This story was my entry in a contest to write about a dragon tattoo on Methos’s posterior.  My first attempt at H/C.  Thank you, Desert Rat for your prompt beta comments as I wrote fast to meet the contest deadline.  Warnings for torture.

“Come not between the dragon and his wrath.”
King Lear, by Wm. Shakespeare, Act I Scene 1

Joe and his two immortal friends left the movie theater in the same manner as they had patronized it – with Joe between the other two, trying to keep a cheerful conversation going.  Duncan MacLeod would barely speak civilly to Methos, and Methos largely ignored the Highlander.

“You didn’t get it?” Joe asked.  “Really?”

“No,” Methos complained as the three men started up the street at Joe’s slow pace.  “What was all that nonsense with the castle at the end?  And who was dead?”

“He was, dummy.  He’d killed himself.  You got that, right, Mac?”

“I got it,” MacLeod answered, looking straight ahead.

“That’s ridiculous,” said Methos.  “Why would the inspector question him if he was dead?”

“He wasn’t on Earth.  It was some kind of way-station to the afterlife.”

“With rain and a leaky roof?”

They turned into the small accessway behind the theater, and three young men blocked their way, one stepping from the shadows and the other two dropping from perches above.  A shuffling sound told him two others had closed them in from behind.  Joe sensed the subtle tensing of his companions.

“Throw your watches and your wallets on the ground,” ordered the first man.

Ah, shit.  What a wretched ending to an enjoyable evening.  Joe reached for his wallet, but MacLeod stepped forward.

“You don’t want to do this,” MacLeod said reasonably.

Joe caught his breath.

“Don’t waste our time, asshole,” the man said, raising his gun.

Joe heard the ones behind him move in closer.  Stupid move – they would be in the line of fire if their leader shot and missed.

“It’s a nice night,” MacLeod continued.  “Why don’t we all just go home and enjoy it?”

The man stepped closer and the gang moved in more tightly.

“Shut up and throw down your wallet!”

“Get in front of Dawson,” MacLeod said, still facing forward, gaze locked with that of the leader.

Methos stepped in front of Joe and murmured, “The blonde will take Joe hostage.”

“I said,” yelled the leader, and leveled his gun, just as MacLeod struck.

MacLeod’s arm shot out, reaching the man’s wrist as if the arm were extendable beyond its normal length.  Somehow MacLeod had covered the distance between them in less than an eyeblink.  He seized the wrist and yanked it down, twisting.  The man staggered and the gun went off, shooting into the ground.  Pavement chips sprayed up, into MacLeod’s face.

Two men jumped at MacLeod from either side.  Without looking or releasing the leader’s wrist, MacLeod pounded one attacker with a foot to the solar plexus and caught the other beneath the jaw with an elbow.

Joe’s thoughts raced, but he could think of nothing he could do.  He wasn’t armed, and there were gang members between him and cover wherever he looked.

Methos stood in front of him, poised, watching the others.  Suddenly Methos sprang to the right and slid under the arm of a man who now held a gun.  The man dropped, soundlessly, and Joe couldn’t even tell what Methos had done to him.  Now Methos held the gun, though only Joe could see it.  Methos shifted and aimed, not at the pile of attackers on MacLeod, but across the alley, into the shadows.  The blonde man stood there, a knife at the ready, watching MacLeod as Methos watched him.

Two more gang members brushed by Joe to attack MacLeod, which showed real determination, in Joe’s opinion, since MacLeod’s previous attackers were sprawled and groaning on the dirty paving of the alley.

Joe glanced behind him and saw the opening to the street beyond, clear of obstacles.   Then a hand seized Joe, grasping him by the throat and chin and yanking.  Joe winced as a knife slid beneath his ear.

Joe looked first to Methos, apprehensively, since he didn’t know if the man could properly aim the gun he held.  A click and a curse from Methos told him he didn’t need to worry about Methos shooting.  Damn.

“Freeze, or the old man dies!” Joe’s captor screamed, very near his ear.

MacLeod stopped fighting, casting a worried look in Joe’s direction.  The young men on him scrambled to hold his arms – two men on each arm – and bend him painfully backward.

Methos put up his hands, one hand holding the gun loosely, by the trigger guard.

“Stick them now,” wheezed the leader, picking himself up from the ground.

Someone came up beside Joe with a hypodermic, and jabbed him in the arm.  The drug acted fast, and Joe saw nothing more of what happened.

When he woke, his first thought was to be glad he was alive, but his second thought was not so optimistic about his situation.  He had the world’s nastiest hangover, and he seemed to be naked on a cement floor.  He opened his eyes and saw that he was in a cage the size of a small jail cell in an old Western movie.  The cage was the first of a line of similar cages all with locked doors facing a narrow accessway.  High windows beyond the small corridor let in dusty daylight.  The cage held no furnishings.  Worst of all, his prosthetics were gone, which left him helpless.

“Joe?  Joe, are you awake?” came a voice to his left.  He turned to look and saw that the adjacent cage held Methos.  Naked also, and haggard looking, the immortal grasped their common bars.

“Yeah, I’m awake,” Joe croaked.  “Where are we?”  He pushed himself to a sitting position, gingerly, his stomach rebelling.

“Joe?” came MacLeod’s voice, and he came into view in the third adjacent cage, the one on the other side of Methos’s.  “Are you all right?”

“No!” Joe snapped.  “I feel like shit and my legs are gone.  And where the hell are our clothes?”

Methos gave a half-smile.  “I think he’s all right, MacLeod.”

“I’d like to hear it from him,” said MacLeod icily.

“What is this?” Joe demanded.  “It’s cold.  Don’t we have anything to cover up with?”  It bothered Joe more than he wanted to admit to be naked with his truncated thighs on display.

“It’s all part of Kreegan’s mind games, I’m afraid,” Methos said.

“Kreegan?  The immortal?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Joe closed his eyes.  One of the wierdos.   Quite old, and he didn’t fight fair.  Or, he fought according to his own notions of fair.

Joe opened his eyes and looked around his cell.  His had two walls and two sets of bars.  The other, adjacent, cages had only the back wall and bars on three sides.  His own was the first of the cages.  Along the entire back wall, running through all the cages, was a trough in the floor with drains and faucets.

 Joe dragged himself to the trough and threw up.  He heard no sound from the immortals as he heaved.  When he was finished, he turned on the tap, drank, and washed the vomit down the drain.  The drain was industrial-sized – large enough to serve as a toilet, if need be.  Given what the Watchers knew of Kreegan, Joe guessed he would be here long enough to need it.

“Feel better?” MacLeod asked.

“Yeah.  I knew I would.  It’s like a hangover.”

“Joe, what do you know about Kreegan?” MacLeod asked.

Joe pointed to Methos.  “I know what he knows.  Kreegan’s old, he’s fabulously wealthy, the usual.  But he’s got a funny idea of honor…”  Joe looked at Methos.  “Did you tell him?”

“He doesn’t want to hear it from me.”

Joe groaned inwardly.  They were still feuding.

“Tell me what?”

“He’ll fight his opponent fair, but only after he’s starved him for a few weeks.”

“What!”

“Sometimes a month.”

“And he’ll use some of the usual mind games,” Methos put in.  “Keep us naked in cages, treat us like animals.  Chip at our self-esteem.”

Duncan paced to the door of his cage and pounded a frustrated fist on the bars.  “What about Joe?”

Joe was rather curious on that point, too.

“I don’t know,” Methos admitted.  “He is oddly honorable in his own way, and he has no record of murder.  Other than immortals.”

“How comforting,” Joe grumbled.  But it was, really.

“Methos, how did you know the blonde would take Joe hostage?”  MacLeod’s voice held suspicion.

Methos regarded the Highlander for a moment before answering.  “The leader kept glancing at him to see what he was going to do.  He must have been the challenger for top dog.  So the guy had to do something flashy to save the day – show off.”

“But how did you know that’s what he would do?”

Methos shrugged.  “How do you know when a red traffic signal is about to turn green?  Experience.  What does it matter?”

“If you knew he was going to do that, you should have …”

A door opened, somewhere to Joe’s right, beyond the wall of his cage which he couldn’t see around.  Closing, it made a hollow, booming sound.  Both immortals faced the corridor, and Joe cursed his doom to remain sitting, legless.

The man who appeared was not physically large or intimidating, but he brought with him a presence that filled the building.  Also with him came another man – larger, more muscular, bald and dour.  But Joe had no doubt which of them was the immortal.

“Gentlemen,” the man said.  “Welcome to my hotel.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Duncan demanded.  “How dare you?”

“Yes, yes, Mr. MacLeod, get it over with.  You say I have no right to treat you like this and who do I think I am.  I laugh maniacally and point out that you are completely in my power and your backward concepts of right and wrong have no meaning here.  You bluster some more until I either walk away laughing, or, if you succeed in pissing me off, I dominate you with torture.  Now, shall we dispense with the pleasantries?  Wouldn’t you rather just learn what I have in store for you?”

Even from two cells down, Joe could sense the fury from MacLeod.

“I will kill you,” MacLeod said with all the solemnity of wedding vows.

“You’ll have the chance.  I challenge you, Duncan MacLeod.  We will meet in battle one month from today.”

“I don’t think much of your accommodations.”

“Get used to them.”

“If this is between us, let the others go.”

“Can’t.  They’ll have to wait their turn.”

“Dawson’s not immortal.  Let him go.”

“If you defeat me, both your friends go free.  If I win, I will challenge your immortal friend here, and he can try his skill.  Mr. Dawson has two chances to live.

“I was surprised to find two immortals together.  Not a common occurrence.  I assume he’s your friend, and you weren’t just looking for a secluded spot for a duel?”

MacLeod did not reply.

Kreegan moved to stand before Methos’s cage.  “Your ID names you Adam Pierson.  I’ve never heard of you, but there’s so little in a name.  I’m more interested in your tattoos.  They tell me you have one on your wrist which is identical to the one on Mr. Dawson’s wrist.  May I see it?”

“I can’t think why I should make anything easy for you.”

Kreegan smiled.  “The wrist is a particularly painful place for a tattoo.  A man gets a tattoo on his wrist when he has to prove something.”  He gave Joe a speculative look.  “Or when he has to join something.”

Joe clung to his poker face, as did, he was glad to see, Methos.

“Your other tattoo interests me as well.  They described it to me as a serpent or a dragon on your buttock.  May I see that one?”

Methos did not respond.

Joe looked, and he saw the roundish mark on Methos’s behind, high on the right, near the small of the back.

Kreegan tipped his head insolently, trying to view the tattoo.  Methos could have moved so as to keep his back from showing to Kreegan, but the effort would have been ineffectual, in Joe’s opinion.  The frightening truth was they really were in this sick immortal’s power.

Still wearing his falsely genial grin, Kreegan studied the tattoo.  The shape was essentially oval, with what might have been an eye, a wing, and a trailing tail.  Joe couldn’t entirely make it resolve, but it seemed to mean something to Kreegan.  As the immortal studied it, his expression changed, hardening.

“What is that?”  His voice crackled with authority and intensity, and Joe cringed slightly, despite himself.

Methos seemed unaffected and stared blandly at Kreegan.

“Olaf!”  Kreegan ordered, straightening up.

The other, silent, man produced a dart gun and shot Methos with little warning.  The dart struck him in the center of the chest and Methos collapsed immediately.

MacLeod cursed.

His movements swift and efficient, Kreegan drew forth a key ring and unlocked Methos’s door.  Olaf traded the dart gun for a more conventional gun and stood ready should the unconscious immortal suddenly awake.

Kreegan swooped on Methos, pulling the tattoo’d flesh to him like he was kneading dough.  He stared at the tattoo, motionless, for a time, but Joe could feel some powerful emotion building in the room.  He looked past Kreegan to where MacLeod stood watching, his hands high on the bars.

“Olaf,” Kreegan’s voice was low and steady, but with a deadly undercurrent.  “My sword.”

“What are you doing?” Joe demanded.

“I’m not explaining myself to you,” Kreegan replied.

Olaf vanished beyond the wall which blocked Joe’s view of the door, but returned promptly carrying a no-nonsense looking broadsword.

“MacLeod!” Joe cried.

“Whatever twisted concept of honor you have, Kreegan, it can’t include beheading an unconscious man,” MacLeod said.

“Don’t pretend you can lecture me about honor, Barbarian,” Kreegan fairly snarled.  “This is an execution.  You don’t know what this man has done.  This is the crest of the Hidden Dragon, a Roman special forces unit that made the SS look like a Gentleman’s Club.”

“Roman?” Duncan asked.  “Ancient Rome?”

Even Joe was taken aback.  Unfortunate gaps in Watcher coverage through the ages had resulted in the loss of some crucial information.  He hadn’t known Kreegan was that old.

Olaf handed Kreegan the sword.

Kreegan kicked Methos’s crumpled form, not to damage, but to shift him into a prone position.  He knocked one arm down, away from Methos’s head.

“A tattoo wouldn’t last that long!” Joe yelled.  “I know.  Mine needs touching up all the time!”

“Wait!” said MacLeod.  “What did he do?”

Good, Joe thought.  Keep him talking.  Offer him the chance to vent.  Stall, stall.

“I’m not impressed with your choice of friends, Mr. MacLeod.  Has he told you what he was doing two thousand years ago?”

“What do you think he was doing?”

“He was slaughtering the citizenry of Carthage and burning its beautiful buildings to the ground.  Murdering my wife and her two little girls.  Raping.  That’s what Hidden Dragon did.  That’s what Romans did.”  Kreegan shook as he spoke.  He tested the distance to Methos’s neck with the tip of the sword, holding it two-handed, and positioned his feet shoulder-length apart.

“So you didn’t know him, specifically,” Joe said, desperate.  “What if you’re wrong?  You could be murdering an innocent man.  What kind of legacy is that for your wife?”

“What kind of vengeance is it?” MacLeod asked, steadily.  “A quick, easy death?”

Kreegan paused, then glanced at MacLeod.  “Nice try, Mr. MacLeod.  I notice neither of you has protested that he isn’t old enough to have committed those atrocities.”  He raised the sword over his head.  “The problem with immortality is it allows remnants to linger of things which should have been buried and forgotten long ago.”

“I’m telling you, that’s a new tattoo!” Joe cried.  “No way is that centuries old!”

“They salted the earth, didn’t they?” MacLeod still spoke steadily.

Kreegan’s arms holding the sword wavered.

“Did they rape and torture before they killed?  Your wife and daughters.  Wouldn’t you rather hurt him than kill him?”

Slowly Kreegan lowered the sword, still scowling at Methos.

Joe held his breath.

MacLeod said, very deliberately, “You could pour salt in his wounds.”

Kreegan turned to face MacLeod, so Joe couldn’t see his expression.  “I’m beginning to think he isn’t your friend, Mr. MacLeod.”  He considered a moment.  Then, “Olaf!  The chains.”

Olaf vanished beyond the wall again and returned shortly with heavy iron manacles, a welding gun and a proper welder’s mask.  He stepped past Kreegan into the cell and went to work fixing the manacles and their three-foot lengths of chain to loops of rebar which protruded at regular intervals from the back wall, above the trough.  Joe noted with a chill that those loops were in all the cells.  He wondered if the place had held animals at some time.  In addition to the trough, there were large drains in the corridor, so the entire interior of the place could be hosed down.

With little talk and those efficient, minimalist movements, Kreegan and Olaf chained Methos’s wrists.  The chains allowed the immortal only enough movement to lie down, beside the trough.

Kreegan studied his prisoner, his expression dark.  “Wake him,” he said.

The well-equipped Olaf took out a hypodermic, injected Methos, and stood back, outside the cage.

Methos opened his eyes and looked at Kreegan.  He moved slightly, noting the bonds, and his groggy expression grew wary.

Kreegan continued looking at him, breathing heavily.  Then, he spun around, exited the cage, and locked it.

“Bring food for Mr. Dawson only, Olaf,” he commanded.  He gave Methos a narrow-eyed look.  “I’ll deal with you later,” he said.  Then the two men left.

MacLeod cursed again and began a thorough inspection of the lock and the bars on his cage.

“Did he know me?”  Methos asked.

It was not exactly funny, Joe reflected grimly, that Methos took waking up in chains as evidence that he had been recognized.

“He didn’t seem to,” Joe said.  “He recognized that tattoo on your rump.”

MacLeod came to the bars on Methos’s side of his cage.  “He said it was the insignia of a killing unit of the Roman Army.  Is that true?”

Methos frowned and did not look at MacLeod as he answered.  “The Roman Army was a killing unit, MacLeod; that’s what armies are for.”  He glanced at Joe and then at MacLeod.  “Surely I’m too young to have been in the Roman Army?  There aren’t many of us around who are that old?”

“Too late,” Joe told him.  “He’s a clever one, and he picked up on us not denying your age.  Sorry, man.”

Methos closed his eyes.  “Any idea what he’s planning?”

“No,” Joe lied.

“Probably torture,” MacLeod said.  “So, were you in this Hidden Dragon unit?”

Methos sighed.  “I can tell you the truth, MacLeod, or I can lie to you, and either way you can’t check it.  Would you even believe what I told you?  So, what does it matter?”

“It matters,” MacLeod said.

Methos looked at him for a long moment.  “Yes, I was.  Happy now?”

MacLeod turned away.

Methos asked Joe, “I assume he’s a Carthaginian?”

Joe nodded, wishing he could remember more about Rome and Carthage.

Methos laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Life.  Coincidence.  Alexa thought getting tattoos would be wild and daring.  I picked that one because the pattern was so close to the old insignia.”

“Nostalgic for the bad old days?” MacLeod asked over his shoulder, as he examined the base of the farthest bars.

Methos didn’t rise to the bait.  He shook his head absently.  “Just a twisted inside joke with myself.  That’ll teach me.  So, uh, about this torture?  Did you suggest that, MacLeod?”

“You would have preferred I let him behead you right here?”

Methos’s face tightened.  “Thank you,” he said sarcastically.  “I hope I get a chance to return the favor.”

“Guys!  Guys!” Joe interjected, dismayed to see yet another wedge pounded between his two friends, particularly when it was so important that they work together.  “Can we concentrate on getting out of here?”

They discussed their options as the daylight from the high windows faded.  They abandoned hope of bribing Olaf after their attempts proved futile when the huge man brought Joe’s dinner.  Olaf ignored them.

Joe insisted on sharing his meager dinner, but, split between the three men, each got three mouthfuls of oatmeal, a palm-sized piece of baguette, and one third of an orange.  Their likely fate closed in on Joe, then, and the two immortals sat in silence, too.

“All right,” Methos said quietly, into the darkness.  “This is what we do.  If he decides to kill me, it will be execution, not challenge, so I’m not the one who can save us.  MacLeod, he won’t abandon his challenge of you, so you have to win.  You get the food from now on.”

“No,” MacLeod said with finality.  “Starving won’t kill you and me, not permanently.  The food is Dawson's.”

“It will kill us, and Joe, if you don’t win.  So what if we buy Joe a month and then he dies, along with us?  I’d rather gamble on you defeating Kreegan.”

This conversation, held in pitch darkness, was one of the eeriest experiences Joe could remember having.  He saw the cold logic of Methos’s argument, the hot defiance of MacLeod’s argument, and he saw how it would have to end.

“Hey guys, I’d like a say in how my food gets used.”

The immortals quieted.

“Methos is right, Mac.  Our other options are sure death.  I’d rather gamble on you.  You’re a pretty good gamble.  There’s one thing, though.”  God, how he hated to say this part!  “I have to eat some, too, or it will be too obvious to Olaf that someone else is getting my food.  So I eat a part, and you get most of it.”

“And Methos gets nothing!” MacLeod protested.  “I can’t do that.”

“Yes, you can,” Methos said quietly.  “Like you said, starving won’t kill me.  But beheading will.  You have to be strong, Highlander.”

“Don’t give me that!  You’re the one making the sacrifice!”

“Which I don’t like doing any more than you like watching other people do it!  So we both have a hard job to do!  I won’t complain about mine if you don’t complain about yours.  You eat, stay healthy, and stay in condition as well as you can.  I just try to keep Kreegan from offing me.”  For all his brave words, Methos’s voice shook a little at the end.

Silence fell again.  Joe didn’t trust himself to speak, he was so moved by the courage of the other two men.  And his chest constricted in sympathy with Methos’s fears.

That is when Kreegan returned.

An unseen light switch illuminated three bare bulbs in the corridor, the white light harsh and painful to Joe’s darkness adjusted eyes.  When Joe could bear to look, Kreegan stood before Methos’s cage, unlocking the door.  Olaf stood beside him with, of all things, a golf bag.  The implements protruding from the bag looked nothing like golf clubs, however.  Joe had to clamp down on the panic that welled up in him.

Methos’s chains clanked as he shifted.

Kreegan entered Methos’s cage, wheeling the golf bag with him.  Olaf took up his former position, dart gun in hand, outside the cage.

“Kreegan,” MacLeod began, a warning note in his tone.

“Shut up, MacLeod,” Kreegan returned, “or Olaf will drop you.”

Olaf gestured with the dart gun, and a scowling MacLeod subsided.

Kreegan turned to the golf bag, and Methos kicked.  The immortal’s lanky form, curled deceptively into a small space, uncoiled with snake-strike speed, and his bare foot almost connected squarely with Kreegan’s groin.

Almost.  Kreegan dodged at the last second, and with a snarl, drew forth the broadsword he had held earlier and plunged it into Methos’s chest.

Joe cried out in horror at the sight.  Methos’s body convulsed under the blow, blood spurted out his mouth and nose, and geysered out around the blade.  Kreegan withdrew the sword and stabbed again.  And then again.  Joe turned his head away, but not before catching sight of MacLeod, pale beneath his dusky skin, gripping the bars so hard his hands were white.

Joe heard Kreegan pause, panting.  He had to force himself to look back, as visions of carnage in Viet Nam came unbidden to the backs of his eyelids.  When he did look, what he saw was bad, though he’d seen worse, as he reminded himself over and over.

Methos’s blood was everywhere.  On himself – his torso and face were drenched – on the floor, running in the trough, spattered on Kreegan, and on the motionless MacLeod.  Joe knew that if he looked closely through the gore, he could see the unthinkable – parts of internal organs and splintered bones.  He took care not to look that closely.

Instead, he looked at Kreegan.  The immortal’s eyes glittered dangerously as he waited for his victim to revive.  Beyond him, MacLeod slumped as though his legs had given out, and slid to the floor.  Joe spared a moment of sympathy for his immortal assignment, whom he knew so well.  There was nothing harder than being a helpless witness, prevented even from speaking.

Well, almost nothing harder.

Kreegan spoke in a low, dangerous tone, in a language Joe didn’t recognize.  Then, apparently losing patience with the wait, Kreegan raised his sword over Methos’s head.

“No!” screamed both Joe and MacLeod.

Kreegan brought the blade hurtling down, to ring on the cement beside Methos’s head.  Then he raised it for another blow to the other side.  He yelled words as he struck, words which Joe dimly thought might be names.  Joe flinched with every blow.  He couldn’t help it.  Any one might be the one where Kreegan changed his mind and decided to behead Methos.  Or the one where he missed.

Kreegan stopped, still fuming.  With a curse he spun and stormed out, leaving Olaf to lock the cage and follow.

“MacLeod,” Joe said the moment the outer door boomed shut.  “You kill that fucking bastard, dead.”

“I will,” MacLeod promised.  “I swear to God, I will.”

Methos opened his blood-crusted eyes.  He coughed.

“Methos,” MacLeod knelt at the same end of the cage as Methos’s chains.  He looked more directly at the other immortal than Joe had seen him do in some time.  “Don’t do that.”

Methos moved painfully to a sitting postion, wiping blood from his face in distaste.

“Did you think you’d piss him off, so he’d kill you instead of torture you?”  MacLeod went on.  “You don’t know how close he is to beheading you for the hell of it.  Don’t do that!”

Methos turned on the faucet, and put his face beneath the water flow, opening his mouth to drink.  When he emerged he looked gravely at the Highlander.  “All right,” he answered.  “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

MacLeod shook his head.  “I don’t know how you’ve lived so long.”

Both immortals raised their heads, just before Joe heard the squeak of the wheels on the golf cart.  In came Kreegan and Olaf.

This time Kreegan held the gun – the real gun – while Olaf entered the cell with a sledgehammer.

“Just give me a reason to shoot you,” hissed Kreegan.

Methos lay quiescent, watching Olaf warily.

Olaf hefted the sledgehammer with surprising ease and smashed Methos’s left shin.

Methos screamed, then bit back the cry.

Olaf swung at Methos’s other leg, and Methos jerked away.  The blow fell upon his thigh, and Joe actually heard the bone snap.

Methos didn’t bother to try to suppress this cry.  His howl echoed off the ceiling and concrete walls.

Kreegan grinned as Olaf backed out and drew the dart gun.

Kreegan put away his own gun, and pulled the squeaking golf cart into the cell.  He took a deep breath and waited until Methos’s howls died down to gasps.   “I’ve been wanting to try something for some time, now,” he said calmly.  “I’ve been studying how best to kill an immortal so that he neither heals faster than it takes him to die, nor dies so fast he escapes the pain.  It’s been a largely intellectual exercise, of course.  Torture is not one of my hobbies, and this particular experiment is difficult to recruit volunteers for.  I’m sure you see the problem.”  Kreegan pulled from the golf cart an implement which looked like a barbed trident.  He placed this against Methos’s abdomen.  “I think a gut wound is best.  A very severe gut wound.”  He stabbed, with vicious energy, into Methos’s stomach.  Once in, he ripped with the prongs.

Joe cried out, involuntarily, but his cry was lost in Methos’s.

No blood poured from Methos’s mouth, this time.  Instead his eyes widened in agony and horror as blood, intestines, and feces spilled from his abdominal cavity onto the cement.  The smell, hot and overpowering, made Joe heave.  He barely made it to the trough before he lost his orange and oatmeal.

When he could look again, Kreegan was glaring at Methos’s form.  Methos, Joe was glad to see, was definitely dead.  MacLeod was collapsed too, which puzzled Joe for a moment until he saw Olaf reloading the dart gun.

With both immortals out of it, Joe abandoned all pride.

“Please stop this,” he begged.  “Please!  For the love of God … these men have done nothing to you.  Stop this, please.”

Kreegan wiped his hands fastidiously on a cloth supplied by the ever-prepared Olaf, and wrinkled his nose.  “You know nothing about what he has done,” he replied shortly.

“I don’t care!” Joe cried.  “He’s my friend.  He isn’t like he was then.  And he just got that tattoo a year or so ago.  You can tell how new it is!”

“He died too quickly,” Kreegan complained.  “I haven’t got this right, yet.  When he’s weaker, I’ll take him to the house.”  Stepping carefully around the stinking mess, Kreegan exited the cage.  This time, as he and Olaf departed, they turned out the lights.

Despair and fury set in on Joe, then.  He thought longingly of where he should be now, and what he should be doing.  He thought of his plans for the future.  He thought how unfair this was, and how he didn’t want to die.  He even let himself cry tears of frustration, there in the dark.

Methos actually revived before MacLeod did.  The drug used in the dart gun must have been immortal-strength.  Methos groaned softly and Joe heard a strange clicking sound which he guessed was of bones reknitting.

“Adam?” Joe queried into the darkness.

“Yeah,” Methos breathed.

Joe didn’t have anything to say, really.  He just wanted to use his voice to make the connection with the other man.

He heard the tap turn on, and remembered the gruesome sight of intestine material amid the blood on the floor.  The splashing sounds and clinking of the chains told Joe that Methos was cleaning up.

“I can’t believe how you … heal from that.”  Joe’s horror infected his tone.

“Umph,” was Methos’s response.  Then, perhaps relenting, he added, his voice strained, “It’ll be a day before everything works properly again, but I wasn’t planning on eating, anyway.”

“I’m so sorry, man.”

“MacLeod?” Methos asked.

When no response came in the dark, Joe said, “They shot him with the drug.”

“Oh."  Clinking chains.  "Joe, I want to rest while I can.  Did they say …?”

“When they’re coming back?  He said when you’re weaker, he’ll take you to the house.”

“That may mean a few days, then.  Would you start keeping track of the days?  We’re going to need that.”

“Right."  Joe paused.  "Adam?”

“Yeah?”

“Does it still hurt, after you’re alive again?”

For a moment there was silence.  Then, quietly, “Not for too long.  Get some sleep, Joe.”

Joe stayed silent, to let Methos rest, but he didn’t sleep a wink.  He tried to think of pleasant things, in order to dispel the horrible vision of Methos’s guts spilling on the cold concrete.  He practiced getting around on his hands and thighs, a humiliating posture he would never have tried in the light.  The night was very long.  By the time dawn came, he felt exhausted and wretched.

MacLeod stirred at the first touch of light, and rose from the floor.

His defenses battered by the events of the night, Joe felt keenly the envy he usually buried deep.  MacLeod had a magnificent warrior’s body.  If anyone could save them from this spot, it was he.

He and MacLeod met gazes for a moment, then they both looked at the cell between them.  Methos lay asleep, his more trim physique already appearing wan and stressed.  Very little gore remained on the floor, for which Joe was grateful.

MacLeod nodded to Joe, then knelt by his faucet and drank and washed.  He then began a series of slow, concentrated movements which reminded Joe of Tai Chi Chuan.

Joe also washed and drank.  He rubbed a hand irritably across his stubble, but resigned himself to growing a beard.

Methos woke when Olaf brought Joe’s breakfast.  Joe was ravenous, and eating only a few mouthfuls was one of the hardest things he’d had to do in a long while.  It was made a little easier by the knowledge that MacLeod was carefully not watching him, while Methos carefully was.

The food came on a plastic tray which could slide into the next cell by way of the indented trough.  Methos’s chains just barely allowed him to reach the tray from Joe’s side of the cell, and slide it through to MacLeod’s cell.

Watching Methos pass the food along untouched was a different kind of hard, for Joe.

MacLeod accepted the tray with a dark expression, and ate the remaining food with a kind of reverence.  None of them spoke much.

So the days passed.  Joe jumped every time the outer door opened, fearing Kreegan had returned, but the immortals, of course, knew Olaf came alone.  Joe’s hunger grew to be a constant torment, though something in his metabolism shifted to where hunger was a looming ache instead of a sharp pain.  Joe fantasized about food, and dreamed of his next meal.  He lost fat, he noticed, though not in the places he would have preferred to, and the results left his flesh baggy.

MacLeod persuaded them to play imaginary chess with him, a game which took so much concentration that it actually caused Joe to forget his fears for a time.  Joe tried to write songs in his head, but the conditions of dread he existed in did not seem conducive to creativity.   He yielded now and then to pleas from the others to perform acapella.  MacLeod exercised mornings and nights, and spent much of the days in deep meditation.  He took care to lie down, weakly, whenever Olaf came, while Joe took care to sit up and try to look healthy and alert.

Methos, of course, faded.  He lay mostly unmoving, his head by the water trough.  Already thin, fasting made him look skeletal.  He seemed to shrink as he lost muscle mass.  Three times a day, he moved Joe’s food tray across to MacLeod.  Joe couldn’t imagine how hard it must be for him to do that.

They never talked about Kreegan’s inevitable return.

Kreegan returned at night on the twelfth day.  Under the harsh light of the bare bulbs, he and Olaf bound Methos and took him out.  The oldest immortal was a dead weight in their hands, and Joe didn’t know if that was an act or not.  MacLeod pounded the bars in frustration.

They sat glumly through the night, Joe trying to keep his imagination in check.  The things Kreegan could be doing!  And when he grew tired, Kreegan might just take Methos’s head.  Joe mourned all the things he had never asked the 5000 year old man, and all the stories he had cut the man off from finishing.

Kreegan and Olaf returned Methos intact just before dawn.  Joe got over his relief at Methos’s return quickly, though, while Olaf was attaching the manacles.  Methos was in agony, and Joe couldn’t see why.  He thrashed and gasped and moaned and cried out.  Kreegan looked down at him with a satisfied smile, said something contemptuous in a language Joe didn’t know, spat, and left, Olaf right on his heels.

Joe slid to the adjoining bars, aching to help somehow.  MacLeod pressed against Methos’s cell on the other side.  Methos seemed unaware of them, lost in a world of pain.

“What is it?” Joe cried.

“I don’t know!” MacLeod said.

“Why doesn’t it heal?”

“Methos.  Methos.  Answer me.  What did Kreegan do to you?”

Methos remained insensible, groaning and thrashing.  He started scratching his legs feverishly, scratching, tearing, ripping his flesh bloody.

“Adam!  Stop it!” Joe cried.

MacLeod also cried out in dismay, but nothing they said would stop Methos from stripping his legs of skin.  Then he put them under the running tap.  He lay back, his legs in the trough, still twitching as if he were being bitten and crying out piteously, and began rending the flesh from his arms.  His movements, Joe thought, had more purpose now, and less desperation, though a man flaying himself could hardly seem sane.

Joe looked to MacLeod in shared shock, and saw the expression on the immortal’s face.  Knowing horror.  Recognition.  MacLeod turned grey beneath his captivity wrought pallor, and Joe feared he would waste that valuable food by upchucking it.

“What is it, Mac?” he asked.

MacLeod turned away, not to be sick in the trough, but distancing himself from the other men.

“Mac!  Tell me, please!” Joe cried.  He looked at Methos, a bloody mess hugging the water faucet, now scraping his torso raw. “Adam?  Adam.”  Joe repeated the name like a mantra, clinging to it.  MacLeod did not turn around.

Eventually reason began to return to Methos’s eyes, and he seemed to be in less pain.

“Joe,” he gasped.

Joe stopped repeating his name.

“Scratch my back,” Methos begged.

“Like that?!  No!  I can’t!”

“Please, Joe, please!”  Methos turned his unmarked but bony back to Joe, and moved as close to Joe’s cell as his chains would allow.  “Get it out of me!”

“Do it, Dawson!” MacLeod commanded, back on their side of his cell.  “Scratch him hard!”

Trembling, Joe reached out to touch Methos’s back.  “What is it, guys?” he begged.

“Salt,” Methos gasped.

Oh my God.

“Kreegan let the wounds heal over the salt,” MacLeod said, loathing in every word.

Shit.  Shit.  Joe summoned some strength he hadn’t had to use since ‘Nam, and scratched hard.  He had to try three passes before he managed to rend skin.  It was ghastly, but he told himself that Methos’s cries were of relief.  It might even have been true.

He didn’t have much of the back skin torn when Methos moved away from him to wash beneath the water.  “MacLeod?” Methos asked.

MacLeod kneeled down and gestured.  “Come here.”

Methos gave his back to MacLeod, and the Highlander was brutal.  Joe watched in horrified fascination.  MacLeod’s lips were pursed and his eyes were red.  That startled Joe.  MacLeod was crying.

Methos finally returned his blood covered back to the faucet, and MacLeod continued crying.  “I should have let him take your head,” he said, passionately.

“Don’t think that,” Methos sputtered, with surprising vehemence, coming out from under the tap.  “Don’t ever think that.  It’s okay.  I’m okay.”  He disentangled his chains and limbs from the water trough, and flopped down.  “I’m just tired.”

And hungry. Joe thought.  He was hungry, MacLeod was hungry, certainly Methos was hungry.  They were always hungry.  It really wore at the spirit.  He had to beat back the surge of anger that hit him.

MacLeod wiped his eyes hastily, then sank against the back wall, his head back and his eyes closed.

The days wore on.  Methos grew too weak to sit up.  He lay his head by the water trough and sucked water that Joe and MacLeod splashed to him.  It was an eerie evening when Methos began hallucinating.  Convinced that there was an extra tray of food in his cell, just beyond his reach, he asked Joe to push it to him.  He accepted stoically the testimony of the other men that it wasn't there.  Twice that night he asked Joe if he heard the golf cart squeaking, approaching the door.  Both times it wasn't there.  After that, Methos kept his hallucinations to himself, but more than once Joe heard him in the dark gasping at some imagined threat or tantalizing mirage.  Joe resolved to be ready to be skeptical about any irrational perceptions of his own, should he reach that stage.  He was eating very little, and could feel life in his body fading.

The waiting grew nearly unendurable.  Joe felt certain he was waiting to die.  Though MacLeod continued his exercise regimen, Joe could see that his endurance was fading.  A swordfight in the league that immortals fought in – it was like asking an Olympic athlete to compete while on a restricted diet.

One day MacLeod lost it, refusing to eat, and ordered Methos to eat Joe’s dinner.  Methos ignored him, and it fell to Joe to talk MacLeod back from that precipice.  That’s when Joe realized that MacLeod felt it too – the certainty that he would lose.

If Methos felt any failing of faith, he never showed it.  When MacLeod begged him to eat, he turned his head away.  He pushed Joe’s food to MacLeod three times a day.  Often it was almost the only movement he made in a day.

On the twentieth day, Kreegan returned for Methos.  Olaf unchained him and carried him, unbound, over a shoulder.  Joe prayed he would see the old immortal again.

As soon as they were gone, MacLeod got to his knees from where he had been lying on the floor, and reached for one of Methos’s chains.  Joe watched, curious, as MacLeod took one open manacle and pounded it on the concrete floor.  He studied it for a few seconds, then pounded the catch again and again.  Finally satisfied, he let it go, and turned to his tap for a drink.

“What’s that for?” Joe asked.

“I hope it’s a trap.  Be ready when they come back, Joe.”

“Ready for what?”

“I don’t know.  Whatever comes.”

“Mac, the salt …”

“Yeah?”

“Why does it last like that?”

MacLeod sighed.  “I don’t think it would last long.  Maybe a day or so.  It’s just that every moment …”

“Yeah.”

They were both quiet.  Whatever MacLeod was intending, Joe realized it was all going to come to a head now, for good or ill.  He was scared, but he also felt a welcome feeling – hope.

“Why was salting the earth so bad?” Joe asked, to keep his mind from leaping at possibilities.

“It’s like a war crime, a ‘crime against humanity.’  It’s one thing to burn a town, but if you salt the earth, nothing will grow.  The entire populace will starve if they can’t find some other means.  It guarantees that the town will not come back, probably not ever.  It’s like a curse.  Generally, you don’t do that.”

“Romans must have been really pissed.”

MacLeod made a sound like a snort.

“You think Methos did that?” Joe ventured.

“I don’t know.  But I’m sure Kronos would have.”

After far too long, they heard the sounds of the men approaching.  MacLeod lay down, looking limp, next to the bars adjoining Methos’s cage, but with his back to them.

Joe’s pounding heart was wrung by the sight of the blood-smeared body on Olaf’s shoulder.  He hadn’t realized how wasted Methos had become.  Methos moaned, but made no movement.  Joe cringed to think of the salt …

As was their habit, Olaf took Methos into the cage while Kreegan waited without, dart gun held negligently in one hand.  Olaf locked one of Methos’s hands and struggled with the second manacle.

“Olaf, what is it?” Kreegan demanded.

Olaf answered – the first time Joe had heard him speak – in a language Joe didn’t know.

Kreegan entered the cage, his concentration on the damaged manacle.  He clearly didn’t consider Methos a threat, any more.

He hadn’t bargained on MacLeod.  MacLeod exploded to his feet, grabbing Kreegan through the bars.  The dart gun his main goal, MacLeod attained it and fired its one shot into Kreegan’s stomach.  Kreegan went down.

Olaf, no fool, moved immediately away from the reach of the Highlander, but that brought him within Joe’s reach.  Joe grabbed a burly ankle and heaved.  Caught off balance, Olaf fell to one knee with a yell, one arm outstretched.

MacLeod made a superhuman stretch of his own and reached that hand.  He hauled Olaf brutally against the bars and patted his pockets swiftly before Olaf got over being stunned.  He produced a gun and some keys, as well as another dose of dart drug.  The gun he tossed to Joe and the dart he jabbed into Olaf’s butt.  Olaf went limp.

Joe couldn’t believe it.  He couldn’t contain the joy that welled up in him.  They were free!  “Yes!” he yelled.

A grinning Highlander shushed him.  “There may be other guards,” he said, unlocking his door.

“Methos didn’t see any,” Joe reminded him.  Methos had reported seeing no other servants or staff during his trip to the House.

MacLeod unlocked Methos’s door and Joe’s, then, with Joe covering the unconscious men with the gun, MacLeod unlocked Methos’s one manacle.  Too weak to move much, Methos was insensible with pain, and showed no awareness of what had happened.

MacLeod stripped the two men and donned Olaf’s clothing.  Joe inherited Kreegan’s clothes.  MacLeod made a cautious foray outside and returned with a blanket, keys to a car, and two swords.  One sword was MacLeod’s katana, and the other might have been Methos’s Ivanhoe.  Joe wasn’t sure.  “I don’t see anyone,” MacLeod reported.

“Mac, do we just leave?”

“No.  Kreegan’ll come after us.  This has to end now.”  MacLeod wrapped Methos’s naked form in the blanket and lifted him in his arms.  “I’m putting Methos in the car.  Be right back.”

This time MacLeod returned with old friends.  Joe’s prosthetics and cane.  Joe thought of how many times he’d cursed the things.  Now they meant freedom and self-reliance.  If only there was some food … he knew they had to get away, but his entire body screamed at him to make eating something his top priority.  Even in his excitement he found it hard to concentrate on anything but his need for food.

“Mac, what do you mean, this has to end now?  You going to …?” Joe didn’t finish.  His own feelings were conflicted about murdering the unconscious immortal.  He fervently wanted to see the asshole dead, but he hated the thought of what doing something so dishonorable would do to his immortal assignment.  Methos's words about Christine Salzer from long ago came back to him.  "He didn’t save her; he saved you."

“When he wakes up, I’ll fight him.  If I could get you and Methos away first, I would, but it looks like you’ll have to wait and see who wins.”

“Couldn’t you challenge him later?”

“Now’s the perfect time.  When he wakes up, he’ll be groggy from the drug.  That makes us about even.  We may not have time to wait, though.  There must be some kind of staff at this place.  Didn't Olaf have a wake-up version of that drug?”

Rooting around in Olaf's clothes, MacLeod found a hypodermic.  He jabbed Kreegan in the neck with it and stepped back.

Kreegan woke.  Glancing at the unconscious Olaf, he rose slowly to his feet.  Joe kept the gun trained on him.  MacLeod held his katana like the extension of himself that it was.

“So,” Kreegan asked quietly, “do you murder me now, or do you give me the same chance I gave you?”

“Maybe I’ll give you what you gave my friend,” said MacLeod.  “That would be fair, don’t you think?”

“You’ll do what you choose; what I think doesn’t matter.”

“No, it doesn’t.  Outside.”

Joe followed the immortals outside, keeping the gun ready.  He was shaky with weakness.  It was more difficult than it should be to handle his prostheses, but he managed to stay upright.  The gust of fresh air on his face almost brought tears to his eyes.  He really hadn’t thought he’d ever see the outside of that horrid cell again.

The building which had housed them was part of a very rundown estate built hacienda style, with an inner courtyard.  That courtyard is where Joe found himself now.  MacLeod strode to the center and tossed Methos’s sword to Kreegan.

“May I clothe myself first?” Kreegan asked, with dignity.  MacLeod had left both men in their underwear.

“Would you have let me?  I don’t think so.”

“Very well, then.”  Kreegan raised the sword to en garde.  “I am Jan Stefano Kreegan, formerly Gamissal of Carthage.”

“Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod.”

With that, the fight began.  Even with Joe’s spotty knowledge of swordfighting, he could tell that Kreegan’s tactic was to fight defensively and wear MacLeod out, but Joe saw no sign that the Highlander was tiring.  MacLeod fought with deadly ferocity and a fury in his eyes.  Joe thought he knew that fury.  He felt it himself whenever he thought of Methos imagining he heard the golf cart approaching.

MacLeod made good psychological use of Kreegan’s nakedness, scoring him with non serious cuts all over his body.

Movement at the edge of his vision caught Joe’s attention.  Olaf had appeared and he held the dart gun.  Damn!  How had they mislaid that thing?  Where had Olaf found another dart?

“Freeze, Olaf!” Joe ordered.

Olaf raised the dart gun swiftly, and Joe couldn’t afford to consider his action.  He squeezed the trigger, and Olaf dropped to the ground, a hideous red flower blossoming on his chest.  A wave of nausea that was half-flashback washed over Joe.

Whether chivalry or battle tactic, MacLeod disengaged and backed off a few feet, allowing Kreegan to turn to look at his dying servant.  Kreegan looked, then turned back and attacked with renewed purpose.  He did not seem unbalanced by the loss of Olaf.  He attacked like he intended to finish the fight, now.  Now MacLeod was on the defensive.

But Kreegan was barefoot, and turned his ankle on the slope of a cobblestone.

“Too bad, Kreegan,” MacLeod announced.  He sliced at the other immortal’s throat like he was making a golf stroke, and Kreegan’s head flew like it was the ball.  “There can be only one,” MacLeod told the dead man, “and it’s not you.”

With that, MacLeod fell heavily onto the stone paving, and only then did Joe remember how weakened he was.

Usually, Joe knew, MacLeod met a Quickening proudly, on his feet.  This time he let it take him lying down.

Duncan MacLeod had had a lot of homes in his lifetime, but he couldn’t remember feeling toward any of them the way he felt when he saw the barge.  Home, normalcy, security, food.  Food!  A sudden weakness at the thought of food washed over him as he got out of the car.  His thinking, which had remained doggedly clear for all this time, started to fog.  He made himself circle the car to Methos’s door and open it, but then he stared at the other man, foolishly, unable to think what to do now.

Methos was no help.  He remained slumped in the seat, his head to the side, eyes closed.  MacLeod waited, and eventually he remembered what he needed to do.

“Methos,” he said.  “Adam,” he corrected, in deference to their semi-public location.  He reached in to unbuckle the seat belt holding him in place.  His sluggish thoughts went to the barge’s kitchen.  Could he remember what supplies he had had nearly a month ago?  Food that wouldn’t have spoiled?

Methos stirred and opened his eyes, slowly.

“Can you walk?” MacLeod asked.

Methos shook his head.

“Lean on me, then,” MacLeod said, and slid his arm around the man’s waist.  His vision dotted as another wave of light-headedness passed over him.  Strange that he should be so affected now, now that it was all over.

Methos’s waist was so small; his ribs were really all MacLeod could feel.  He was almost afraid he would break as he tugged him out of the seat.  The two of them limped up the ramp to the door of the barge, only the wool blanket preserving Methos’s decency.  Thank heavens MacLeod had a hidden key; his own keys were long gone.

As they entered the barge, Methos seemed to become more aware of his surroundings.  “Holy ground,” he croaked.  “Take me to holy ground.”

MacLeod was exhausted.  “Later.  Methos, we can stay here.”

“We’re in no shape …”

“It will be all right.  I promise.”

Methos had been leaning on the wall, but his strength gave out and he collapsed.  Not moving very fast, MacLeod didn’t reach him before he fell.

He touched his shoulder gingerly.  “Methos.”

To MacLeod’s surprise, Methos looked directly at him, a piercing, pleading look of intensity.  “Duncan, I’m so hungry,” he cried.

MacLeod stood, startled into action.  Methos had been so strong for so long that his weakness now was unnerving.  MacLeod left him where he was and headed straight for the kitchen.  The first thing which came to hand was a loaf of bread.  A hasty survey yielded two slices which were not moldy.  He crammed one slice into his own mouth and knelt down beside Methos with the other one.

Methos put out a shaking hand and took the bread.

“Chew,” MacLeod reminded, and Methos nodded, chomping.  Then he coughed it back up, onto the floor.

Methos looked at MacLeod in dismay.

“I’ll get another.”  MacLeod brought back bread and a glass of water.

Methos ignored the water, and downed the bread, but heaved and threw it up again.

“Okay,” MacLeod declared.  “On the bed.”  He reached under Methos’s arms and drew him up, toward the bed.

“Nooo,” Methos protested, like an overtired child, as MacLeod propped him up on the bed.  “I’m hungry,” he said again.

MacLeod threw open cupboards, looking for something easily palatable and immediate.  His preference to cook with fresh food worked against him, as most of his supplies were unusable after this amount of time.  He opened a tin of peaches and took it to the bed with a fork.

Methos’s gaze locked on the can as MacLeod approached, and he reached out.  MacLeod let him have the can.  Methos didn’t ask for the fork.  He dipped right in and would have gobbled the first peach had MacLeod not grasped his wrist.  “Slowly,” he advised.

Methos’s expression was one of pure anguish as he pulled feebly against MacLeod’s grip.  “I can’t,” he cried.

Shocked again, MacLeod froze, holding Methos’s two wrists and staring into his clouded eyes.  He needed help.

MacLeod released Methos and stood, watching, as Methos wolfed down two peach halves before convulsing again and spitting them up.  MacLeod took the can and wiped up the regurgitation, studying Methos’s desperate face.

The other immortal seemed to have exhausted himself, for he lay limp and unmoving, but wore an expression of despair.  When MacLeod moved away, Methos’s eyes closed.

MacLeod did some quick time zone calculations, and concluded that Anne would be at the hospital.  He had to be downright rude to three people, but once he had her on the line, he explained hastily the problem, leaving out most of the circumstances that got them there.

“What can I do for him?” he begged.

“He should be on an IV, to start with, in a hospital,” Anne said.

“He’s an immortal; I can’t take him to a hospital.”

“I know.  Listen, Duncan, calm down.  He’s immortal.  This can’t kill him.”

“That doesn’t mean I want him to suffer!” he yelled.  “Anne, I’ve got to help him!”

“Okay, okay, sorry.”  She did sound a bit contrite, too.  “Has he got any family?”

“Family?  He’s an immortal.”

“What about a wife or a lover?  Anyone who cares about him?  Loves him.”

“No!  What’s that got to do with it?”

“I’m looking for a better nursemaid than you,” she said, drily.  “But if it has to be you, you have got to take care of yourself.  You need to calm down.  I want you to eat, Duncan.  Eat as much as you can. You need to be in good shape for him.  And get some rest.  You hear me?”

“I haven’t done anything but eat in front of him,” MacLeod said.  “Yeah, I hear you.  But Anne, how do I get anything in him to stay down?”

“Okay, hang on.”  She was gone for a while, and MacLeod fidgeted.  He looked at the emaciated man on his bed, and his heart squeezed so hard he could barely breathe.

“Duncan?  Here’s what you do.  I want you to follow my instructions to the letter, all right?  Including the first part, where you take care of yourself, and the second part where you do exactly what I tell you, no arguing.”

Five minutes later, MacLeod was at the stove preparing a can of beans for himself and a pot of broth for Methos.  He was also mulling over Anne’s other instructions.  It hadn’t been so long ago that he had considered Methos only barely entitled to live – the blood of his ancient victims calling to MacLeod for the justice they never received.  He was now so far from being able to feel that way that it seemed he must have dreamed the whole thing.  He might be able to do as Anne instructed, strange and … uncomfortable as it would be.  Yes, he would do what she said.

He took the beans and the broth to the bed on a standing tray, and sat opposite the tray, eating the beans and staring at Methos’s strained face.  It was the best he could do right now in the area of taking care of himself.  He couldn’t possibly rest until Methos had eaten something, but he did try a few calming meditation techniques.  Mindful of her caution that Methos’s wasted condition would actually make him too weak to eat much, despite his great need, MacLeod did not wake him.

He didn’t need to.  Methos’s eyes opened and fastened on the bowls on the tray.  He looked hopefully at MacLeod.

“Methos,” MacLeod said in as reassuring a tone as he could manage, “we’re going to get plenty of food inside you, starting with broth.  But you have to let me feed you, so you don’t get too tired to eat.”

Methos nodded, his eyes bright.  Overly bright, MacLeod thought.  He tried to remember if malnutrition did anything strange to the eyes.

MacLeod sat on the bed, pulled the tray to within easy arm’s reach, and then lifted Methos’s diminished weight to where he was practically sitting on MacLeod’s lap.  It was so much harder to do than it should have been.  MacLeod was again made uneasy by his own weakness.

Methos protested faintly, and, embarrassed, MacLeod almost said “Doctor’s orders,” until he remembered Anne’s admonition not to say that.  “You won’t get as tired this way,” he said.

Methos subsided, his gaze on the broth.

“I’m going to feed you the broth one spoonful at a time, with at least 30 seconds in between.  You concentrate on keeping it down – don’t think about the next spoonful.”

Leaning against MacLeod’s shoulder, Methos squirmed but didn’t argue.  His gaze remained fixed on the bowl, his breathing fast and shallow.  MacLeod thought he could feel the other man’s craving in the weak tension in his frame.

Methos coughed up the first spoonful, and MacLeod insisted on waiting, exhorting the other man to relax before they tried again.  Eyes closed, Methos swallowed the broth and breathed deeply.  MacLeod counted to 30 then brought forward another spoonful.   Methos gulped it eagerly but then had to struggle to keep it down.  He won the struggle and looked at MacLeod triumphantly.  MacLeod smiled and brought him the spoon again.

In that manner they finished the bowl of broth, after which Methos’s strength failed.  MacLeod felt exhausted beyond belief, too, but enormously relieved to have some nourishment inside Methos.  MacLeod finished the beans, cleaned up, tended to some ordinary maintenance of the barge, and then fell asleep beside Methos on the bed.

He woke when Methos prodded him.

“Duncan,” Methos said.  “More food.”

Groggy, MacLeod rose, wondering how long they’d slept.  Methos still looked pale and haggard, his eyes bright and desperate.  MacLeod gnawed on the contents of a package of bread sticks as he prepared Methos some more broth.

“Broth?”  Methos complained.

“If this goes well, we’ll try something more solid.”

MacLeod slid beside Methos, again cradling him in one arm.  He was careful not to look at him so he wouldn’t see any expression of disgust.  Anne had ordered this posture so the patient did not have to exert himself in any way other than in imbibing nourishment, but MacLeod suspected a psychological benefit to the comforting gesture beyond the physical support.

“This doctor friend of yours …” Methos said, “she told you to do this?”

“Yeah.”  MacLeod brought the first spoonful, which Methos gulped.

“Do we have to wait 30 seconds?” he asked plaintively.

“That’s what she said.  We’re making sure it stays down.”

Methos squirmed against MacLeod’s chest.  “She’s a sadist,” he complained.

MacLeod was hungry, himself.  Suddenly he was ravenous, and he saw the wait between spoonfuls for the torment it must be to Methos.  He couldn’t stand it.

“We’ll do ten seconds,” he said, bringing the next spoonful to Methos’s hungry mouth.

Methos only coughed up the broth once, and he still had some strength when the bowl was finished.

Anne had called for carbohydrates next, so MacLeod slid off the bed intending to cook some pasta.  Methos stirred and grabbed MacLeod’s wrist.

“Duncan!”

“What?”

“Don’t leave.”

MacLeod frowned, studying the panic on Methos’s face.  He sat back down.  “What is it?” he asked.

Methos’s face reclaimed a vestige of sensibility, but he said nothing.

“What are you afraid of?” MacLeod asked.  He felt like he was leaving the bedroom of a child who was afraid of the dark.

“Kreegan,” Methos whispered.

MacLeod felt cold.  “Kreegan’s dead.”

“I know,” Methos said, and closed his eyes.  He let MacLeod’s wrist go.

MacLeod stared at the pinched face, remembering Methos’s screams, and the long hours wondering when Kreegan would return to continue his tortures.  Feeling like he was moving under water, MacLeod leaned back on the bed and put his arm around Methos, again.  “You tell me when you want me to go,” he said.  “I was going to cook you some linguini,” he added as incentive.

To his surprise, Methos ignored the bribe and stayed still against MacLeod’s chest.

MacLeod’s stomach rumbled.

“Okay, you can go,” Methos said.

MacLeod smiled, a motion which felt alien, and went to cook the pasta.

Methos was asleep when he returned, so he ate the linguini himself and prepared some more so it would be ready when Methos woke.  In another lifetime he would have considered cold, unsauced pasta a crime, but now it was medicine.  And his own stomach seemed happy to have it.

Since Methos stayed asleep, MacLeod took the opportunity to shower, shave, and put on his own clothes.  He wanted to call the hospital to inquire after Joe, but the hour was too late to talk to him, and he knew the hospital wouldn’t tell him anything.

As he exited the shower, he saw Methos on his feet, tottering from the bed.

“Methos!  Where are you going?”

“Holy ground,” Methos said.

MacLeod crossed the barge and grasped the other man by the arms.

“You can’t go anywhere!  You’re not in condition to make it, and there’s no food …”

“Duncan, we have to get to holy ground!” Methos cried, his eyes wild.  “They’ll find us here!  We can’t defend ourselves!”

“Who?”

“Anyone!  Let me go!”

“Methos!  Stay here where I can take care of you!  I promise nothing will happen.”

“You promise,” Methos said skeptically.  “I didn’t get to be my age by assuming I was safe.  MacLeod …” Methos began to sag, and MacLeod caught him.

MacLeod steered Methos back into bed.  “Right now you live and grow stronger.  You can go to holy ground another day.”

Methos consented to be put to bed, but MacLeod could tell he wasn’t happy about it.  And his attempt at flight had used up his brief spurt of strength, so MacLeod had to eat the pasta again.  Methos woke soon, though, and MacLeod resumed his position as prop and feeder with yet another bunch of linguini.  Methos had difficulty with the pasta, and when he was finally exhausted, more linguini was on the bedclothes than was in Methos.

His weariness wore on MacLeod’s temper, and he took a little too much pleasure in banishing Methos to the couch so he could wash the blankets and linens.  After taking some time with the laundry, he found Methos alert again, so he brought him a large mug of water.  Methos turned up his good-sized nose at it.

“Beer,” he said.

“Water,” MacLeod replied.  “Beer will dehydrate you.”

“I want a beer,” Methos insisted.  “Please,” he added, as a calculated afterthought.

“I don’t have any beer,” MacLeod said, truthfully.  “But if you’ll drink all that water, I’ll have some delivered.”

“Extortion.  I know this trick.”

MacLeod shrugged.  “No beer unless you drink the water.  And then you have to drink more water after.”

“I want a beer.  I don’t want a mother.”

MacLeod’s temper flared.  “You’ll get what I give you and be grateful for it!  You drink that water if you know what’s good for you!”

Methos stared at him.

MacLeod stilled, startled.

“Who was that?” Methos asked.  “Your doctor girlfriend?”

MacLeod sank wearily down on the couch beside Methos.  “I think it was my mother,” he said.

Methos smiled.  It was good to see him smile.

“Have you eaten, Duncan?” he asked.

“Yeah, I have.”

“Not enough, I bet.  Tell you what.  I’ll drink all the water you want if you order a huge delivery meal and eat it all.”

“I can’t eat in front of you.  I just can’t.”

“Take it up on deck.  The sun’s up, I see.  Nice to see the sun, I think.”

“Methos, what was this Hidden Dragon unit?  Were they really a special forces killing squad?”

MacLeod couldn’t have said where the question came from.  It seemed to have been waiting there for days, weeks.

Methos looked genuinely startled, then his expression shut down.  MacLeod cursed inwardly.

“I’m just asking.”

“There were atrocities on both sides, MacLeod,” he said with some bitterness.  “It was a war.”

In for a penny, in for a pound.  If he let it go now, he might never get another chance.

“It’s one thing to be drafted into the rank and file,” he pointed out, “and another thing to volunteer for elite service as a killer.”

“And I am tired of explaining myself to you.  I’d leave now if I could, but I can’t, so I have to ask you to leave me alone.”

The appeal to MacLeod’s innate chivalry was effective.  MacLeod recognized the manipulation even as he rose.  “All right.  Drink your water.”

MacLeod placed two phone calls and soon was hailed from the quay by a delivery man.  Chinese was one of the few meals you could have delivered at 8:00 in the morning in Paris, and booze would be delivered anytime.  MacLeod handed Methos a beer and took his food on deck.

The food and the sunrise broke his broody mood before it got properly started.  Methos was right; it was more than wonderful to see the sun, and MacLeod hadn’t really tasted any of the food he’d eaten since leaving Kreegan’s place.  This meal was the best he could remember in ages.

When he returned below deck, a freshly shaved and washed Methos was making his unsteady way back to the couch from the head, wearing MacLeod's sweats.  MacLeod was surprised, but he had not seen immortal physiology recover from starvation before.  This was blessedly quick.

Methos did not look at him.

MacLeod sighed and fetched two more beers.  He put one in front of Methos as a peace offering.  “It’s just that you never do explain anything,” he said softly.  “I’d like to know.”

Methos scowled at the beer and drank the water instead.  “I think I’m ready to try the pasta again,” he said without looking at MacLeod.

MacLeod waited for a moment, then got up and boiled the last of the linguini in silence.  He knew a market that delivered.  He’d call them later when they were open.

He put the bowl of pasta in front of Methos by the untouched beer.

“Aren’t you going to feed me?” asked Methos, a glint in his eye.

MacLeod refused to be baited.  “Do you want me to?” he asked.

“No,” Methos replied, and applied himself to the pasta, eating with total concentration, but with a cautious pace.  Though there were times when he paused, eyes closed, he kept it all down.  He then leaned back and studied MacLeod from under half-closed eyelids.  “I lost my family, too,” he said.

Duncan blinked.

“I was trying to have a normal life.  Sort of an experiment after …”

Methos sat forward and reached for the beer.  “Anyway, I went back to what I knew best.  What I was good at.”

MacLeod nodded and finished his own beer.  He stood up.  “Good enough,” he said.  He pulled out the clean linens and began making up the bed.

“Good enough?” Methos asked, watching him.

“That’s all I wanted,” MacLeod told him.  “Now let’s get you back to bed, and we’ll think about protein for your next meal.”

Methos rose carefully, and made it to the bed.  He watched MacLeod in some amazement as he plumped the pillows and tucked him in.

“A little later, I’m calling Dawson,” MacLeod went on.  “When you and he are both recovered – when we’re all recovered, I’m taking us out for the biggest banquet in Paris.  And if you’re still doing well by tomorrow, we can find some way to move to holy ground.”

Methos pulled the covers up.  “Holy ground with a tattoo parlor,” he specified.

“What?”

“I have something I want removed.”

MacLeod smiled.  It felt good.

THE END

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