Author's Note:Thank you, Jennaya! I thought I would have this wrapped up in a couple of chapters, but I can't seem to let this go. Obsessive writer is obsessive... Much more to come apparently. Argh!

Methos left the bar. It was rainy outside and a bit chilly, so he wrapped his coat tightly around himself, even put up its collar to keep his neck warm. The street before him was deserted except for a lonely figure leaning against a streetlight in the distance. He started walking, his steps a steady and somewhat reassuring rhythm on the wet pavement.

From time to time his eyes landed on the waiting figure in the distance. It seemed strange that someone should be standing there in the middle of the night, leaning against a streetlight. So strange indeed that he found it advisable to be cautious and reach for his sword underneath his coat just in case.

It turned out that his caution was not completely uncalled for. The other person that was now gradually coming into view was a blonde woman, that much he was already able to tell, and she was immortal. Now he had a suspicion as to who it was, a grim smile started delineating on his face once the Buzz had hit him. He marched towards her a bit more determinedly.

When he was but a stone's throw away from her, she dropped her casual pose and stepped in his path and underneath the light cone of the streetlight. He recognised her face from the surveillance photos. She was a good-looking woman, platinum blonde hair, her face was oddly reminiscent of a young Marlene Dietrich. But even though it was pretty, it had a certain cold sternness to it.

Knowing her face, name and above all her habits was an advantage. Even a huge one, because he already had a pretty clear idea of who she was and what she wanted, but she in turn had no idea who he was.

So she thought she had the upper hand? She thought she was toying with him, making him scared? Yes. It looked like it. But one could never be sure. He stopped and regarded her evenly. Yes. Apparently so. Was that silence supposed to be creepy? Was it supposed to scare the living daylights out of him? Pathetic at best.

"Helen," he greeted her, calmly, deliberately, casually. He could see by the way the other woman flinched that she was wholly unprepared for that and he liked it. She deserved nothing less.

"How do you know my name?" she inquired immediately, taking a threatening step closer to him.

He wanted to thoroughly creep her out, so he allowed a diabolic smile to spread on his face. "Well, who else should you be?"

Good, she was looking insecure now. Wasn't that usually the part were threats were uttered? He waited for them, but they didn't come. She seemed to prefer glaring at him in silence.

"Don't you want to say something? Usually when one's lurking in a dark street corner in the middle of the night, one should better have a good reason for it," he gave to think. "It's not too late to end this peacefully and walk away. Do it now while you still have the chance."

"There is no ending this peacefully," she hissed. Apparently he had struck a nerve. Now she was so angry, she would probably be able to work up enough steam to actually pull off those threats convincingly he had been waiting for all along. Good, he was curious to hear them.

Here she went. "So you know my name, Adam! I know yours too. And that's no surprise. Because I want your head."

Now anyone else would have been deeply unsettled by that news. Not so Methos. To him it was an opportunity to resolve a problem and he grasped it whole-heartedly. She had already made a huge mistake. She had angered him and in addition to that she didn't know the first thing about him, except that he had a connection to Liz. That wasn't much to go on and when it came to him, especially to him, not nearly enough information.

"Is that so? Hard talk. I'm not impressed. You just want my head because I know her?"

"No, I want it because she loves you," she clarified.

"Nice," he whistled through his teeth. "Because she loves me... Weren't you supposed to take the high road instead of the low? Looks pretty low from where I'm standing. I've heard you see yourself as morally superior... Entitled to judge other people for theirs deeds," he sneered. "So your conscience must be spotless. Squeaky clean."

"She a walking talking depravity, even you must see that," the woman hissed, clearly she was not emotionally detached from the issue. As a matter of fact she was driven by anger. So much it blinded her. He suspected she was a bit of a nut case, which didn't make him rank her any higher in his esteem. Moral superiority, at least in his mind, was something that very few people were entitled to. Mother Theresa maybe, Mahatma Gandhi... certainly not some sword-wielding madwoman who was foaming from the mouth.

He let out a raucous laugh. "Funny! You don't even know who you're talking to, do you? If you think she's bad, you'll just love me." There was a dangerous sparkle in his eyes. His face was impassive but the gaze that lay in his eyes was frightening, cold, deadly. He took a step closer to her. She flinched, but didn't retreat yet, so he began circling her. It made her nervous, he could tell by the way her eyes were following him. She turned her neck and when she could no longer follow his movements with her eyes, her head whipped around in the other direction to be able to tell what he was doing. He enjoyed making her afraid, because that's what she had done to Liz. Maybe he enjoyed it even a little too much.

"What do you mean? Who are you?" she asked, still titillating between anger and fear. By now she was far from threatening. Actually it looked like their roles had been reversed.

"Have you ever read Nietzsche? Smart fellow. Yes. It's true what he says. Stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss stares back at you. Looks like you've stared a little too hard. I'm not just depravity. I'm Death," he stopped in front of her, allowing his statement to sink in. Then he advanced on her some more. The fear he saw in her eyes was delicious, he feasted himself on it, even tried to increase it.

"Did she ever kill a mortal?" he asked. The woman hesitantly shook her head. He grinned. "Well, I have. Multiple times. Thousands and I enjoyed it immensely, just like I will enjoy taking your head."

His words changed the expression in her eyes. The fear was quickly eclipsed by anger. Overpowering anger, maniacal anger. It was the anger of a zealot. He had seen it before. Unwavering, dangerous thing that it was.

"Then it's only right that we should fight to the death. It's my moral obligation to the world to kill you." She seemed all determined now, the way her jaw was set so tightly and her posture was all stiff like she was waiting to be moulded in bronze. Here stands the statue of "Helen the Righteous". Behold!

"You can try," he conceded.

"Why not try right away?" she asked, already reaching for her sword.

"Don't be stupid. There's a bar just down the road," he sneered. "Tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow morning then," she nodded.

"Oh, no you've had enough!" MacLeod swatted Liz's hand away that was reaching greedily for the glass of beer Joe was holding out to her.

"I have?" she was looking at him questioning, her eyes wide and innocent.

"Yes, you have," the Scotsman crossed his arms over his chest adamantly. Upon that Joe dutifully retracted his arm and took a sip of the beer himself. MacLeod glared at him. He just shrugged.

In the course of the last hours, during which Joe's had gradually also become less populated, she had successfully managed to give off the impression that she was having the time of her life and somehow, rather as a footnote, also managed to get Richie drunker than he had ever seen him. Currently the young man was dozing on a bar stool with his head on the counter. However, there was no one around to be scandalised by it anyway. Right now, apart from two or three other night-owls, they were the only remaining patrons of the bar.

Liz on the other hand seemed to be rather impervious to alcohol. The only sign of intoxication she showed was a slight lilt which made her Irish accent more pronounced. That and the fact, that she had lost the ability to walk straight, but none of her wit. Taking into consideration the quantities of alcohol she had downed, that was quite a feat.

"Are you channelling my dad now? 'Cause daddy was a Scotsman too, you know?" she tried walking up to him, but staggered ever so slightly, blindly reaching for support.

"Your father was Scottish?" he asked in surprise, reaching out to steady her almost reflexively. He was holding her upright with his hands under her arms now. She looked up at him owlishly from underneath her eyelashes, blinking several times to make her vision less blurry.

"Yap, and an officer too. Took us to India when I was a little girl," she smiled wistfully. He manoeuvred her to the right to have her sit down on a stool next to the bar. She complied without resistance.

"Get her a glass of water, will you, Joe?" MacLeod gestured to his friend behind the bar.

Shortly after the ordered glass of water appeared in front of Liz's face, she took it from Joe's hand with an expression of disgust on her face. It was a big glass. Apparently he wanted her to sober up as well. And quite quickly too. Becoming bothersome to the bartender was usually a bad sign. She sighed and took her first sip of the water. Quite surprisingly it was nice. Just what she needed right now. What was anything other than pleasant though, was the sensation of being watched by a curious pair of eyes. She put the glass down and looked at Joe pointedly.

"What?" she asked sharply.

"Sorry, didn't mean to stare..."

"Spit it out, love. You ain't getting any younger."

"You inspired Irene Adler from the Sherlock Holmes novels," he blurted out as if he had just come to realise that one thing about her. "I mean, Irene Adler, for crying out loud! That's quite something! I've always been a fan of Sherlock Holmes. Even as little boy..."

She supposed Joe had seen a lot of immortals in his day, either from up close or probably through the lenses of a spyglass, so his enthusiasm was kind of flattering to her. It was just what she needed. Liz grinned a satisfied grin. "She's just a fictional character," and for a moment it seemed like she was going to be uncharacteristically humble and demur, but the illusion was destroyed by her next words. "Real life is far more complicated. I'm far more complicated making me much more interesting."

"No kidding," Duncan scoffed from his place next to her. She swatted him on the arm. A friendly gesture of reproach, nothing serious. After that her eyes settled back on Joe who raised his hands defensively. "Hey, I'm not judging," he said trying to appease her.

"Well, that's a pleasant change. A lot of people tend to be judgemental. Especially the ones that come with a stick cramped up their arses. I salute you, Joe Dawson. Here's to the stick-free people!" she raised her glass of water in a mock toast and took a large sip from it.

"So I take it, the judgemental variety often gives you trouble," MacLeod observed.

She looked at him for a long time before she finally answered, fully aware of the fact that he was baiting her into talking. He was more clumsy about being subtle than Methos. Then again probably everybody was, including her. "Yes, they do, because they do not care to look below the surface."

"What's below the surface?" MacLeod's question was quite inevitable and predictable, because she had failed to string a satisfactory explanation together for his sake. For that she probably had the liquor to thank for.

A smile was slowly delineating on her face and growing into a smirk. "Wouldn't you like to know, you naughty boy? What's below yours? Are you more than the knight in shining armour? Is Richie more than a motorcycle hothead that's been dealt a bad hand by fate being stuck with this immortality gig? We are more than the sum of our parts. More than a first impression or a second," she paused to think for a while and finally added: "Or maybe the thirtieth."

"I don't know what to make of you," Duncan finally said.

"That's my big personal tragedy, handsome," she sighed. "Nobody really does." Liz almost seemed wistful right now; her expression was all serious, rational, and calm. The soft laughter lines around eyes that were sometimes accentuated in an attractive way by her facial expressions, were completely smoothed out for a moment, in fact her face seemed completely ageless now. Then she smiled again. "Or maybe not that tragic after all because I think I rather like it like that. Things would get too messy. And I don't like messy." Liz looked at him, hoping that her words had satisfied his curiosity. MacLeod didn't not look all too happy with her answer. "Too vague again, huh?" she said finally. "You are not the guy for vagueness and subtlety, are you? I understand, not a lot people are." She knew one person who would have appreciated her vagueness appropriately, however. One person she wasn't talking to at the moment.

"What I really want to know is, can we trust you?" Duncan asked finally. Of course that was the one question he had been meaning to ask all along. Ever since the time they first met in Paris.

Liz scooted a little closer to him. She briefly laid her hands on his arm and he watched them suspiciously like they were something foreign, potentially dangerous. Just like one would watch a poisonous insect sitting on your arm. Nevertheless she didn't retract them. She wanted to make a point. "Can you trust me?" she repeated, pondering the question in her head for a while. "Yes," she nodded finally. "The answer is 'yes'. It's 'yes' because I think of you as a friend." She gave his arm a last squeeze, then pulled back.

His eyes were pensive. His forehead wrinkled in concentration. "You seem surprised, Duncan," she inclined her head observing him with a calm smile on her lips. "I'm not just a drinking, conniving bitch, after all."

Was that how she saw herself? "I've never thought of you like that."

"You haven't?" one of her eyebrows was raised in ever so slight, but unshakable scepticism. "I must have lost my touch."

"Can I ask you a question?" Judging by the way he was looking at her and the effect her level of intoxication had on her mental abilities she should have said no. Chances were high he would actually get a straight and honest to God answer from her.

"If you must," she said hesitantly.

"What are your intentions towards Adam?"

For a second she looked at him with eyes that were big thanks to the surprise and wonder she felt, then she threw back her head and let out a loud and rather raucous laugh. It made Richie briefly stir in his sleep. "You really are my dad!" she exclaimed amusedly.

"Well..." That much was clear; he certainly wouldn't let it go. He was very protective of the people he called his friends. She could relate.

Despite the serious expression on his face, her amusement did not ebb away quite so quickly. "Well, I plan to propose to him next I see him. Of course, with your permission, Dad. He's quite the accomplished young lad. Plays the piano and embroiders hankies like no other. What's his dowry again?"

The corners of Joe's mouth briefly twitched deceptively, which was quite understandable. Her mental vision of Adam had just poked himself in the finger with a sewing needle and let out a string of curses in ancient Greek. Simply too hilarious! MacLeod was unfortunately severely nonplussed.

"I was hoping for a straight answer. I think I deserve one after this morning," he glared at her darkly.

She sobered somewhat upon being on the receiving end of that glare. "I wasn't aware that a straight answer was required here. My apologies."

"Well?"

"Duncan," she let out a sigh and looked at him in exasperation like one would look at a child. He didn't get her. Not one bit. Their characters were too dissimilar, so she would have to explain herself straight away. No detours. No entertaining game of cat and mouse. This was so linear and tedious. With Methos things were never that tedious. "I'm not that kind of woman. I don't talk about my feeling. That would be distasteful. I just have them," she informed him politely, thereby delineating clearly the limitations of her character.

"I don't mind you being distasteful. I need to know. So please humour me..."

Insistence, she hadn't counted on insistence. She wasn't determined enough to ward him off if he insisted. Her self-assuredness was only smoke and mirrors after all. She was the female version of the wizard of Oz. She was a major fraud. Her only luck was that nobody knew. She looked down, then at the glass of water and finally at Joe. She reallylikes the bloke. He radiated such a paternal calmness. So she kept her eyes fixed on him, instead of on MacLeod when she next spoke. "It's complicated Duncan..."

"You keep saying that word a lot," the Scotsman observed.

"That's because it's true most of the times..."

"The question from before...," Duncan reminded her impatiently.

"Yes, yes, I know," she waved him off with her hand, trying to signal him that she needed a moment to think before she answered. Her eyes were still fixed on Joe's face. She could understand why Methos called him a friend. There was something about his personality that made you feel at ease. Maybe because he was so down-to-earth, so grounded and calm. She gave him a small smile. It was not flirtatious, just a smile. Nothing more and nothing less.

"He gets me. I never had that before. Do you understand what that means? Do you know how rare that is?" she looked between the two men. Her eyes held a certain surprise at her own words combined with something else she herself was probably unaware of or else she would have been profoundly embarrassed. There was certain vulnerability in them.

"Why don't you give him a call?" Duncan asked softly.

She looked at him. "Now? At three in the morning? He'll not appreciate me calling him in the middle of the night." Despite her words, her hands were already reaching for her bag to get out her cellphone. She had just opened the zipper; her fingers had just closed around the cellphone when it started ringing. She almost dropped it in surprise, but then had the presence of mind to actually answer it.

The phone call was strange, because it evoked a rather strange reaction from her. It drained all colour from her face. She said yes and no a couple of times, her voice clipped and devoid of any real emotion and when she finally hung up there was something akin to desperation in her eyes.

"Who was it?" MacLeod asked worriedly.

"It was Helen. She called me to let me know that she and Adam have an appointment in about half an hour down at the docks, peer 5. She wants me to be there. You'll have to drive me, Duncan."

"You're aware it's a trap, right?" MacLeod asked her, already standing up.

"Of course, I'm aware. What do you take me for?" Liz told him. The fright had sobered her up enough to quickly jump down from the stool and hurry off in the direction of the exit.

"Take care of Richie, Joe," MacLeod called over his shoulder, hastening to follow her.