Author's Note: A big thanks to Jennaya once again! You're doing a great job!

I'll try to be quick about what I want to say. Not a huge fan of lengthy author's note...

I wanted to point out two things to you that served me as an inspiration for this chapter. Go check out flamenco goddess extraordinaire Sara Baras performing "Alegria". It's really worth it, I promise! I'm not usually into flamenco, but she's just genius.

The other thing I'd like to recommend to you is the song "Corrupt" by Depeche Mode from which I borrowed the line "I could corrupt you in a heartbeat". Why not listen to it? It might provide a pleasant background noise as you read the next chapter ;-)

She strode through the crowd towards the dancing space determinedly. The men had already started playing their instruments and the noise in the bar was dying down. Everyone was watching and waiting. Waiting for her. She stepped past the last table and onto the dancing space where she slowly let the coat slip down to the floor. She was wearing a long black halter neck dress with an open back which let the gesture appear even more dramatic and sensual. Her feet carried her swiftly to the middle of the dance floor. She didn't look at the crowd. It would have made her too nervous. She concentrated solely on herself and on sound of the guitars that was guiding her into the song.

She moved her arms. She was like a tree swaying softly in the breeze. Her arms were the branches that were moving slowly from side to side. She turned, her face serious and deep in concentration as she performed her first steps. It was so quiet; you could have heard a needle drop inside the place. She could hear the soft clinging of glasses, hushed conversations and the slightly more metallic sound the strings of the guitars emitted when being plugged by a nail instead of a fingertip.

Liz turned again, with her back to the audience she took a few steps back, her hips swaying sensually in time with the music as she raised her arms above her head. She stopped if only for the fraction of a second. This dance was about flirtation about luring the audience in. She threw the room full of people a seductive glance over her shoulder, not turning yet. The string of the guitar was plugged emphatically, her shoulder moved, another seductive look. Then she spun on her heels and turned back around. She stretched out her arms invitingly like one would do to welcome a lover. Her posture changed slowly, her movements fluent and already transitioning into something else. Now she had them stretched out to the side as if she was holding a coat or a shawl.

The rhythm of the music changed. Her feet started tapping on the floor. Tam, ta, ta, Tam, ta, ta, Tam. She slowly advanced on the direction of the tables again, only to stop momentarily. Her right foot briefly tapped a faster rhythm, a little crescendo to built up the tension, then her feet fell back into the steady beat from before. Tam, ta, ta, Tam, ta, ta, Tam. By now her anxiety from before had disappeared. All her energy was channelled into the dance. Into the snakelike movements of her arms and hands and into the powerful and well-timed taps of her shoes on the floor.

The music became livelier and so did her movements. Alegria was a constant crescendo. More – more intensity, more lust for life, more happiness. Her mind flashed back to some of those happy memories she had made and quite inevitably they appeared before her inner eye. It was like a little parade of memory snapshots. Her father lifting her up and spinning around the room with her, calling her his little princess, Amanda and her, grinning madly at each other as they were running from the police on a hot summer's night in Spain, the first time she had managed to perform a flamenco move correctly and her teacher had nodded at her approvingly, the day she discovered her love for reading and books and finally when Methos had first smiled a real, honest to God, genuine smile at her that day back at the Louvre. She was moved by those thoughts, deeply and profoundly and channelled those feelings into her performance.

The emotion of the musical piece took a hold of her and she let it happen because it was a good feeling. Her temperament flared and she invited it in and let it loose in twists and turns and spins. There was a smile on her face and she let everybody see it, let them see how good it felt to be here in that very moment and be able to dance and in general to be alive.

She stretched out her arms in a dramatic pose, then raised them over her head. As she brought them down slowly, she pointed at the audience with a grin, as if to say here's to you. A couple of more spins and the guitars introduced the end of the song. She finished with her arms stretched out to her sides. For a few seconds she just stood there like that with her eyes closed. It was completely silent in the room. She slowly opened her eyes and precisely in that moment the audience erupted in cheers. Normally she would have soaked up the applause, because it was usually palm for her notoriously bruised ego, but today the applause seemed strangely muted. Her eyes searched the room frantically and almost automatically found his across the room. He was sitting at the bar, behind him there was Joe who had a grin on his face and was applauding. Methos was smiling too, but a slightly more guarded smile which she thought was solely directed at her and made her feel, for the lack of a better word, happy. The emotion was bubbling up inside her and it was not a memory from the past, but part of the present. Not unwanted, but unexpected.

She vaguely remembered where she was and that etiquette now required her to bow and praise her band and so she did. After a couple of more bows she tried her luck at making her way towards the bar. Towards him. They were still holding eye contact. It was difficult, because a lot of people stepped in her way, determined to compliment her and praise her performance. She smiled politely and thanked them, but she didn't care for applause and affirmation today, which was strange because those were the things that had counted for her all her life, but right now they somehow didn't seem to matter. Her eyes were still on Methos. All those well-wishers only slowed her down on her way to him which was bordering on annoying.

Just a couple more steps... Speaking of annoying, a man stepped in front of her, blocking her vision, effectively stopping her slow progression towards the bar. She crunched up her face in annoyance.

"Allow me to compliment you, on your stellar performance," he said. His voice was pleasant. She finally looked at him and realised he was also quite good-looking. But she realised it purely from a rather clinical, aesthetic point of view that left her completely unaffected by his good-looks. Out-ward appearances didn't count that much anyway. At best they evoked a certain interest in a person which would ideally later either be intensified or completely quenched. Of course personality and wit always beat good-looks, but those two qualities needed a bit of time to take their effect. Time was essential, especially these days, so this was an age of superficiality, unfortunately she was old-fashioned that way, so attractiveness alone didn't give her pause.

"Thank you," she said politely, already trying to walk past him.

He stepped in her way. Not determinedly, but almost apologetically. "Will you allow me to invite you on a drink?" He was not only good-looking, but also well-mannered. Usually those were qualities that attracted her or were at least enough to pique her interest. Not so now. His words were spoken in all sincerity. It led her to believe that no ulterior motive other than getting to know her better lay behind them. She was bored already.

She looked him directly in the eyes, probably for the first time since he had addressed her. His eyes were like the rest of him quite attractive, but there was something missing to them. A certain spark. And that was precisely the reason why he was unattractive to her. "Inviting the wrong kind of woman for a drink can sometimes be rather unwise."

Her vis-a-vis smiled, apparently completely unaware of what she felt and who he was dealing with. "Not inviting the right kind of woman for a drink can be unforgivable."

She gave him a long appraising look, letting her eyes wander from his head to his toes before she allowed an amused smile to spread on her lips. "No offence, darling, but you'd better run along now, because I could corrupt you in a heartbeat. I'm certainly not the right woman for you."

The man shot her a perplexed look. She rather liked that look on his face. With a wink and a smile she walked past him, leaving him standing there with a puzzled expression on his face.

Now that the stranger no longer blocked her line of vision, she resumed eye contact with Methos again. Her last steps towards him were almost a stumble because her feet that had been hurrying towards him, came to a halt in front of him quite abruptly. He was sitting on a stool in front of the bar, his back leaned against it casually. The expression on his face was somewhere between amused and fascinated. Very difficult to pinpoint exactly. It made her wanted to ask him whether he had liked her performance, what he thought about her band, her dress, the whole arrangement, but the words died on her lips. They were unimportant, she realised.

She took one step closer to him and laid her hand on his knee. The gesture established an immediate intimacy and encouraged him to touch her as well. When he placed his hand on her bare back and pulled her closer, a pleasant shiver ran over her skin. She was standing between his legs now, their faces so close only a few inches were separating them. Her focus was on him now. Solely on him. The world around them ceased to exist. No more background noises, no more intruding strangers. All she could see was him. His eyes. The seemed livelier somehow. The usual slightly melancholic look that appeared in them whenever he thought no one was watching had been eclipsed by a vivid sparkle. She was hypnotised.

The skin around his eyes wrinkled ever so slightly. Quite inevitable her gaze was drawn to his lips. He was smiling, just like she had suspected. "I liked it a lot," he said, answering the question that had been hovering in the forefront of her mind before. "I would have liked it even better if you had danced just for me and not me, plus a room full of strangers."

"Don't forget Joe, Richie and MacLeod," she smiled a soft smile of her own and lowered her gaze a little. She placed her free hand on his other knee gave it a slight squeeze.

"Sure. Who could forget about them?" His left eyebrow arched upwards, emphasising the irony of his words.

"I could," she said quietly. "And quite easily too. Just as easily as I could forget about the rest of the room. The rest of the world, in fact." She was aware her words were trite and maybe a bit of a cliché, but why say something else when she really felt like that?

His gaze swept over her face upon hearing her words. The tension between them could have been cut with a knife. She felt drawn closer to him, inevitably so. It was magnetism, a force of nature. And who was she to resist it?

"You could?" he asked teasingly.

"With your help...," she supplied. Her tongue briefly poked out from between her lips as she quickly moistened them. It was something she did out of nervousness rather than a calculated move. But it affected him nevertheless. This up close she could see his pupils dilate, the touch of his hand on her back became more possessive. It felt warm. Almost unpleasantly so. It was as if her senses were especially attuned to him. She was hypersensitive to his touch. His thumb was stroking up and down her spine in a rhythmic pattern. She was seconds away from purring like a cat.

"And how can I possibly help you with that?" He was such a tease, probably always had been and she whole-heartedly hoped he always would be.

She leaned closer to conspiratorially whisper in his ear, for a second contemplating whether she should actually nibble at it. She discarded that thought, just like she discarded a whole lot of her other thoughts when he placed his other hand on her lower back, ever so slightly above her hip. She sighed. The sound was very small and probably would have escaped his notice if her mouth hadn't been that close to his ear. His reaction was immediate. He pulled her closer and now her body was pressed against his.

Four days apart from him, had been too long. That was one of the thoughts that surfaced from her subconscious immediately. She kissed the place next to his ear, close to his jaw and finally whispered those words to him she had wanted to say all along, before he had distracted her. "You could kiss me and make me forget."

She pulled back slowly, rubbing her cheek against his in the process. The gesture was meant to entice him, but she had miscalculated. He didn't need any enticement. It was clear by the way he was smiling at her just before he slowly leaned in. Finally his lips met hers. His kiss was comparatively chaste, but what it insinuated was far from innocent. His lips caressed hers, then pulled back again only to descend on hers once more. It was like a foreboding of what was yet to come. She thought of the merging of bodies, of heated touches, of naked skin and her heart beat a little faster.

She could have easily provoked him further. After all she knew all the right moves. Or maybe not that easily because she had no idea whether her moves worked on him. She had never tried them on him. Why hadn't she? It would be interesting to see how he would react to them. True, they had been flirting the whole time, but flirting was not the same. It wasn't serious. But this was serious. Beyond serious actually. Maybe it was time she busted out her moves. After all she did want to be alone with him. A room full of people was too much company. She knew that he thought so as well, judging by the way that he was kissing her. She knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to build up the tension. Like a writer would with a particular suspenseful story arch. She knew the pay-off would be great, but she lacked the patience.

"Oh, please! Get a room, you two!" a gruff voice behind them admonished.

She reluctantly broke away from Methos, suddenly becoming acutely aware of their surroundings again. "Sorry, Joe," she said somewhat reflexively, unable to come up with a witty repartee off the top of her head. Her feet took two clumsy steps back. She positioned herself next to Methos, standing close enough to him that her right shoulder was brushing his arm. He was still sitting there with his back against the bar as if nothing had happened. But the way his teasing eyes inevitably travelled up her side, all the way up from her feet to her bare shoulders, made clear that indeed something had happened between them quite recently. He was practically eating her up with his eyes and she liked it. In fact, more than liked it.

Despite the fact that his Methos' eyes were still on her, he didn't fail to comment Joe's admonition appropriately. "Well, Joe, you shouldn't have gotten front row tickets to the show then..."

Joe spluttered in indignation, Liz let out a little embarrassed cough. She was hardly ever embarrassed about something, but now that he had peeled away her outer protective layers and gotten to her rather soft core, she wasn't that aloof anymore.

"You're right, maybe I shouldn't have said anything," Joe finally shot back. "At least you finally shut up when you're kissing her."

"Hey!" she called out in indignation. Joe's comment had gotten to her. "I'm still here and I refuse to be reduced to a human-sized gag. There are other ways to get him to shut up."

"Really? Hear! Hear! Big talk. Do tell!" Methos was all ears now. She rolled her eyes. Apparently when he was happy he was particularly impish.

"Oh, so you're curious? How about we satisfy...," she let the last word roll from her lips sensually, falling back on heavily on her Lola persona, "...that particular itch."

Methos merely raised an eyebrow at her remark. "Do you think you can distract me with your tricks?"

"Tricks?" She gave him a cool and rather lingering look. "You don't know all my tricks yet, honey. I've got countless more up my sleeves."

"Yet you appear to be rather sleeveless tonight." It was a double entendre, she was well aware of that. For one thing he was alluding to her sleeveless dress, but then again he was also addressing the fact that she was rather open about her feelings tonight.

"Cute," she said with a sardonic smirk and pinched his cheek. He grumpily swatted her hand away.

"So are you going to finally spit it out or are you go to flirt with lover-boy some more?" Joe decided to get the conversation back on track. He was getting impatient, also he wasn't quite sure how much more of their flirting he could take. It was making him slightly nauseous.

"Alright. Sorry," Liz turned to him again, smiling somewhat sheepishly. "Here's the deal. I can think of..." she briefly stopped, pretending to think hard, then counted of the numbers on her fingers, "Three things? Yeah, three things to say that will get him to shut up," she grinned at Joe good-naturedly who was leaning with his upper body on the bar and listening intently to what she was about to say. "The first thing's probably not going to work for you. So you better leave that to me..."

"Here we go," Methos supplied from the right with as much enthusiasm as one would voice before a visit to the dentist's. Zero. He poked her in the side for good measure. She let out a sound of displeasure and swatted his hand away. His eyes were sparkling mischievously. Liz pointed her index finger at him reproachfully, admonishing him wordlessly to behave himself. Methos raised his arms defensively, giving her his best puppy dog impression.

She turned to Joe again. "Anyway, watch this. Here goes number one...," she told Joe who was by now laughing at their antics. She turned to Methos with a soft smile on her lips. He just looked at her expectantly. "It's a lovely evening tonight. And the music is rather nice...," in fact the speakers above the bar were currently playing a rather slow and sensual blues number. "Will you dance with me?" she batted her eyes at him.

Her request that came so sudden and completely out of the blue made him look at her in surprise and slightly taken aback, so she grinned triumphantly. "Come to think of it, maybe you should keep that question in the back of your head, Joe, because coming from you it will surely leave him speechless."

"What if I say yes?" Methos finally asked. Her question had not managed to shut him up, it had merely made him pensive for a brief moment. That was unexpected. She gave him a surprised look.

"What? To dancing with me or Joe?" she laughed.

"Hm, tough one actually. No offence, Joe, but I think I'll go with her," he shot the two of them an ironic smile

"You?" she looked at him as if he had lost his mind. "Would dance? With me?" Her tone was completely incredulous.

He grinned. "If given the choice between walking over hot coals and dancing, then 'yes'. I would choose dancing."

"Ha! I don't believe one word out of your mouth. You probably don't even know one single dance move. Or if you did, your moves would probably be as dusty as the inside of a Pharaoh's tomb," she shot back ironically.

"Oh, you think you're so clever, don't you?" his eyes were sparkling at her in mock indignation. She nodded avidly and he just sighed. "Just for the record, it wasn't THAT long ago," he muttered sourly, reaching for his drink.

"Yeah, I can just imagine you doing "the robot" or "the jitterbug"," Joe smirked at him. Liz couldn't help but chuckle softly at his comment. Joe had a real talent for strategically deflating Methos' occasionally slightly oversized ego.

"Right. You two just laugh it up!" Methos muttered ill-humouredly and took a swig from his bottle of beer.

"Anyway," Liz waved him off with a tired smile, "here's number two. Ready?" She smiled sweetly at Methos who was busy shooting her dark looks from the side. Joe was infinitely more enthusiastic about her little game and nodding avidly. In fact he seemed to be seconds away from whipping out a notepad. Liz paused for dramatic effect. She had always loved it when someone was practically hanging from her lips. It made her feel good about herself.

"Amanda's heading to Seacouver and she wants to have a word with you." The way she said those words made it clear that she was enjoying herself thoroughly.

Methos shot her a surprised look that was also a tiny bit on the preoccupied and suspicious side.

"You've just made this one up," he said. Nevertheless his statement managed to sound slightly doubtful.

She grinned and held his gaze. Was that slight panic she saw flickering in his eyes? Delicious! "It's the truth," she finally said with a considerable amount of smug satisfaction. "That's the beauty of it."

"Beauty? Oh, just you wait!" Methos said through clenched teeth, rolling his eyes in annoyance. Joe and Liz were practically cackling with glee by now. Pity, that they were not aware that the Old Man wasn't particularly favourable to being the butt of a joke. Retribution was inevitable and also imminent.

"Ready for three, Joe?" she smiled, unwisely ignoring Methos' nonplussed facial expression.

"Shoot!" the bartender laughed.

"Repeat after me...," she looked at him conspiratorially with a broad smile on her face. "We. Are. Out. Of. Beer. Should do the trick. Guaranteed." She nodded affirmatively and quite complacently at the end of the statement.

"Sorry to say, while that may sound like a good idea, it's only in theory," Joe said shaking his head regretfully. "Believe me, I've tried that one before. He'll just switch to another drink," Joe told her with the air of a parent who had unsuccessfully tried many times to better his brat of a son.

"Right!" Methos interrupted and slapped both of his hands on the bar for emphasis. Apparently he had had enough of being teased by them for now. "You need three sentences to get me to shut up?" he leaned closer to Liz, fixing her with a challenging look. "I just need one for the both of you." She was perplexed. He held up his index finger emphatically. "One," he mouthed again.

" And what's that sentence?" the words were out of her mouth before she could hold them in.

"I'm leaving," he grinned sweetly at her before he jumped off the stool. She looked at him in bafflement. Was he really that easily offended? She didn't want him to leave. They had just been joking around amicably. It hadn't been serious. Didn't he know that?

Behind her she could hear Joe protesting. She hurried to step in Methos' way, her eyes pleading and remorseful. What made her pause ultimately was the smile on his face. Upon seeing it, she came to realise she had been played. Played in two ways actually. He had made her feel remorseful about her teasing and also caused her to show her feelings for him.

"You bastard!" she called out and swatted him on the chest. He just grinned triumphantly.

"Do I have to step in again?" a familiar male voice asked from behind of them. Duncan and Richie had decided to grace them with their presence. They had been sitting over at the other side of the bar, talking animatedly among each other. After what had happened in the last couple of days that was no wonder, what with Richie having almost been converted to a non-violent lifestyle by the fake Methos that would have almost cost him his head, had he not seen reason at the last possible chance and defeated Culbraith in combat. Now they were obviously done talking and had decided to join their friends.

"Step in?" Liz repeated, smiling amusedly at MacLeod's remark. "Why on earth would you want to do that? We're just fooling around, aren't we, love?"

"Yeah, I don't know about fooling around. Someone of us was definitely acting foolishly," Methos said, regarding her with a mirthful and teasing expression in his eyes.

"Acting foolishly? That must be you then. The guy who takes himself entirely too seriously," she gave Methos' upper arm a friendly nudge.

"Anyway," Richie decided to pipe in to defuse the situation, "you did a great job tonight, Liz. I bet you're glad now that you didn't run off at the last moment like you wanted to."

Liz suddenly had the very intense desire to smack Richie over the head for his thoughtless remark. Of course, Methos immediately picked up on his comment. "Oh, really? You wanted to run away? How interesting! You've never said..." His eyes were boring into her and she held his gaze with a studied and rather artificial smile.

"Well, I'm still here, aren't I? That's gotta count for something, right?" she replied sticking out her chin at him challengingly.

MacLeod cleared his throat and nudged Liz in the side after she had initially failed to notice that he wanted to say something. She looked up at him with a smile. "Yes, Duncan?"

"I was just wondering..."

"Yes?"

Duncan grinned maliciously. "Well, since you're debt with him is settled now, when are you going to collect yours and what did you have in mind?"

At that she smiled mischievously. "How good of you to ask! As a matter of fact I've had several ideas already which I wanted to run by you. After all you do know him longer than I do," she smiled sweetly at Methos who was meeting her smile with a sceptical expression on his face. After all he knew her well enough to expect some foul play at this point.

"So I thought... an evening at the pub including darts and a pub-quiz," she pretended to chew her bottom lip pensively as Methos watched her with dread, "Maybe karaoke, but I wasn't sure about that. What if he secretly enjoys singing?"

"I sure you I most certainly do not enjoy singing karaoke," Methos informed her with a great deal of annoyance.

"Pity, you won't have any say in what we're going to do. Personally I think my ideas are still too harmless. I wonder if Amanda's free next week," she told him smugly. As always the mention of Amanda's name made Methos flinch. "Any suggestions? Duncan? Richie?" The two men in question grinned gleefully.

Surprisingly from there on the evening progressed smoothly. It was mainly due to the fact that the issue of Liz wanting to leave was being swept under the rug for the sake of peace. They made their way over to a table, joking and chatting among each other. Eventually her band came for a couple of drinks and went again. The conversation was easy, grazing serious topics, but never lingering for too long on them. Quite inevitably as MacLeod and Richie were telling an animate story from back in the early days when the Scotsman had still run an antiques store, her eyes and Methos' met over the table again, like they had so many times during this evening. Over the course of hours their shared glances had intensified and grown longer. "Leave?" he mouthed at her, nudging his head ever so subtly in the general direction of the exit.