. That was just so typically him. One word. Dry delivery. In your face, sort of brutal. His dry humour had grown on her, she realised. As a matter of fact she would now go as far as to say that she quite liked it.

"What? No question about the meaning of it all?" he sounded disappointed as if he had actually expected her to ask that particular question.

"Why? Can you answer it?"

"No."

A comfortable silence descended upon them for a while. She let her eyes roam over the glass structure of the Pyramid. The sun reflected on its surface and blinded her momentarily. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and just enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her face. How bizarre was that? She was sitting on the Louvre's balcony having coffee with a man that was probably older than most of the exhibits.

Something occurred to her. She opened her eyes again and gave him a pointed look. "Haven't you forgotten about something?"

"What?" he asked, playing innocent unsuccessfully.

"Your name?" she supplied.

He was about to say something when she waved him off impatiently. "Oh, don't bother, sweetie, I know. 5,000 plus years, that's as old as dirt. Older than anyone really. I've heard of you, well not actually of you because that would ruin that little secretive hermit thing, you've got going on there... Some rumours whispered down the Immortal grapewine. Now what was the name again?" she was chewing her bottom lip pensively. "Something like Mentos..."

"Methos," he corrected her probably absolutely non accidental slip of tongue and gave her long, hard look.

"Ah, yes! Methos!" She couldn't suppress a triumphant smile any longer. Finally. The pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together in her head. Now that she thought about it, it was starting to dawn on her why he had been so hesitant to tell her. A 5,000 year old Immortal? The infamous Methos? The one they all rumoured to be the oldest among them? Who wouldn't want a piece of him? Some would probably see his head as some sort of trophy. And he had put his trust in her, in her of all people. Hadn't he paid attention before when she had told him that some people thought her to be a liar and a fraud? Having reached the end of that particular train of thought, she couldn't help but ask him one more question.

"Why did you tell me?" she asked in surprise.

"Because it was the better one of two options." Again with the simple one-liners. She needed more from him.

"Aren't you afraid that I'm going to tell someone? That I'll challenge you to a fight to the death or something?"

"Not particularly. I'm far too interesting for you to do that, so the risk is minimal. No reason to panic, right?" in fact he didn't seem to be too worried about it.

"No," she answered. And then in an afterthought she added some more words to her initial statement, albeit in a much lower voice. "No, not really."

"Good," he smiled at her. He probably smiled because he was aware of the fact that for some odd reason he had her wrapped around his finger. Why, how and when he had managed that she couldn't tell. Or at least not precisely. Knowing his secret made her feel special. She always wanted to feel special because it made her forget her own shortcomings and her insecurities. For some reason he seemed to know that. He was apparently more devious than Amanda and her combined. Yet again she couldn't bring herself to be angry with him because of the way he had so skilfully manipulated her feelings.