Disclaimer:
The rights to everything here belong to someone like Davis Panzer Productions or Rysher, not to me.

Thanks:
I want to thank everyone who has encouraged me during the three years that this was a WIP, particularly Erika, who helped me early on, and for whom the horse is a white horse, Pat Clements for periodic reminders that she'd like to see it finished, Desert Rat for helping me out of the idea-rut I was in for so long with this story, Deanna and the incomparable Aithine for research help I couldn't have done without, and Monica and Eva from Crossroads for feedback and encouragement. You guys are all the best!

Setting:
This is set somewhere between "Through a Glass Darkly" and "Judgment Day." So Alexa has died, but things have not yet gotten really ugly for our characters. Methos' past is still unknown to Joe and MacLeod.

Darling Boy
By TeresaC
PG

Teaser

Joe wished he could leave. He almost regretted accepting the Highlander's invitation to attend the art auction. For the first two hours he had enjoyed it. The paintings displayed were valuable, famous, and fascinating. The auction was exclusive - by invitation only, and the excitement among the bidders was heady.

But Joe had seen it now. His suit itched, his back and thighs ached, and he longed to be back at the bar sorting out the wreckage of his hard drive crash. The main event had not even started yet.

A brass gong sounded from inside the ballroom-turned-auditorium and MacLeod joined him. The Highlander was tireless, of course. "They're starting, Joe. Let's go in."

Thank goodness. Joe and MacLeod joined the throng flowing into the auction room. They moved forward to their assigned seats in the third row. Very good seats, it seemed to Joe. The art gallery MacLeod was representing this time must have prestige, he reflected.

MacLeod readied his bidding number. Joe had studied the man long enough to recognize that the immortal was excited.

A glance around the room told Joe that everyone was excited.

"So no one knows what the paintings are?" he asked.

"Just the auction house," MacLeod replied, "and they've resisted everything from bribery to computer hacking to keep it secret. Plenty of rumors, though." He grinned. "Cartier and his son were collectors going way back. Everyone knows some of the paintings that were in his collection, but he could have had quite a few which have been in unknown private hands since World War I. Maybe a Pissaro or a Seurat!" MacLeod fairly glowed at the thought.

Joe smiled. Art was not his "thing", but hey, to each his own. Joe was pleased just to be allowed to be a part of his immortal assignment's life.

"You said his son. I thought it was his daughter who died."

"It was. Mme. Danforth wasn't a collector like her older brother and her father, but she inherited after Cartier's death and she kept the collection as private as her father had."

Some movement on the stage distracted them both for a moment. When it became clear that no official activity had yet begun, Joe asked "What happened to the son?"

"Killed in the war."

"Which one?"

A hush fell over the room as the auctioneer, a broad balding fellow with an obvious affair with weight machines, approached the mike. MacLeod shook two fingers at Joe, in reply. Joe nodded.

The auctioneer greeted them all and promised not to extend the suspense, but to begin with the first painting from the Cartier collection. A thick blanket of expectation lay over the already stifling atmosphere.

The two handlers uncrated a painting and placed it on the stand. The room fell utterly silent. Unnaturally so, it seemed to Joe. He stole a look at MacLeod and saw the man wearing a puzzled scowl.

"Do I hear 300 francs?" About $50 U.S., Joe converted automatically. None of the earlier items had started at less than $100,000. And they had not been from the famous Cartier Collection. Someone tittered and the room relaxed. No one bid.

"What is it?" Joe asked. The painting was of a young man in a uniform.

"I don't know what it is," MacLeod's voice held contempt, "but it's not art."

"What is that thing?" A man demanded. People laughed.

Unruffled, the auctioneer read from a collection card. "Amateur painting by unknown artist, circa 1940. The subject is Phillipe Cartier, son of Jacques Cartier, and brother to Mme. Gisela Danforth. The subject wears the grey uniform of a French infantryman. Two medals for bravery and patriotic conduct are featured. Do I hear 300 francs?"

The crowd murmured. Again, the auctioneer asked, "Do I hear 300 francs? Opening bid, 300 francs."

"Next!" someone called out.

The crowd approved. "Don't waste our time with filth!" someone else demanded.

The auctioneer repeated the opening offer, and the clamor of the crowd grew.

"What happens if no one buys it?" Joe asked.

"They're supposed to go on, but ..." MacLeod seemed puzzled.

The auctioneer again ignored the demands of the crowd and called for a bid.

"No one's going to want this," MacLeod said, glancing around the room.

Joe studied the portrait, intrigued by the face of a young man plucked from his home, from the side of his father, from his art collecting, his friends; and thrown into a war by the accident of the place and time of his birth, and the whims of history. Robbed of whatever chances his future might have held for him.

"I'd pay 300 francs for it," he said to the Highlander.

"Oh, Joe, it's worthless."

For some reason, that made Joe mad.

"I like it, Mac. Bid on it for me. I'll pay you."

MacLeod gave him an astonished look.

"Go ahead," Joe urged. "I want that picture."

MacLeod came to a swift decision. "Then I'll buy it for you." He grinned, shuffling to find a different bidding flag.

He flashed the flag.

"I have 300 francs. Do I have 400?"

People around Joe and MacLeod slid some contemptuous looks at the Highlander. He bore them with aplomb.

"300 francs going once, going twice ..."

"Sold. To ..." the auctioneer consulted his bidding index. "M. Duncan MacLeod." He gave MacLeod a pleased smile which seemed a little out of character, to Joe, considering the impersonality with which earlier items had been auctioned. Probably the guy was just glad to be rid of the amateur painting.

The crowd rustled and sighed. Now they could get on with the real auction. The two handlers removed the portrait and re-crated it, carefully stenciling MacLeod's bidding number on the side. Someone struck the brass gong which had signaled the start of the auction.

"This concludes the offering of the Cartier collection," the auctioneer announced.

The crowd was shocked, then outraged.

"What do you mean?"

"This is outrageous!"

"This is fraud!"

"You can't do this!"

The auctioneer stood still, bearing their slings and arrows. Joe studied the Highlander, but clearly MacLeod had no more understanding of this turn of events than had the other agents. He was just better behaved.

"We demand an explanation!"

A distinguished, grey haired man with a pained gait that spoke to Joe of chronic back pain, came to the podium. The auctioneer relinquished the mike respectfully. The crowd quieted.

"Andre DesPres, the owner of the auction house," MacLeod murmured.

"Monsieurs," DesPres began, "et Madames. The DesPres House has been honored to act as agent for Mme. Gisela Danforth and the Cartier collection for many, many decades. We offered to auction according to the restrictions of our contract, the terms of which came to our client from her late, esteemed father. He came to value this portrait of his beloved son, painted by a fellow soldier, as much as all the other works he owned. Works which he and his son had collected together, but would never again enjoy together. He contracted that the purchaser of his son's portrait would gain, at no further expense, his entire private collection of art. The Cartier collection, in toto, now belongs to M. Duncan MacLeod."