History repeating itself, over and over, ripping open a long-sealed wound, like pouring alcohol over raw flesh. Methos was powerless to stop it. All he could do was stand by helplessly and watch in mute horror.

"They can't do this," Connor muttered beside him.

Oh, but they could. In this war there were no barriers to atrocities. In the nearly two years since Methos had arrived in Paris he'd come to the conclusion this world war could very well be the worst in recorded history. Of course, he was the expert. He was the oldest living Immortal, the sole witness of five thousand millennium.

And he was going to vomit, right here on the boulevard, if Connor didn't take him away.

But Connor didn't make a move towards him, because the young Highlander was too busy battling his own fury. Methos could see it in the grim set of his eyes. They stood watching the Vichy government soldiers herding more and more Jews into the Velodrome d'Hiver sports stadium. The humid July air and gray sky pressed down like a smothering blanket, trapping the cries and shouts, the unloading trucks, the harsh words of hatred, the sobs of children.

"The Vichy can't be this cowardly," Connor insisted.

Methos barely heard him. He was remembering Constantinople, almost sixteen hundred years ago, when hundreds of brave young boys had been rounded up by Roman soldiers in the mid-day sun and slaughtered in the city's Forum. Methos had been powerless to stop that massacre, just as he was powerless to stop this hideous repeat of history before his eyes.

He knew the Vichy wouldn't kill the Jews here in the stadium. There were too many of them - at least 10,000 by his estimate, men and women and children with only the clothes on their backs. They came off the trucks with terror in their eyes. Hands linked for courage were broken apart by rifle butts. Word was that they would soon be deported to the Drancy internment camp, and from there to Aushwitz. They would die, and he couldn't stop it from happening. He hadn't been able to save Alric, either. History embraced every opportunity to flaunt his failures in his face, over and over again.

Another truck stopped in the street. Children taken from schools were hauled to the pavement, pushed and shoved, hit and slapped. The bystanders maintaining a healthy distance from the spectacle shrugged deeper into their cowardice. A young girl of five or six stumbled and fell. A French soldier grabbed her long blonde curls and hauled her up, yanking out a thick shank of hair.

Before Methos even realized what was happening, Connor leapt off the curb and jumped the brutal soldier.

Methos should have seen it coming. Connor had been growing angrier and angrier over the last few months, fueled by the increasing sense the war was getting worse, not better. Each day, each failure, made it harder and harder to walk the streets of a once-beautiful city blighted with swastika flags.

The soldiers moved swiftly to overpower Connor. Methos almost went to his aid, but some last remaining shred of self-preservation kept him frozen in place. Connor shouted curses as he was dragged away, and then a muffled thump came as one of the soldiers swung a truncheon that broke the Highlander's jaw. The blonde girl staggered upright, her hand pressing against her bleeding scalp, and was pushed towards the stadium..

Methos' face burned with shame. There was nothing he could do to help Connor - not with hundreds of soldiers and police watching, their weapons ready at their fingertips. Not with ten thousand Jews locked behind the Vel d'Hiv walls, sweltering with no water, no bathrooms, no sanitation. This had to be the final Gathering, the end of the world as good bowed before inevitable evil. Or maybe it was just hell, repeating itself.

He closed his eyes.

He couldn't remember a world that didn't hurt.

***

Two days later, exhausted and frantic, Methos crossed against a traffic light and hurried along the edge of a schoolyard. The German General Staff was located at the Majestic Hotel, but the offices of Hauptmann Hans Dietrich were on this side of the city. A dozen laughing children kicked a soccer ball back and forth as he passed. At the Vel d'Hiv, Jewish children were starving in the July heat without food or water. Methos pushed the thought out of his head. If he thought about the stadium he was going to think about Connor, and he couldn't afford distractions right now.

Connor, who might already be dead. And dead. And then dead again. Dietrich gave off the aura of a hardened, disciplined officer, always impeccable in uniform, always direct and concise. But city life had made him a little soft. He was known to take his lunch every afternoon at twelve o'clock. He would walk by himself down the small streets towards the Luxembourg Gardens, eat at a small sidewalk cafe, return in exactly twenty five minutes. Plenty of time, Methos reasoned, to waylay him into an alley and do what had to be done.

If only he wasn't so tired. Tired to the very center of his bones, so tired his muscles felt like glue, so tired that he could very gladly go to sleep standing up against the nearest lamppost. It had taken two days to track down every available source he had, every possible lead, with only the most meager results. His only other hope had been Connor's kinsman, Duncan MacLeod, who Methos had never met. Duncan was also working in the Resistance. It had taken several false leads for him to discover Duncan had left for Austria some months ago, and there was no known way to reach him.

Church bells struck noon. Methos watched Dietrich leave his office and cursed. Today he had lunch companions - three young officers, their faces clean and bright, monsters all. He followed them to the cafe and back. Dietrich departed work at five, driven away in a staff car bound for some official function.

Methos blinked back the sting of tears. He was so tired. Surely, in between waking nightmares of Alric and the Vel d'Hiv and Connor's fate, there could be a few minutes of rest. He would have to come back for Dietrich.

He pulled his thin jacket tightly against the gently falling rain and went to Holy Ground.

***

Methos slipped inside the main doors of St. Joseph's Church. Evening mass was over, but a few women lingered over candles and prayers. Darius saw him from the front of the nave, and nodded that it was safe. Darius not only saw to the spiritual needs of his parishioners, but had also smuggled hundreds of Jews out of the city and helped Connor and Methos with their Resistance efforts. The Germans had been by twice in the last four months, and the Immortal priest was worried.

Methos went to the small rectory adjacent to the church and shed his wet coat and boots. The priest's chambers consisted of a small kitchen and dining room, his study, two small bedrooms, and a cloakroom that had housed, over the recent months, spies and thieves and refugees. An elderly Jewish refugee who served as both housekeeper and cook had left a beef stew simmering on the stove. Methos rarely saw her, but knew she slept in the basement. Darius said she went to sleep each night with gold lockets clenched in her tiny hands, one for each of her dead grandchildren.

Methos slumped in a kitchen chair and tried to decide if he was hungry or not. Darius decided the issue for him a few minutes later by filling a bowl and placing it in front of him. "Eat," the priest said softly. "You'll do no one any good if you starve to death."

"I'm doing no one any good now," Methos mumbled, picking up the spoon.

"Don't talk," Darius said, squeezing his shoulder. "Eat."

The priest disappeared into the back rooms long enough for Methos to dispiritedly eat the stew. It tasted fine, but every bite reminded him of the starving thousands at Vel d'Hiv, of Connor's face as they dragged him away. Darius came back to the half-empty bowl and fixed a frown on the older Immortal.

"Save it for breakfast," Methos suggested.

"I haven't seen you eat a proper breakfast in two thousand years," Darius retorted. He took him by the elbow and steered him towards the back. "Do you remember the time when baths were looked upon as a useless frivolities?"

"Yes."

"That time is not now. You need this." Darius took him to the bathroom, where the cast-iron tub had been filled with steaming, soapy water. In a voice that would not stand for argument, Darius told him to undress and get in. Too tired to fight, too depressed to care, Methos stripped right there of his pants and shirt and underwear, and climbed in to the tub with a slosh of water over the sides.

"Now scrub," Darius instructed, handing him a sponge.

Methos tossed the sponge aside, leaned back against the cool tile, and let his eyes slide shut. He tried to relax the clenched muscles in his shoulders and neck and jaw, but found it too difficult. Something hot and soapy slid over his chest, and he blinked up blearily at Darius and the retrieved sponge.

"People will talk," Methos said.

Darius shrugged. "So let them."

The ancient Immortal slowly relaxed as he watched Darius move the sponge slid up and down his arms, over his chest, along his legs. It was extremely comforting to be bathed by someone else, as if he were a baby. And equally rare for him to let anyone do it.

"The world is not yours to save single-handedly, you know," Darius chided gently as he worked. "Isn't that what you used to tell me?"

"And here I thought you never listened to me."

"I was your best student," Darius quipped.

"Until you found yourself a better teacher," Methos returned, a trifle more curtly than he'd intended.

Darius didn't mind, though. "Yes, until I found God."

"God won't save you when someone comes for your neck, Darius."

"God's will be done," Darius answered. He planted the sponge on top of Methos' head and squeezed soapy water into his hair. Methos screwed his eyes shut, but he would have sworn Darius was smiling as he said, "I didn't think you were interested in theological debates anymore."

"I got burnt out two or three gods ago," Methos agreed.

"Keep your eyes closed," Darius said, and a few seconds later more water dumped over Methos' head to wash out the soap. "Now open them."

"You like bossing me around," Methos grumbled.

"No, I like taking care of you. You so rarely do it yourself." Methos shifted his gaze to the tile wall, remembering with a pang how he'd abandoned Connor to the soldiers. "I always take care of myself," he muttered. "I didn't get this old by caring about what happens to other people."

"You've been practicing that lie for two thousand years, possibly longer. You forget how well I know you. You have a conscience, you care very deeply for others, and you are desperately interested in the outcome of the Gathering."

The water was growing cold. Methos didn't want to continue the debate but as he stood up and dripped all over the tile he couldn't help but say "That's all and good, but does your God approve of me?"

Darius handed him two thin gray towels. "You'll have to ask him."

"I'll ask later," Methos said, rubbing at his eyes. "I'm too tired to ask now."

He'd just finished crawling into the spare bed when Darius said, from the doorway, "Whether or not he approves is far less important than the fact that he loves you, Methos."

Methos sagged towards sleep. He wasn't sure if the words that formed as a reply actually made it to his voicebox before he sank into a shapeless, colorless sleep. He never knew if Darius heard him. What he meant to say was, "We'll see if he loves me in the morning."

Because, if he remembered correctly, murder was still a sin.

In the morning he hunted down and killed Hans Dietrich.

This was how Methos murdered Hans Dietrich: he shoved a six-inch knife past the thin material of his uniform, pierced the skin and sinew and fat beneath, skewered upward beneath the ribs, and drove the razor-sharp blade into the muscles of his strong, young heart. Caught on his way to work, Dietrich sagged straight into Methos' arms, blood bubbling past his lips, his eyes wide and sightless. With death, the German lost his bowel and bladder control, and his warm body spasmed for a moment before going limp.

Distasteful, this part. But necessary. Methos dragged the body into the alley and broke into a shop he'd scouted out only minutes earlier. By the looks of it, it belonged to Jewish jewelers. They wouldn't be needing it. Rings and earrings and fine pocket watches from Switzerland were not in demand in the concentration camps.

Methos hauled the German's corpse down a set of stairs to the basement, and with thick, sturdy rope bound him tightly to a set of water pipes. A handkerchief served as a gag. Methos sat back to clean his knife and wait for the German to revive. He'd never been wrong about a pre-Immortal before. They gave off slight but distinct buzzes, precursors of what they would one day be. Two thousand years ago, when a scrappy young Gypsy boy had broken into his and his wife's house in Damascus, Methos had taken him in because of his pre-Immortal buzz. Darius' mortal life had ended several years later, on a battlefield, and Methos had been by his side when it happened.

Like he was by Dietrich's side now, as the German heaved in a chestful of air and opened startled eyes. But Methos had no intentions of being this man's teacher.

He watched Dietrich struggle against the restraints wildly, muffled oaths coming from behind the gag. When the German slumped in defeat, his eyes fixed on first the blood across his torso and then on Methos, the ancient Immortal edged forward.

"Do you remember dying?" he asked, and held up the knife. "Do you remember this?"

Dietrich stared at him, face rigid with shock or hatred.

"You died," Methos said. He edged forward again. The German flinched, but was powerless to stop him from slicing open the front of his shirt. Methos probed the healed flesh. "See? Nothing here. Welcome to the undead, Herr Hauptmann. Welcome to Immortality." Dietrich made a muffled sound. Methos shook his head. "First you listen. You died. I stabbed you in the heart, and you died. But you recovered, just as you'll recover from any wound or injury you ever receive from this day forward. There are others like you, all over the world, and some have lived for hundreds of years. They'll come for you, though, because they know the one possible way you can be killed forever."

He let the words sink in. Dietrich look at him as if he were insane. Methos had met the same look many times, often in mirrors.

"If I cut you, you'll heal," Methos said. He grasped the German's right ankle and with a quick slice severed his Achilles' tendon. Dietrich screamed behind the gag, his face abruptly white with shock, his leg spasming wildly.

"Wait a few minutes," Methos said, his voice icy calm. "The pain will pass."

Dietrich writhed in the bonds, yanking his full body weight against the ropes. Then he sagged, sobbing, his breath gasping and frantic. But in a few minutes he raised his head, calming, and stretched the injured leg.

"I told you," Methos said simply. "You'll recover from every wound, save one."

He reached towards the German's head. Dietrich flinched again, but Methos ignored the movement. He let the gag fall free.

"Who are you?" Dietrich asked, his voice hoarse and shaky. "What kind of bastard?"

"Your own personal one," Methos said, sitting back. He felt so cold inside, so very cold. But he'd schooled himself for this task, and had to remember what was at stake. He'd done worse in his lifetime. "You're Hauptmann Hans Dietrich," he said, and proceeded to rattle off most of the personal and professional information the Resistance had gathered about the German.

"And you are?" Dietrich asked. He'd composed himself admirably well now, considering his ordeal.

"That's not important," Methos said. "I've been sent to teach you what you are. Do you believe what I told you?"

Dietrich hesitated. Then, resolutely, he said, "I think you're insane."

"Would you like for me to illustrate again?" Methos asked, almost pleasantly, and reached for the German's other ankle.

"No!" Dietrich barked, yanking his leg away. He pulled against his restraints, trying to get free again. "Why have you done this to me? What do you want?"

"I want you to imagine the possibilities of us sitting here for the next several years," Methos said. "I want you to envision all the fun I could have, torturing a man whose body heals from every grievous wound. I could peel away your skin, layer by layer, and together we could watch it grow back. I could slice the tendons in your ankles, your knees, your elbows, and they'd eventually heal. Splinter your bones, and wait for them to knit back together so I could break them again. Can you imagine that lifetime of pain ahead of you? You can starve to death, but you'll keep coming back. You can die of thirst, but it won't last. You'll beg for mercy, and for release, and then you'll surrender the last shreds of your sanity."

He was silent for a moment. "That's what I want you to imagine," Methos finished.

Dietrich asked, very softly, "What kind of monster are you?"

"Maybe I'm just a German," Methos answered. Then he fixed the gag back in place, broke all the fingers of Dietrich's right hand, and left him alone in the locked basement.

***

The owners of the jewelry shop had lived in a small, well-furnished apartment above their life's work. Methos made it a point to admire the bathroom as he heaved up breakfast into the porcelain toilet bowl. He sat for a long time, hunched and miserable, feeling wretched. But better, he imagined, then Hans Dietrich. Better than Connor, wherever he was.

For a long time he didn't have the energy to do anything more than sit on the bathroom floor, his hands wrapped around his stomach. Finally he dragged himself to the bedroom and stretched out on the smooth blue coverlet. The sounds of street traffic drifted up through the open windows. He didn't mean to fall asleep but found himself drifting through hazy nightmares of the suffering he'd inflicted in the course of all his years. He'd broken prisoners far more courageous than Dietrich in wars that seemed, now, to be follies of politics or pride. He'd listened to their screams and done his job anyway. He'd taken his pay in the coins of many realms, and slept with a clear conscience above a dozen dungeons.

He'd experienced the other side as well. Been where Connor was. He'd been chained and imprisoned in a Norman fortress for two horrendous years, locked away in pitch-blackness by an Immortal enemy who would shatter a different bone each day. He'd broken, of course. Screamed and begged and pleaded. Once freed, Methos had slowly recovered his sanity, but the sound of scurrying rats could still send him reeling back to hysteria.

The rats came to him now, their sharp teeth scraping his skin, their tails slithering into his mouth and up his nose, and he bolted upright with a scream locked in his chest.

Chest heaving, sweat pouring out of him, he stared at the unfamiliar bedroom for a few long seconds until memory came flooding back. Methos rubbed his face with shaking hands and then peered at his watch. Hours had passed since he left Dietrich in the basement. He washed his face and tried to look composed as he went downstairs. He could feel Dietrich's Immortal buzz before he even opened the door, but it was a measure of his weariness and state of mind that when he saw the ropes hanging free from the pipes it took a full second for him to realize the German soldier was loose.

And it was probably a measure of Dietrich's confusion at the feeling of another Immortal that it took him that full second before he jumped Methos from above the door, knocking him flat to the cement floor. They rolled roughly, fists and feet as weapons, and somehow Dietrich wrenched the knife away and managed a cut that slit Methos' right arm open from wrist to elbow. A red haze shimmered in front of Methos' eyes as he felt his blood pump across the floor.

"We'll see who heals now," Dietrich hissed.

But Methos had centuries of practice in forcing his body beyond barriers of pain and weakness, and upset the German with a slithered move that sent him crashing to the wall. Methos recovered the knife with his only useful hand, sat on the dazed Captain, and pinned the knife against his throat.

"Very good," he admitted. "But did you really think you could kill me?"

It hadn't been in his plans to reveal himself as a fellow Immortal, but plans changed. Methos held out his bleeding arm and in grim satisfaction watched the wound seal itself up with tiny sparks of blue light. Dietrich, beneath him, was barely breathing.

"You too," he whispered.

"Of course, me too," Methos snarled. He moved a few feet away, the knife in hand. "How are your fingers?" he asked nastily. "Your heel? Your heart?"

Dietrich dragged himself upright. Almost involuntarily, it seemed, he wriggled his healed fingers. "This is unreal," he said. "Impossible."

"Wrong. It's very possible. If you can't believe the evidence of your own eyes, take my word for it."

Dietrich considered him with steely, red-rimmed eyes. "What is it you really want?" Methos flexed his newly healed arm. "Did you have fun considering what it would be like to be tortured, given your new condition?"

Dietrich didn't answer.

"There's a man like us who was captured by the Vichy three days ago. I believe the Gestapo took custody of him later. If they don't know his abilities by now, they soon will. You just imagine what they'll do to him."

Dietrich laughed harshly. "And you want me to do what? Free him?"

"Yes," Methos said, straining to control his temper. "I want you to free him."

Dietrich palmed his eyes as his laughs subsided. Looking at him, Methos suddenly was unsure whether he'd pushed too hard, cracked the German's mind. Dietrich said, in a strangled voice, "I don't work for the Gestapo. I have no authority over them. Yet you propose I walk into their headquarters and ask them to turn him over to me. You propose I betray my country and my army by releasing him to you."

Methos moved quickly, pinning the German to the wall with both hands around his neck. "What I'm telling you," he hissed, "is that you have no country anymore. You have no loyalties. You're an Immortal, and if you live long enough you'll transcend time itself. It's you against the world. Do you think for one moment they wouldn't dissect you too if they knew what you are?"

Dietrich gave him measured look of hatred. "If you don't take your hands off me, I promise you you'll never see your friend again."

Slowly Methos backed away. Dietrich rubbed his throat. For a long moment he stared at the wall Then he said, "You told me there's one way . . . to die. For us to die. How?"

"Free my friend," Methos said. "And I'll tell you. Along with a few other special rules you need to know, and one particular skill. Without knowing the rules, you'll be easy prey for the next Immortal who comes along."

Dietrich stared at him for a long moment. "I don't trust you," he finally said.

"You don't have a choice."

"Perhaps." Dietrich climbed to his feet warily, waiting to see if the ancient Immortal would stop him. Methos didn't move. "Am I free to go now?"

"If you think it's in your best interest, yes," Methos said.

Dietrich considered him for a moment, his head tilted almost quizzically, and then walked up the stairs. Methos sagged back against the cold, rough bricks of the basement wall. He'd failed. He'd utterly, completely failed. He'd taken a mortal life for nothing, and in exchange created hatred and pain.

The scrape of Dietrich's boots on the wooden stairs brought his head up.

"What's your friend's name?" Dietrich asked, his face impossible to read.

Methos didn't answer.

"You don't have a choice," the German said, with no trace of mockery in his voice.

"If that's the case . . ." Methos took a deep breath. "His name is Connor MacLeod."

Dietrich nodded ever so slightly and then started up the stairs. "Call me at four o'clock."

"Hauptmann!" Methos said sharply, and Dietrich turned back. "Rule number one. Holy Ground is sacred refuge. Anyone's Holy Ground. Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Indians. No Immortal will ever dare to challenge you on there, and the consequences to you if you should ever try would be catastrophic."

Dietrich absorbed the words silently and left.

Methos wondered if he'd made things better or much, much worse.

Hauptmann Dietrich didn't answer his phone at four o'clock.

Or at four-thirty.

But at five o'clock, just as Methos was beginning to stoke his temper with thoughts of how he'd take the German's head, Dietrich answered the phone breathlessly and arranged in a no-nonsense voice for Methos to meet him in the Luxembourg Gardens in thirty minutes.

"Make it ten," Methos said, since he was just across the street anyway.

The gardens were in full bloom, their scent uncomfortably heavy in the early evening air. Methos took up position in the shade of a tree and tried to spy any traps that might have been set. When Dietrich arrived eight minutes later he was on foot, and seemed to be alone.

"Your friend is indeed a guest of the Gestapo," Dietrich said without preamble, and without any attempt to sound cordial. "They've been torturing him for three days. Tomorrow he's to be moved. I'll tell you how to intercept his car, but you must promise not to hurt the soldiers escorting him."

Methos blinked. "What? I can't promise they won't get hurt - "

"You will," Dietrich said resolutely. "I will not stand here and send innocent men to their deaths."

"They're no more innocent than you or I," Methos shot back.

"I will not betray them to their deaths," Dietrich insisted. "Promise."

Methos thought, with irritation, that here was a man as stubborn and reckless as Connor himself sometimes. "All right," he said, "I promise."

Dietrich stared at him, judging his words, and then sighed. "They're taking him to the Fresnes prison tomorrow morning at seven. What's rule number two?"

"No ganging up on one another. One-to-one combat only."

"Combat?" Dietrich asked sharply. "What kind of combat?"

"You'll find out when I get Connor back," Methos said.

Dietrich looked as if he were about to argue, but then he shook his head. For a moment he did nothing but stare off at a row of red roses. "I cut my arm at lunch with a pair of scissors. It healed within minutes."

"What did you expect?"

"That this was some bizarre hallucination," Dietrich admitted, "and you were the Devil himself."

"One out of two isn't bad," Methos said.

***

Methos hated the thought of dragging more mortals into this, but he couldn't see how he was supposed to stop a German car of soldiers and rescue Connor single-handedly. For the first time in three days he allowed himself to become angry over Connor's show at the Vel D'Hiv. The Highlander had gotten himself into this, and Methos was supposed to move heaven and earth to rescue him.

It wasn't like that at all, of course, but Methos brooded for a good ten minutes about it before calling his Resistance contacts and arranging for help. Mortals they might be, but they had a vested interest in keeping their names from German torturers and they were all men Connor trusted.

The next morning three soldiers loaded what looked like a stuffed laundry bag into the back of their car and set off from a Gestapo office on Rue de Lormal towards Fresnes prison. Their route took them past the walls of the Ivry cemetery. A bullet took out their front right tire, and another shattered the windshield. The car swerved and slammed into the trunk of a broad elm tree that teetered, for a moment, against the sky. Following in a car a safe distance behind, Methos pulled to a stop and ran to the wreck. Four broad Frenchman in a second car stopped to cover him and to plant a time bomb in the wrecked auto.

It took three of them to pry open the trunk and haul out the laundry bag. The cold, stiff hand of a corpse fell through the gap left by loose drawstrings. "Bastards," ground out the French leader, a bitter man named Henri. His face twisted beneath his black ski mask. "They killed a good man."

"I have to take his body to his family," Methos said, trying his best to sound grieved while bearing the bag's weight towards his car.

"What about these three?" another man shouted.

"Slit their throats," Henri ordered.

"No!" Methos said sharply. "I told you. If you kill them, I'll lose my contact. Just tie them up in the trees over there. You agreed." And Methos had promised Dietrich the men would come to no harm.

"Sorry," Henri said coldly. "We can't take any chances." Methos dropped Connor's corpse, barely noting the thud of flesh and bone against the concrete, and lunged towards the German car. But he was already too late. Two of the soldiers lay dead, the third blue and gurgling in his seat. His desperate, panicked eyes fixed on Methos, and a supplicating hand reached for him before his body slipped sideways to the ground.

"My God," Methos said, bringing himself to an abrupt stop, horror at what they'd done sinking into his chest and bringing bile to his throat. "They were just . . . boys."

"Boys who killed your friend," one of the men said, squeezing his Methos' shoulder for comfort.

Methos didn't remember swinging that first punch, but a sharp pain shot up through his hand as it connected with the Frenchman's jaw and suddenly they were all on top of him, pinning him to the ground.

"Are you insane?" Henri demanded in his ear, cursing vigorously.

Methos struggled wildly, fury blinding him, needing to fight something or someone. The Frenchmen punched him and then sat on him until he recovered some semblance of his senses. Then Henri sent the others away, and shoved Methos' into his own car. He made him sit next to the laundry bag and Connor's corpse, then slipped behind the wheel and gunned the engine.

Out of the corner of his eye, Methos saw the German car explode into a fiery ball of flame and smoke. He didn't turn. He didn't blink for miles, barely registering the passing scenery outside the windows. He probed in his mind for some sense of Connor's Immortal song, but the Highlander stayed dead.

"What's gotten into you, you stupid bastard?" Henri said into the rearview mirror. "Are you insane? The Germans are our enemies."

"Shut up," Methos suggested, battling the insane urge in his head to unsheath his sword. When Henri pulled into the back courtyard of St. Joseph's Church, Darius came out to meet them. It was a perfectly sunny day, and one of the coldest of Methos' life.

Darius must have instantly sensed something was wrong. "What is it?" he asked. "How did you get blood all over your face?"

"Send him away," Methos said, barely trusting his voice, jerking his head towards Henri. "Darius, please."

"I'm sorry about your friend," Henri said, standing for his own protection on the other side of the car. "But it had to be done."

Methos grabbed a fistful of Darius' robe. "Send him away," he begged, sure that in just a few more seconds he was going to lop Henri's head off his neck and sending it sailing down the boulevard like a rotten fruit thrown from a medieval farmer's wagon.

Darius gently disentangled himself and escorted Henri away.

***

Connor MacLeod disliked the sensation of coming back to life. Some found it exhilarating, others thought it terrifying, but to him it was just loathsome. The first startling whallop of his re-beating heart, the kick-start of cold blood through his veins and arteries, the taste of sour air in his lungs - he didn't like any of it. But he preferred it to the alternative, not coming back at all.

Except in this case, perhaps. He knew he was still a prisoner of the Gestapo. Still a trapped animal, at the mercy of a German colonel who'd watched him die, again and again, during a horrendous time of imprisonment Connor found impossible to gauge. His last coherent memory involved a skewer being forced up through his sinuses. He'd died choking on his own blood, pain like a fire burning up into his brain.

He flailed out in remembered agony, vowing he would not let them touch him again, but his arms were caught and pinned down and voices shouted at him with words that made no sense. Connor forced his eyes open, hissed at the stab of light into his head, heaved with all of his might against the men holding him down on a bed -

A bed. He was on a bed. He stopped fighting for a moment to get his bearings, and realized he was listening to English words, to two men he knew.

"You don't have to shout," he complained, forcing his weary eyes open to focus on Darius and the man he knew as James Powell. "Let me go."

The two older Immortals released him. Connor drew in a shaky breath as he tried to make more sense of the barren-looking room, the scratchy wool blanket, the smell of chicken soup. A cross hung in his vision, floating lazily behind Darius' head.

"Where?" he rasped.

"My church," Darius said. "How do you feel?"

"Like I should have stayed dead," Connor said.

"At least you can joke about it," Methos offered weakly.

"I'm not joking," Connor answered back, and Methos looked away with a flash of a deep, inexplicable anguish in his eyes. Connor felt Darius' hand squeeze his arm gently and heard his soft words.

"You've been through a terrible ordeal. You need to rest."

True. He could feel weariness running all through him like an electrical buzz. Deep-seated aches spoke of body damage still trying to heal. But he reached for the rough cotton of Methos' shirt to snag his attention.

"How?" he asked. "How . . . did you find me?"

"It's a long story," Methos said. The look on his face warned Connor to not pursue the topic. Connor looked to Darius in confusion, and the priest tucked the blanket around his chin.

"Sleep, now," Darius said. "Let your body heal more."

Connor tried to protest, determined to drag the truth out of his elders, but in the end gave into his own exhaustion. He slept off and on for the better part of two days, and finally emerged physically healed. Mentally he felt raw and blistered. He couldn't believe that the Gestapo weren't hiding behind the doors, waiting to pounce on him. He couldn't feel any degree of safety, despite Darius' soothing words and all-purpose tea. It didn't help that Methos seemed to have disappeared somewhere into the depths of the church, his Immortal song faint and somehow disquieting. "Is he mad at me?" Connor asked Darius as the two of them ate a late supper.

Darius eyed him curiously. "Why would he be mad at you?"

"For getting myself captured."

"Did you mean to?"

"No."

"Did you want to?" Darius asked. Again Connor said no. The priest said, "Then how could he be mad at you?"

"For being hotheaded, and impetuous," Connor said, looking away.

Darius smiled faintly. "All words which would quite effectively describe a younger version of himself. James is his own worst critic, you know."

Connor shivered. Despite the summer warmth outside the rectory seemed freezing. He rubbed his wrists against his trousers, trying to soothe the itchy memory of manacles. "Do you know how he got me free?"

"No," Darius said truthfully. "He tries to protect me from knowing too much."

"Something went wrong. I can tell," Connor said, pushing his potatoes across his plate. He excused himself a short time later. Connor found Methos exactly where Darius suggested he might - perched on the roof beside the bell tower, where a secluded space afforded a splendid view of the city and a dizzying drop to the courtyard.

"Can you fly?" Connor asked from the bell tower window.

Methos shook his head without turning to look at him. "Never mastered the skill."

Connor climbed out beside him and sat with his knees drawn to his chest. The city smelled bad, of exhaust and pollution and fires, but the darkening sky was clear. He wrapped his arms around his knees. "You've been very quiet lately."

"You've been sleeping. How would you know?" Methos replied tartly.

Connor lifted his eyebrows. "Does my sleeping offend you?"

"No." Methos turned, his expression instantly contrite. "I'm sorry."

Connor shook his head. "I often don't understand you, you know. You saved my life and my sanity. I'm happy. Why aren't you?"

"Because I care," Methos said.

"Sorry."

"Not about you," the older Immortal sighed. "I mean, yes, about you. About Darius. About . . .other people. I keep trying not to, but it happens. I mean, because I care about right and wrong."

"That's not a bad thing, you know," a voice said from the window. "Is there a room enough for three out here?"

Methos gave Darius a sour look. "No," he said, but moved over so that the priest could walk along the narrow gutter and climb up beside them, his brown robe flapping in the breeze.

"I brought this," Darius said, pulling out a bottle of wine from his long sleeve and working free the cork.

"Holy wine on Holy Ground?" Connor asked.

"This is just a Bordeaux," Darius replied. "Not a very old vintage, but a suitable one nonetheless. Now, what was that about right and wrong?"

Methos scowled. He wanted to believe his former student was making fun of him. But there was a genuine curiosity on Darius' face, and Connor looked intrigued as well. He decided he'd teach them something he'd learned in five thousand years.

"There is no right or wrong. We make it up ourselves. I forget that. I start caring about justice, and morals, and principles. Trust me, gentlemen, it's not worth the effort."

"I'm not sure I believe that," Darius said carefully.

Connor took the bottle from the priest's hands. "I think the precise word you're looking for, Father, is 'bullshit."

Methos glared at them. "You're both children. What would you know?"

"I think," Darius announced, "that you made some decisions you regret and feel guilty about."

"I've given up on guilt, that's your department," Methos told him. "I heard the Roman Catholics have a monopoly on it."

Darius wagged a finger. "Don't shoot the messenger. If you are feeling guilty, maybe confessing your sins will help."

"Confession's not my style."

"How about forgiveness?" Connor asked.

Methos snorted. "And who would I forgive?"

"I suggest you start with yourself," Darius advised, leveling him with a solemn gaze.

Methos gazed over the rooftops. "No," he said softly. "There's someone else who needs to forgive me first."

"Then ask him," Darius said.

The three men sat on the roof gazing at the skyline and the river, and Connor finally said, with a toast of the wine, "You know, when I first came to Paris they were building the Louvre."

Darius took the bottle. "When I first came to Paris," he said, "the Romans were calling it Civis Parisiorum and Christianity was a new idea."

Methos claimed the wine for himself, amused by Connor's latest attempt to determine his age, and said, "When I first came to Paris, there was only a stream, a primitive jazz bar and a very beautiful Neanderthal named Monique. I asked her out on a date, and she said no."

He dared a look at Darius, who was trying not to laugh, and then to Connor, who had a thoughtful look on his face.

"Do you still have her phone number?" the Highlander asked.

***

Luxembourg Gardens, midnight. It was July 24, 1942, and as Methos stood waiting for Hans Dietrich to show for their appointed meeting, he agonized over the news he'd received that afternoon. Armed with hunting dogs, guns and sadism, the Germans had begun to systematically empty the Warsaw Ghetto of its Jewish residents and send them to concentration camps in railroad freight cars. The horror that had begun in November 1938 with the rampaging destruction of thousands of Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues in 'Kristallnacht,' the Night of Broken Glass, was reaching new crescendos of tragedy.

Most of the Jews at Vel d'Hiv, after being deprived of water and food for three days, had been sent to Drancy or directly to Aushwitz. A few thousand more were awaiting transportation. Word was that France would soon begin to deport the Jews from the countryside as well. Methos didn't want to believe it, but he did.

They'd decided Connor had to leave Paris and the Highlander was bound for Germany to infiltrate enemy lines. Methos had already wished him luck. Connor would be fine. It would take time to heal mentally after what he'd been through, but in typical Connor fashion he'd seemed to compartmentalize the pain away to deal with later.

Connor had a peculiar habit of refusing to say goodbye, and on his way out of Darius' rectory he'd offered a slightly sardonic smile and said, "Methos."

The ancient Immortal kept surprise from his face. "It's James."

Connor lifted an eyebrow. "Then you'd better refrain from wisecracks about Neanderthals."

Methos added his own particular farewell, which made Connor grin and take a bow before he slipped out the door into the streets of Paris.

Thinking about how much he was going to miss the Highlander, brooding about the Warsaw Ghetto, Methos barely noticed the buzz of an approaching Immortal. Then he turned to see Dietrich walking towards him in the darkness barely illuminated by the faint, diffused streetlamps on the other side of a row of trees.

Dietrich's first words were delivered with icy hatred.

"You said they wouldn't be killed," the German captain accused.

Methos didn't flinch. "I'm sorry. They weren't supposed to be."

Dietrich shook his head. "I almost called the Gestapo that morning to warn them. I should have called them. Whatever you are, whatever you've made me . . . some mutant, some creature . . .I betrayed them for you. And you're not worth it."

Methos couldn't argue. What he said was, "Lesson number three. You are an Immortal. You can't change that. The only way you can die is if someone severs your head from your neck. One of these usually works."

He drew out his sword and sliced it through the air to the thin, exposed skin of Dietrich's neck.

"Get one, carry it with you, and find someone who'll teach you how to use it without cutting off your own fingers," Methos advised, walking slowly around the German, keeping the razor-sharp blade poised at his neck. "All your enemies have one."

"That's all very well, I suppose, but I don't expect they stock swords in the North African desert."

Methos narrowed his gaze. "You're going to the desert?"

"Ever been there?" the German asked sarcastically.

"More often than you can imagine," Methos said, letting the sword drop away. Then, without holding back any of the anguish in his voice, he demanded, "Why? Why do you fight in an army for a cause so fundamentally wrong?"

Dietrich said, heatedly, "The cause of German independence and superiority is not wrong."

"But the murder of helpless men and women and children is," Methos answered. "And if you can't see that, then you're a greater monster then I'll ever be."

Their fiery gazes locked until Dietrich's eyes shifted to the sword in Methos' hand.

"I'll find one," he promised. "Find it, and get good at it. Then I'll come for you. Wherever you are, I'll come. And I'll kill you for the murders of those three men."

Methos said, "You can try," and began to walk away.

"Germany will win, you know!" Dietrich called after him.

Methos hoped to God, any God, that the German was wrong. He couldn't imagine a world ruled by Nazi barbarians. He had faith in the Allies, the Americans especially, and maybe there would come a day in the near future when the swastikas would burn instead of Stars of David.

But it wouldn't change Vel d'Hiv. Wouldn't change Kristallnacht. Wouldn't change the millions of shattered families, the open pits of rotting corpses, the screams of children, the bloodied, emptied streets of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Some battles, once lost, could never be won again.

Methos walked away in the darkness, his face wet with tears.

THE END (with a prologue to follow!)

Author's Note: After the German Occupation, an overwhelming vote in the French Parliament in 1940 transformed France from a Republic into a "French State" ruled by the Vichy regime. The collaborationist Vichy aided the Germans in the persecution, deportation and slaughter of tens of thousands of French and non- French Jews. In 1993, French President Francois Mitterand declared July 16 (anniversary of the Velodrome d'Hiver roundup) to be an annual day of remembrance of the racial persecutions committed by the French state from 1940-1944. He refused to ever apologize to Jews, saying the Vichy government was illegal and did not represent the true France.***Thank you to Janette and Rachel for beta-reading - I couldn't do it without them!*** Hauptmann Hans Dietrich is a character in the series Rat Patrol, has a large fan following in New Jersey, and is soon to have a fanzine devoted to him. In Rat Patrol, the long-suffering captain has to put up with the antics of the American and British heroes who constantly plague him.*** And because I can't bear to end on this note, here's an Epilogue . . .

Duncan MacLeod protested thickly, "I still don't believe you, Connor! Methos is a myth. Someone made him up. No Immortal could live five thousand years."

Connor grinned at him lopsidedly. Both MacLeods were quite drunk. They'd been celebrating the end of the war for a week now, and could barely remember a time that wasn't full of relief and elation, sorrow and joy. It was quite late now - nearly four a.m. - and the newly liberated city of Paris was quiet beyond the balcony of their hotel room. The world was full of possibility and hope once again.

"I'm telling you," Connor insisted, "he was Methos. He was old, Duncan, very old. Darius wouldn't confirm or deny it, of course. Let's go wake him up and drag the truth out of him."

Duncan snorted at the idea. "Priest or not, he'd take our heads."

Connor laughed so hard at the thought he nearly pitched off the balcony. From somewhere up above, a voice shouted at them to be quiet and go to sleep.

They'd been rambling on for hours in Gaelic, but Duncan now switched to English and shouted back that they were celebrating the end of the war.

"Celebrate in the morning!" the woman shouted back.

"She's right," Connor said, trying to keep a straight face. "We're being rude."

"I'll show them rude," Duncan said, staggering to his feet and dropping his pants to moon the invisible complainer. Connor made him put his pants back on and dragged him inside. They toppled into their beds, giggling like school boys, but Duncan still refused to believe that Connor's friend James Powell was Methos the ancient Immortal.

"Very old," Connor insisted before he dropped off to sleep. "Very smart. You'd like him. Do you know what the last thing he said to me was? No sentimental goodbyes, no sobbing farewells...it was the wisest thing anyone ever said to me."

Duncan squinted at his clansman. Connor always was a sentimental drunk. "Oh, please tell me," the younger Immortal begged. "Tell me what wise thing the oldest Immortal in the world said to you."

Connor's face lit up. "He said...'If we ever meet up again, Connor MacLeod, then mi casa es su casa.'"

For a moment there was nothing but a profound silence.

"I'll remember that," Duncan snorted, and turned out the light. "Methos the Immortal. I swear, Connor, you sometimes believe the most ridiculous things..."

THE END