**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

Jethro stood frozen after Tanaka's threat, assessing the farewell dinner that had suddenly become a hostage situation. He had a pocket gun - better backup than an ankle holster, though he wore one of those as well - and he would bet Tony did, too. MacLeod - very likely he had only the sword in his hand, and Kinnear probably wasn't armed at all. Jo might or might not have a backup weapon, but even if she did, there wasn't much she could do with Tanaka's gun just inches from her head.

Jo stared between Tanaka, Jethro, and MacLeod. Even from this distance, Jethro could read the fear in her eyes and couldn't blame her for it. She might be a cop, but she was still young.

Tony's low murmur broke the silence. "Oh, Shiro. You really shouldn't have done that."

"If you will not, someone must," Tanaka said, and then backhanded Kinnear, who'd started to rise from his seat, with his free hand. He hadn't even looked, Jethro noted, and filed away the fact that his Watcher had a fighter's situational awareness.

"Take his head, MacLeod," Tanaka repeated. "You know you must - there can be only one."

"Says who?" Jethro demanded. "Nobody's ever shown me where the rules are written down."

"Like yours are?" Tanaka snapped back.

"They are, actually," Tony said, and Jethro recognized that tone. It was the same one Tony had used to talk down multiple criminals over the centuries - pitched to convey calm confidence. "A bunch of notes in a box in the basement."

"The rules are older than the oldest immortal," Tanaka said.

"So - Duncan," Tony said, and from his vantage point, Jethro could see Tony's hand moving oh-so-slowly, a millimeter at a time, toward his pants pocket.

"You ever seen the rules, Duncan?" Tony asked. "I mean, it's kinda silly to adhere to rules no one's ever seen."

Atta boy, Tony. While Tony kept Tanaka distracted, Jethro echoed Tony's movement, creeping his hand toward the pocket-gun he'd started carrying during the Troubles last century. He knew Tony had a similar gun.

"Stop talking - you merely cheapen these sacred proceedings," Tanaka said, and turned back to MacLeod. "You! Take his head!"

"The hell, Tanaka?" Jethro put outrage into his tone. "You're my Watcher. You should want me to take his head."

"He won," Tanaka declared. "Take his head, MacLeod - it is your due as victor, and you lose your honor if you do not."

"Really? You're playing the honor card?" MacLeod may not have the training that he or Tony did, Jethro thought, but the man had centuries of life experience, and now had apparently picked up on what he and Tony were up to, and was doing what he could to help.

MacLeod turned to Jethro. "Do you know how many people have tried to play that card over the centuries?"

"Quite a lot, I'd imagine." Now that Tanaka's attention was on him again, Jethro paused the movement of his hand toward his trouser pocket.

"I stopped counting four hundred years ago - at a thousand fourteen," MacLeod said. "And every one of them was a dishonorable bastard."

"I'm a bastard," Jethro reminded him. "Second B." While he and MacLeod held Tanaka's attention, Tony's hand had almost reached his pocket.

"Yeah, but you're an honorable bastard," MacLeod countered.

"Take his head now or she dies!" There was an edge of insanity to Tanaka's voice now - and Jethro fought to conceal a wince. Whatever leeway he'd thought they had to negotiate was gone.

Jethro shifted his body so he faced MacLeod fully once again. That the position hid his right hand from Tanaka was a bonus.

"Do what you have to do," he told MacLeod.

"Gibbs - Jethro -" Tony protested, but Jethro ignored him, instead keeping his eyes locked on MacLeod's while his hand completed its excruciatingly slow path to his pocket.

MacLeod regarded him steadily, and Jethro managed a grin. "Go on. You know what to do."

MacLeod hesitated a moment, then nodded, once. "Sorry, Gibbs. You're one of the good ones."

"Three ex-wives would debate that," Jethro murmured even as he shifted his attention to Tony - whose hand was at his pocket.

MacLeod chuckled briefly before hefting his katana. "Sorry about this."

"I know," Jethro said.

He might not have the reflexes he'd had when he joined the Corps, but he had a couple of centuries of experience to make up for that lack.

MacLeod shifted his katana, drawing back, and as he swung what would be a fatal blow, Jethro dropped to his knees, grabbing for his pocket gun.

What happened next imprinted itself as a series of images in Jethro's memory.

MacLeod's sword whistled over his head closely enough that if he hadn't gone back to a modified high-and-tight haircut with his last identity, he would've gotten it then.

Tony pulled his pocket gun and fired in one smooth motion, Jethro's own shot echoing a split second later, followed immediately by a scream that could only have come from Jo Benoit.

Then quiet, punctuated only by Kinnear's, "What the hell -?"

Jethro got to his feet and approached the table where Jo sat, circling around it from one side as Tony approached from the other, both their weapons ready.

The weapons weren't necessary. Tanaka lay on the ground, eyes open and unblinking.

Tony glanced at Jethro before holstering his weapon and checking Tanaka for a pulse. Jethro knew it was a formality only. One bullet hole punctured Tanaka's forehead, and another his chest - both kill shots.

Tony rose, shaking his head in confirmation. For once, Jethro thought, even Tony had no wiseass remark, just a somber expression as he regarded the body of the man who had been Jethro's Watcher.

"Good shots," MacLeod observed.

"Yeah, well, a couple of centuries of practice and a good teacher will do that," Tony replied.

"So what are we going to do about this?" Kinnear asked.

Jethro shrugged. "Call it in."

Jo stared at him. "Are you insane? How can we explain all of this?"

"Just the facts," Jethro told her. "Friends got together to say goodbye to MacLeod and Kinnear, and one of them went crazy. No idea why - let them figure it out, if they can."

"What about rule 7?" Tony asked, and Jethro shrugged.

"Plenty of details about what we're doing here, who we are. Only the motive remains in question. Let them chase their tails trying to find it."

A couple of hours later, after the police and crime scene techs had come and gone, Jethro started collecting empty glasses while Tony stacked plates and flatware.

"Well," MacLeod said, "at least they didn't tell me not to leave town."

"Would've been pretty stupid, with two active duty cops and one retired on scene," Tony observed.

Jethro chuckled grimly. "Wouldn't be the stupidest thing we've ever seen."

"No," Tony agreed somberly. Then he rose and crossed to MacLeod. "Sorry for the disruption to your party."

"Not your fault," MacLeod said. Then MacLeod's expression changed and he faced the two remaining Watchers. "But it does remind me that I have a question for you - who killed Methos?"

Jethro hoped he kept the flinch off his face, and took a breath. Before he could speak, Jo said, "I don't know."

"Haven't seen him around in a while," Kinnear added. "He went off the grid … twenty years ago? Something like that."

"Who's Methos?" Tony asked.

"Oldest living immortal," Kinnear said. "Five thousand and change, maybe getting close to six."

"He became a Watcher," Jo added. "Gave up the Game around the time you two died your first deaths."

"Then you don't know that he's dead," MacLeod said. "We might be four, not three."

That was his cue - never mind that it was one he hadn't been looking forward to. Jethro took a step forward. "We're not four."

MacLeod's gaze flew to him. "Who killed him?"

Suck it up, Marine. "I did."

MacLeod's hand twitched, as though reaching for his sword, and Jethro wondered if MacLeod might yet take his head tonight. The look on Tony's face said he was wondering the same thing.

But when MacLeod spoke, his tone was calm. "When and why?"

"Five years ago. Because he asked me to."

The words hung in the silence for long moments - Jethro counted nearly to a hundred - before MacLeod said, "You'd better explain that."

"Fifteen years ago, he came to me and introduced himself. Then he asked if I would take his head - not a challenge, no fight, just said he was ready to die."

"Why you?" Kinnear asked.

"He thought I was the best choice of the remaining immortals."

MacLeod's jaw twitched, and Jethro met his glare.

"So you just killed him?" MacLeod demanded.

"Not then," Jethro said. "I told him he needed to think about it, be damned sure it was what he wanted, and if he came back to me again, I'd do it."

"And he did," MacLeod whispered, the agony in his tone matched only by the grief on his face.

"Took ten years, but he did." Jethro felt his mouth flattening. "I can't say I was happy to do it - but I would've wanted someone to do it for me, if I got to that point."

Again. He didn't say the word aloud, and only Tony would echo it silently. He'd managed not to tell anyone else, immortal or Watcher, the exact circumstances of his first death. Somehow, though, Methos had known, had used that in his attempt to convince Jethro to offer him that service, he'd called it.

Methos was the only person he'd killed that he didn't sometimes have nightmares about.

"I get it," Tony said quietly. "And given the Quickening, I get wanting to pick who took my head."

"You get it?" Jo repeated, her tone skeptical. "You mean you've been suicidal?"

"No," Tony answered. "But I get that there are circumstances in life that might take someone to that point. And I get that even though I enjoy being immortal now, that doesn't mean I always will."

"Last time I saw him, he did look … tired," MacLeod said quietly, as though the words themselves caused him pain. "Even … old. But why ask you, Gibbs? Why not ask me?"

"Would you have done it?" Jethro asked gently. "Without making a fuss?"

To his credit, MacLeod considered the question with bowed head before shaking his head, slowly.

"The first, maybe. The second - no." MacLeod looked up, finally, and met Jethro's eyes. "Thank you."

Jethro swallowed back a deflection. This mattered to the other man, and he would accept whatever MacLeod needed to say. Instead, he nodded, once, and said, "He left something for you. I have to get it from a safe box at the bank, but I'll bring it to you tomorrow."

"Thanks." MacLeod swallowed, and forced a grin. "Thanks for dinner, too. I should get going - still have to pack everything I own and I only have a day to do it."

He shook hands all around, and then was gone. For a moment, Jethro wished the evening had gone differently. Then he shoved that regret aside. Done was done, after all, and couldn't be changed.

"I should go, too," Jo said. "I don't need to pack, but my new boss is a real taskmaster."

"Tomorrow's Saturday," Jethro reminded her, and she started, then laughed.

"Point. But it is late - or rather, early, thanks to Tanaka - and though I don't turn into a pumpkin at midnight, I do need some sleep."

"Before you go." Tony's tone was firm, and not only Jo, but also Kinnear and Jethro turned to him instinctively. "I have something I want to put on the table."

Jethro knew the calculating, thoughtful expression in Tony's eyes. "What is it?"

"What happened with this - Methos?" Tony tested the name, then shrugged. "I never met him."

"What about him?" Kinnear asked.

"Not so much him as us," Tony countered. "The three of us. I meant it when I said I get it that someone might reasonably want to end his own life. But follow that out a few centuries. Just because right now, neither Jethro, Duncan, nor I are in that place doesn't mean we won't get there. Assume that all three of us do get to that point, in turn. Eventually, there'll only be one of us left."

"Which was the original plan," Jo reminded him. "Or legend."

"But what happens when there is only one left, and that one's ready to die, too?" Tony asked.

Jethro felt his eyes widen. He hadn't considered that when he honored Methos' request, and since then, he'd been too busy living his own life to worry about others who might want to end theirs.

Then again, he'd believed there were still more immortals remaining, so the issue wasn't one of any urgency. But now that Tony had brought it up, Jethro got the implications immediately.

"That could be a problem," he said. "Too long alone - and the last immortal will be alone in a lot of ways - leads to severe psychological problems."

"Even though too long varies from person to person," Tony agreed.

"There've been … unstable immortals before," Jo said, her hesitation suggesting she'd considered and discarded several words before settling on unstable.

"Not like this," Tony said. "Not like it is now."

"What do you mean?" Kinnear asked.

Jethro got it immediately. "Until now, one person couldn't make or break too much in the world - even the exceptions you're undoubtedly thinking of have become footnotes to history."

"But an immortal - someone who can't be killed…" Tony broke off, started again. "Think about an immortal Nero. Vlad Dracul. Or Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Guevara. And that's what we're talking about here, the worst-case scenario. Someone has to be ready to step up, preferably before anything too crazy happens."

"Seems like you Watchers are already set up to do it." Jethro watched their expressions flicker from shock to outrage to contemplation.

"It makes sense," Kinnear said finally. "We can kill him if he wants - like you did, make him ask more than once, so he and we know it's what he really wants - or take him down if he gets too crazy."

Jethro smiled, and if the expression was just a little grim, well, the topic demanded it. "Thank you."

"Not that it's going to happen anytime soon," Tony added, grinning widely. "Not with Duncan off to Mars on a whole new adventure."

"But what about you two?" Jo asked.

Jethro didn't even have to glance at Tony before answering. "We still have dirtbags to catch."