Richie pulled down the grate on the elevator, his heart heavy. He'd done what he thought was right- still thought was right, for that matter- thinking Mac would be as accepting of him as he always had been even when they disagreed. Instead, he'd told Richie to get lost. He even turned away, not willing to even look at Richie, when Richie tried to thank him. It was enough to make a guy doubt himself, even if you could forget the fact that MacLeod had been his only bit of stability in the world. Once that had been Mac and Tessa, but, well, Tessa had died the same as he had, and she hadn't been Immortal. No wonder Mac got rid of him as fast as his Highland honor had allowed him to, when he was a living reminder of Tessa's death. And before Mac and Tessa, there hadn't ever been any stability in his life if you didn't count living in the same city his whole life as stability- which he didn't.

But Mac, Mac was so honorable that he'd take in a kid who attempted to steal from him. Mac was so honorable he'd teach the same guy who got his fiancée killed. Mac clung so tightly to his chivalry that anybody he disagreed with in matters involving honor was probably wrong. And Richie, he wasn't the most moral of people at the best of times. What made him think he knew better than MacLeod? He'd thrown away the only chance he'd had for stability- at least so far- and for what? It was too late for her; she was dead already.

It didn't take Richie long to pack up the belongings he wasn't willing to leave behind- if nothing else, moving between Paris and Seacouver twice a year had taught him how to pack efficiently and evaluate what he really needed. A motorcycle would never be the best way to move across the country- or even take a road trip on, if he ended up coming back to Seacouver soon- but at least he knew how to fit all of his essentials on it: his sword, his clothes, himself. That was all he really needed aside from his money and driver's license and passport. Everything else he could do without or buy when he needed it. Living with Mac, he hadn't needed to spend his money on a lot, so while he might not be loaded like Mac and a lot of his friends- Amanda counted, even if she didn't come by her wealth honestly; Richie wasn't exactly picky about that sort of thing- he had a good amount saved up for somebody his age, especially somebody from his background. There weren't exactly a ton of success stories about foster kids who were never even permanently placed.

He wasn't exactly feeling the best about himself when he started on his not quite voluntary road trip/relocation, but somewhere along the way he'd picked up an enjoyment of travel, and seeing the miles pass under his wheels made him feel better bit by bit. Not all at once- he wasn't on drugs, after all- and not completely, but gradually he felt better until he was able to stop brooding about his many mistakes, and leave them in the back of his mind. He'd always been a city guy, and he would be for the immediate future at least- though who knew what the ultimate future would bring? He was planning to live for a very long time, and by the time the Gathering swung around he might be a whole different person- but there was something beautiful about the country. More beautiful in some places than others, true- some of them rivaled the slums for ugliness- but some places were breathtakingly beautiful, and even though he hadn't been impressed by pictures of them they amazed him in person. As long as he didn't have to stick around for long enough to be bored by the lack of things to do, he could finally see the point of all those people who wanted to protect the wilderness. Hell, he'd be around for a long time. Those "future generations" they always talked about preserving the wilderness for would someday be him.

It was a weird realization. He'd known he was an Immortal since he woke up after getting shot, but that was the first time he'd really associated the facts with what it really meant. Living forever if he managed to keep his head meant that he'd really be around for it all. It was the difference between knowing it with his head and knowing it in his gut, and like a lot of that type of realizations, it hit him like he'd had a sword shoved through his stomach. He didn't think it was possible to get used to that feeling even when you did live through it, and this…this wasn't even a literal blow, but entirely mental, something even more impossible to get used to. No matter how much the world changed, he couldn't imagine the realizations of all the changes having anywhere near the amount of impact this one had on him; there's no way most of them would have anywhere near the same amount of impact.

He had to pull over at that revelation. He wasn't used to thinking in terms of being there for generations. Somewhere along the way, he'd started to listen to Sergeant Powell and his teachers and everybody else who thought he'd come to a bad end, one way or another, whether through death or prison or just never managing to do anything with his life. Well, guess what? He'd died, and he was still alive. He'd stopped breaking the law- except for those parts relating to killing people and concealed weapons (though he'd never been sure if those applied to swords), which he supposed was worse in a way. And even if he did nothing with this life, he had more to live.

Richie didn't want to just stop on the side of the highway, so he stopped in the city he was driving through. There was a shopping area, and it was safer to have life-changing revelations while wandering around randomly than while driving at 65 miles an hour. He might not die either way, but that didn't mean it wouldn't hurt him, or kill mortals, or total his bike. He took his sword with him, not even thinking twice about it; at least, if he was planning to live as long as possible, he was starting out the right way to not get killed if it was at all possible.

The crowds were either the right place or the wrong place to do his thinking. They came and they went, and they never seemed to stay for long. Being an Immortal, if he lived long enough, meant that all mortals he met would eventually go, just like the people here. Some would stay longer and some would stay a shorter time, but eventually they would all die, of old age if nothing else. And since he died so young, he'd have to leave them behind before they grew old. But still he'd know that eventually they'd be dead, while he'd still be alive and looking exactly the same age he did now.

He was meandering at random, because he didn't really have anything to do besides take a break from driving, and he hadn't been in the area before so he might as well see what was there. Who knew, it might come up later. There was a busker playing trombone versions of songs that seemed half-familiar so Richie paused to try to figure out what he was playing. When he gained ukulele backup, Richie realized that he was actually playing AC/DC songs. He hadn't even known Highway to Hell was possible to play on the trombone, much less trombone and ukulele. It was doubtless a strange, strange impromptu band, but somehow they managed to sound good together. He was in the process of tossing a few dollars in their cases when he froze, feeling the Buzz of another Immortal.

Richie might not have been as old as most other Immortals (he had no idea how often there were new Immortals; if there was only a new Immortal every decade he might be the youngest, but if there were ten new Immortals every week he wouldn't be unless he'd been followed by some monumentally unlucky new Immortals), but he'd met a lot of Immortals since he died his First Death. There was some variation in the feel of the Buzz, but for the most part it was nothing noticeable, nothing that you could use to tell one Immortal from another on the basis of the feel of their Buzz. This Immortal's Buzz felt nothing like the Buzz of any of them. It was somehow rougher, wilder, if you could say that about a Buzz. He'd only just felt the Buzz, and he knew he'd be able to identify it in a crowd of Immortals- not that that would be much help; there was really no way to match a Buzz to an Immortal in a crowd unless you knew which Buzz belonged to which Immortal.

He was in the middle of a crowd, so he wasn't really worried about getting attacked without warning, but he still tensed and moved his hand close to his sword. There were always those psychopaths who didn't care about surroundings or who they'd have to kill if they wanted to keep Immortality a secret. It was better to stay on his guard unless the only Immortals around were ones he trusted. There were a hell of a lot of people in the world who were less honorable than MacLeod, and no few of them were Immortal. Honestly, he wasn't entirely sure how somebody like MacLeod survived as long as he did, with so many Immortals willing to do almost anything to win- and some of them didn't have an almost in there. Movies and TV shows to the contrary, in the real world the "good guys" never won if they didn't use the same underhanded techniques the "bad guys" used- other than the distortion of reality that seemed to happen around MacLeod.

Two men walked right up to him, seeming to zero in on him even though they should logically have no way to tell that he was the Immortal in the crowd. Great, two Immortals- and he assumed that at least one of them was old, or had some sort of strange powers. He stood no chance against them if they double-teamed him, no matter how much against the Rules that was, and he didn't like his chances of winning against only one of them either. He wasn't completely incompetent with a sword, he knew that at least, but it was one thing to not be incompetent and another to be good enough to win against somebody who was older than your teacher. Just the fact that an Immortal had survived that long meant that they were good with a sword. Younger Immortals might be able to avoid fights, but no matter how hard you tried it would eventually be impossible to avoid all Challenges.

The two Immortals looked enough alike that they could probably pass themselves off as being related if they wanted to. They were similar in height and both had brown eyes and hair. The one who looked older- in his thirties, maybe- seemed more focused, running his eyes over Richie in what he assumed was some sort of thorough if quick threat assessment, pausing briefly on the hand that was hovering near his sword. The other- who looked like he wasn't much older than Richie, although that didn't mean much with Immortals- barely glanced at him before giving all of his attention to the buskers. He wore an eye patch over his left eye, which seemed weird to Richie; Immortals healed quickly, so he couldn't have a reason to wear an eye patch, and it wasn't Halloween so he couldn't think of any reason to voluntarily wear an eye patch.

"Richie Ryan," Richie introduced himself. "I'm not looking for a fight."

"Jarod," the older one introduced himself. "You're new?" Eye Patch didn't introduce himself, didn't even look like he was paying any attention.

"Depends on what you mean by new," Richie said. He'd never liked being called young, or treated like it, and even if Jarod called him new rather than young, he meant young. The reaction to his physical age was something he'd have to get used to, since he wasn't going to be getting older any time soon, but that didn't mean he had to put up with that sort of thing from other Immortals even if he was still young for an Immortal.

"Less than a century past First Death," Jarod replied calmly as if he'd said it as merely a statement, not a challenge.

A century past First Death? That was a quarter of Mac's life. "You must consider a lot of Immortals 'new'."

"There aren't any official statistics about it, but we're relatively certain that at least half of all Immortals die before they hit their Centennial," Jarod said. "It's a nice round number, and Immortals who last to a hundred tend to make it to two hundred."

Holy shit! Half of all Immortals died before they were a century old- no, wait, he'd said a century after their First Death, which wasn't too much difference for someone who died at his age, but some Immortals died at fifty or sixty years old, and that was a huge difference. No wonder he considered Richie 'new'.

"Do you think they'd be willing to pick up a theremin player and play together on a regular basis?" Eye Patch asked randomly.

"I don't think they know each other," Jarod replied. "They might be willing, though."

"Hmmm…" Eye Patch said and wandered off towards the buskers as they took a break from playing. Richie couldn't help looking at him oddly, but Jarod acted like there was nothing out of the ordinary about his behavior.

After a few seconds of trying to come up with something to say about that and coming up blank, Richie returned to the earlier subject. "I plan to be one of the ones who survives."

Jarod shrugged. "Most Immortals do, but some Immortals can't take it when it really hits them, and some of them can't take it over time, some of them are unlucky, and some of them don't pick up the physical skills in time. It's not exactly an easy thing to adapt to being an Immortal."

"Tell me about it," Richie said. "I mean, I knew about Immortals before I died, but it's one thing to know about Immortals, and a completely different thing to learn that you are one."

"They said they'll think about it," Eye Patch said, suddenly back by Richie and Jarod. "Something about making sure there weren't any personality conflicts before they commit. Ice cream!" He sounded so gleeful when he announced ice cream that if you hadn't known better you would have thought he was a little kid who'd just heard the ice cream truck.

"Is that little place here still open?" Jarod asked, again without even a blink at the Immortal's behavior.

"Oh, that place!" Eye Patch exclaimed. "No idea. You know how it is, one moment you swear you'll be back within a year, the next thing you know a decade's passed."

Jarod nodded. "I hate it when that happens. It's not so bad when you plan to leave for a decade, but when it's unplanned it really is the worst. And everything changes so fast."

As they spoke, the Immortals walked along, Richie going with them without even noticing, until he did. But they weren't leading him off into any deserted alleyways or abandoned warehouses- the crowds were still as thick as they had always been- so he didn't worry about it. He worried about the fact that they seemed to be so excited about ice cream. Mac never got excited about anything so childish, or Amanda. The only thing that would justify hundreds of years old Immortals getting so excited would be if it was the best damn ice cream in the whole world. Or they were both insane. Possibly both, and that seemed increasingly likely as their discussion went off on a tangent about the apparently legendary ice cream found at this shop.

The ice cream shop, when they found it, was practically hidden- small, only a tiny sign, and a door that looked like it led to somebody's house rather than a store. The kind of place you could walk right past without realizing it was there. Even if you were looking for an ice cream place, it was easy to miss. The floor was sticky and one of the lights flickered annoyingly. But it was the place the other Immortals were talking about- they didn't seem surprised at it being so run down, and started to intently debate the merits of the different flavors and toppings.

Some of the flavors were really weird. Richie had heard about different countries having weird flavors of normal foods- had even fallen victim of it, with the sea "fruits" in France. But this shop had yam and coconut ice cream, and so many other flavors that they had an actual handout menu as opposed to the usual ice cream shop "look at the ice cream until you decide" method. Not that that method wasn't available, too, but only for the more normal flavors. The eel flavored ice cream was kept in the back. And they had as many toppings as they did flavors of ice cream.

As the Immortals very seriously debated the merits of the various ice creams, a steady stream of mortal customers entered, ought their ice cream, and left, none of them hanging around for long and a surprising number of them ordering weird flavors of ice cream and toppings. They had to be locals who planned what to get beforehand- maybe in an attempt to taste all of the available flavors- because even if you weren't willing to be very adventurous there were a hell of a lot of flavors to choose from. But eventually all three of the Immortals ordered their ice cream and went outside to enjoy it.

Richie avoided looking at the others, because even hearing about some of the flavors had disgusted him- including a lot of the ones they'd been discussing- and his flavor of ice cream was good so he didn't want to lose his appetite by looking at whatever flavors they'd finally decided on (really, there was a reason he didn't pay attention when they ordered). And sure, they might have just been messing with him, but the fact that apparently people actually did eat those flavors, and that they were theoretically older Immortals (asking an Immortal's age was, of course, exactly like asking a woman's age: don't. Especially if it was an Immortal woman) who had probably eaten all kinds of things in their lives that would make him want to throw up, made him unwilling to look and find out.

"We got chocolate with sprinkles," Eye patch said, sounding amused. "The classics are the best."

Richie glanced over and saw that they did both have chocolate and sprinkles, and Jarod was rolling his eyes. Deciding not to ask about the eye-rolling (interplay among Immortals like that seemed to never be safe to ask about, and even if Richie knew he was missing a lot by not asking, it was better than the mental scarring he got when he did ask. There was not enough bleach in the world to bleach his brain out after asking Amanda questions about that sort of thing), Richie said, "I was worried, with the way the two of you were talking in there."

"Accepting variety in everything is the best way to survive as an Immortal," Eye Patch said. "The only constant is change."

"And finding amusement where you can, such as fooling people into believing untrue things about you and watching their reactions, helps you keep your sanity," Jarod added.

Eye Patch made a rude noise. "There's no such thing as sanity. Or insanity."

"He just knows he should be classified as insane," Jarod said to Richie in a stage whisper.

"Yeah, well, by the usual mortal standards so would all Immortals," Eye Patch replied scornfully. "It's an arbitrary and useless standard, made worse when applied to Immortals since none of us fit in the neat little boxes everybody wants to be able to fit others into."

Jarod turned back to Richie, an impish smile on his face. "So do what you want, because you're insane anyway."

Eye Patch rolled his eye. "That is not what I said." Jarod stuck his tongue out at him like a little kid, and he swiped at him with the hand not holding his ice cream, missing by a good foot and a half. "So, you're new. How long? Who's your teacher?"

"Six months," slipped out of Richie's mouth as he realized too late that it might be a bad idea to tell them just how new an Immortal he was. After all, he might be good enough to have graduated, but that didn't mean he had much experience. After all, he'd taken his first head only a month ago. "My teacher was Duncan MacLeod, but I graduated."

"After six months?" Eye Patch asked, his face blank of expression.

"Five," Richie said, and immediately cursed his mouth. Why couldn't he manage to keep silent when he knew it would be better to?

"You graduated after five months?" Jarod asked, his voice as blank as Eye Patch's face.

Their reaction seemed weird to Richie, but then again so did a lot of the things Immortals did. Maybe they started out just normal people, but by the time they hit a few centuries old they seemed to get weird. "Yeah…so?"

Eye patch said something that sounded like swearing in a language Richie didn't speak. Maybe several. What did he know? He only spoke bad English and worse French, anything else might as well have been gibberish to him. "Immortals these days are idiots."

"You realize we are Immortals these days, right?" Jarod asked.

"Yeah, well, I know I raised you right," Eye Patch retorted. He was Jarod's teacher? Or did he mean that he'd actually raised Jarod from when he was a kid? He'd always had the impression that Immortals didn't do that because it made both them and the pre-Immortal a bigger target. "None of this modern bullshit about only training students for five months. I don't care if he's some sort of prodigy with a sword; there's no way in hell that you can learn everything you need to know in five months."

"Hey!" Richie protested angrily. "Mac's a good teacher."

"I didn't say anything about quality of teaching," Eye Patch replied. "I don't care if he's the awesomest teacher in the history of teaching, that's still not anywhere near enough time to learn."

"He was probably teaching you the same way he was taught, and his teacher was taught, and so forth up the Line until one of them was taught traditionally, which is what our Line still does," Jarod added. He looked like he was trying to keep the peace and smooth things over.

"Traditionally?" Richie asked. He'd never even heard of this 'traditional' method of teaching, much less know what it was. The only traditions of Immortals were the Game and maybe teaching new Immortals…right? Mac was traditional enough in everything else- or maybe he just kept doing what he learned early in his life- that if he'd known there was a traditional method he probably would have used it.

"New Immortals are considered students until a century after their First Death, and protected and expected to continue to learn until at least the end of that period," Jarod explained.

"A hundred years with one person?" Richie asked. "I like Mac, but I wouldn't want to spend that much time with him in a row."

"Other Lines might do things differently- actually, are there any other Lines still using the traditional method?" Eye Patch interrupted himself.

"Just the scumbags," Jarod said. Eye Patch must have known who he was talking about, because he grimaced.

"One of these days…" He didn't say what would happen one of these days, though, just returned to the earlier subject. "They might do things differently, but our Line stays in contact-"

"Exchanges Christmas presents," Jarod added. "Always have to make sure your cover story can accommodate that."

"Whiner."

"With the number of people in our family? It's amazing I was able to fit all of the presents into some of the places I've lived."

Eye Patch brushed that off. "So anyway, we tend to pass the students around so that they can learn from people that are best at what they're teaching, and don't clash with the students personality-wise, including clashes from spending too much time together."

"And since most of us are very, very good at whatever we decide to be good at, which usually includes self-defense, which we pass on to our students, and we protect our students until they have enough ability to protect themselves, our Line is very long-lived on average."

"That idiot," Eye Patch muttered.

"It was his choice," Jarod said. "And at least his death served a purpose."

"His life served a purpose," Eye Patch hissed.

"It's how he wanted it. And look what Darius did with his gift."

"Hid behind the Church's walls out of fear of the real world."

"He changed the lives of a lot of Immortals."

"And then died because he was unwilling to defend himself against mortals," he said scornfully. "Even hundreds of years out of practice, Darius shouldn't have been so easily beaten."

Now it was Jarod's turn to roll his eyes. "You do realize there are Immortals who aren't part of our family, right? And they really don't have the same standards we do."

"Why not?" he demanded. "They live in the same world we do, they face the same challenges we do, and they just choose to be mediocre and lose the skills they spent time learning? With the advantages Immortals have, that isn't something that just happens, it takes effort."

"To some degree physical skills are lost when Immortals don't practice them, but in general I agree with you. And Darius was good enough beforehand that he would have had a chance against one of us going easy on him, so his skills wouldn't have decayed that far naturally."

Richie was watching their argument in fascination as it bounced back and forth, when he realized something. "Wait, are you guys talking about the Darius I think you're talking about? Immortal priest in Paris? Got killed by mortals?" Not just mortals, but renegade Watchers, of course, but he'd met Joe, and there were probably other Watchers just as good as he was. If these guys turned out to be the kind who wanted to kill all the Watchers, whether they were Hunters or not, Richie didn't want to be the one who told them about the Watchers. They didn't seem like the type, but he and Mac had both been fooled by Immortals before.

"Hunters," Jarod said, as if he'd been reading Richie's thoughts. "Yeah, that Darius."

"You know about the Watchers?" Richie asked, shocked.

"It's difficult to miss when somebody starts to follow you around, and especially when they follow you to less-occupied areas," Jarod said. "I've never understood how any Immortal misses them. Paranoia is a fairly common trait in Immortals, and to just ignore them? It's weird. Most of us lived through times when you could and likely would be killed for being too different- such as, for instance, being Immortal- so it should just be habit to check for tails and watchers."

"The Watchers and Hunters are being monitored," Eye Patch said. "It's not as if it hasn't been an issue in the past. We usually arrange 'accidents' as soon as we learn about new Hunters."

There had been Hunters before? Even if it was true and they always found out who the Hunters were and arranged 'accidents', Richie suddenly felt less safe. Not that you could ever be truly safe as an Immortal (or a mortal, he supposed), but he'd thought that now that the Hunters had been dealt with he'd be safe from them, that they'd just been an anomaly. Instead, they were a recurring problem. A recurring problem that wanted to kill him, and knew who he was. He felt a chill go up his spine.

His panic must be showing on his face, because Jarod started trying to reassure him. "Don't worry about it, really. It's rarer than random exposure to mortals, and leads to less deaths. Most of the time we kill them before they manage to kill one of us- usually in some embarrassing way that makes people want to avoid being associated with them, so they aren't treated like martyrs to the cause of killing all the Immortals."

"The one with the goat was inspired, I thought," Eye Patch said vaguely.

"It wasn't very interesting, I thought," Jarod replied.

"Not everything needs to be as complex as some of your schemes."

"What else am I going to do with my time?"

"Get a hobby."

"And I don't have a hobby now?"

"Not a normal one."

"And just who else has a normal hobby in this family? Benton?"

"He moved to Chicago, he might have a normal hobby now."

"Did he change identities, then? I thought he was a Mountie."

"Still is. Apparently there's some long and convoluted tale behind it, but he's stationed at the Embassy in Chicago now."

"He's still Benton. Of course he doesn't have a normal hobby."

"Juliet?"

"I know you've seen her model village."

"A model village is normal!"

"Not when you obsess over it that much. It has its own miniature power plant!"

"How'd she learn how to make that, anyway?"

"Don't look at me. You know I've been spending time in the Arctic, not wherever she is now."

"Okay, fine, nobody in this family has a normal hobby besides me." Jarod snorted, but didn't otherwise object. It looked like a case of knowing how to choose your battles to Richie; Eye Patch seemed willing to argue about anything. "Fine, keep your hobby. At least it makes interesting stories for the get-togethers."

"What get-togethers? There's so many of us we could never all get together. I'm not even sure I've met everybody."

"Fine, not get-togethers, then, when I chase you each down and ambush you. And don't pretend you don't do the same thing with some of the others. I think you've met everybody- you did meet the current batch of kids, right?"

"You really shouldn't call them kids anymore. They are all grown up now." Eye Patch stared him down. "Fine, fine, call them whatever you want, just remember that I told you so the next time you call them that in person. Especially Rodney."

"See, I knew you'd met them."

"He is a bit hard to miss."

"Aren't all of my kids?"

"Not when we're trying to blend in."

"Duh. That would defeat the purpose of trying to blend in. But the rest of the time. Not an unexceptional person in the lot of you."

"That reminds me, one of these days I should try to figure out if it's because of selection of quality people to train and raise, or if it's because of your methods."

He shrugged. "Who cares? Probably both."

"But you don't really select the mortals, and they turn out just as spectacular if not more so if you adjust for the amount of time they have to accomplish things in."

"I'm just that good, then? I drove Adam insane."

"In a very spectacular way. Accomplishments aren't all good."

"Yeah, well…" Eye Patch trailed off, looking upset for a second before he seemed to shake himself and turned to Richie, his face back to its normal expression. "We've got to be boring you, talking about people you don't know."

Richie shrugged. "Hey, you can talk about whatever you want to. I know I don't know everything about being an Immortal, and even if I don't understand everything you're talking about I'm still learning just by listening to you."

"That's a good attitude to take," Jarod said approvingly.

"Have you considered switching Lines?" Eye Patch asked, his expression focused and eye intent on Richie. It felt like he was looking through Richie to his soul- even if Richie wasn't sure if he believed in the soul. The Quickening had to be something, so he was more willing to believe now than he had been at one time, but that didn't necessarily have to be a soul.

"I'm not really sure what a Line is," Richie said warily. "I hadn't even heard of them before today."

"I don't think the term's used much nowadays, even though it really should be. In essence, a Line is all of the people taught by one person, and the students of them, and so on- and technically on up to that person's teacher, on and on into eternity. In practice there's a place beyond which you don't know who taught the original teacher, so it cuts off. So I'm part of his line, because I was his student, and my students are part of his line because they can trace the Line up to him. You're currently part of Duncan MacLeod's Line, which is a part of Connor MacLeod's Line, which is a part of…Ramirez's Line, I think." Richie nodded; he knew that, at least. "Ramirez had a teacher, but since none of us know who it was we can consider it as the Line terminating there."

"But Mac learned from more people than just Connor," Richie said.

"Yeah, but Lines are more like family than anything else. You might be taught by a lot of people, but most of them won't have anywhere near the impact that your Line teacher has. Lines tend to share philosophies- though, I admit, less among the non-traditional crowd, due to their shorter teaching period: a teacher who's a headhunter has a student who ends up being a headhunter, a do-gooder has a student who ends up being a do-gooder. Usually your Line teacher's your first Immortal teacher, but there are exceptions- bad fits between teacher and student, loss of loyalty for whatever reason, death of your first teacher."

"So why would I change Lines?" he asked. "I don't have anything against Mac, and he's obviously not dead."

"You were only trained for five months, which is really only enough time to make you cocky enough to get killed, and that only if you're an absolute prodigy with a sword," Eye Patch said. "Either he's just stupid enough to think it's a good idea, or he's trying to get you killed."

That made Richie pause. He deserved to get killed, and if it was anybody else he would have thought that was what they'd done, but this was Mac; he wouldn't do that even if he should. But on the other hand, Mac wasn't stupid, and he had enough experience to know how good Richie really was. "Neither! If that's what you think, you don't know Mac!"

"Never met him in my life," Eye Patch said. "I'm going off of the rumors, and the facts you've told me. I mean, if you're fine with it, that's your deal. Maybe it looks different from your point of view-"

"More like everything looks different from your point of view," Jarod interjected, "and believe me, that's the way the rest of us like it. More than one of you is a scary idea."

"-I'm just telling you how I see it. And what I see is that you've been wronged by your first teacher- whether deliberately or accidentally- and you're the kind of person who would do well in our Line."

"Me? Why would you want me?" Richie asked, startled. Even Mac- he'd always gotten the impression that Mac had only taken him in to keep him from blabbing about Immortality and sword fights, and once he died it had made even more sense: keep the pre-Immortal from making trouble, since once he died he'd have evidence of Immortality and not just the word of a good-for-nothing punk. Tessa had been great, and she'd seemed to really accept him, but she'd probably only taken him in originally because Mac had insisted. In Richie's experience, people didn't just decide to make you family without some pressing reason, even the ones who were willing to make you family. It was hard to be optimistic when you'd seen so many reasons to be pessimistic.

"Because you're you?" Eye Patch said unhelpfully with a shrug, and wandered off to inspect a squirrel.

Richie looked to Jarod, hoping for a more helpful explanation, but Jarod just shrugged at him. "It's impossible to get a straight answer out of him. He takes a lot of students, and some of them seem like weird choices, assuming you're selecting for quality and people you actually want in your family- but eventually the qualities I assume he notices that the rest of us miss in the beginning start to show. So I don't argue anymore. But in all honesty I can see that you'd make a good addition to the family, even if it's hard to explain without going into more detail than you want to know. You have the right attitude to start out with, willingness to learn, that sort of thing. It's not everything, and there have been students in our Line who were just the opposite and ended up doing well, but Magister seems to have a sixth sense about this sort of thing."

"Magister? Is that his name? He didn't introduce himself."

"Nobody knows his name. He goes by his current use-name, or a nickname. Magister is Latin for teacher." At Richie's look, he said, "he has lot of weird habits, and never telling his original name is only one of them, even if he's passed that one down to most of his students to some degree or another."

"Yeah, well I think his sixth sense is malfunctioning with me. My ego might say he's right, but nobody else agrees with him. I'm not anything special."

"If everybody could see it, it wouldn't need a sixth sense."

"And anyway, Mac's family. I can't see that changing, even if I have graduated. He and Tessa are the only ones who've cared about me since I was a little kid, and Tessa died when I did."

"Well, family's family, it's not something you can easily change- well, except the kind you marry into." Jarod said.

A hand thrust a business card at Richie. The hand belonged to Eye Patch. The card, when he took it and looked at it, only had a phone number on it. Of course. "If you change your mind or need to talk, you can reach me at that number."

Jarod handed him his business card, too. This one at least had a name on it, but that name was simply Jarod, no last name. Richie had to wonder how mortals reacted to their business cards, or if they only handed them out to other Immortals. It wasn't like he'd ever been the type of person who was given a lot of business cards, so he had no way of knowing. "That's my number, if you want to get in contact with me," Jarod told him. "I'm not always able to get my messages regularly, though, so he's probably the better bet."

"I-" he was about to give them back, knowing he wasn't likely to call either of them before the numbers went bad, and what would they talk about? But they both gave him such looks that he relented. "Even if I just want to talk?" he asked.

"That's why you get a phone number," Eye Patch said. "Can't do much else over the phone besides talk."

"Though we'd both be willing to do more," Jarod added. "Mail and addresses are worse. We might not even stay in the same country, much less at the same address, but with the way phones are now we can have that number forwarded or set to go to a voicemail system if we know we won't have access to a phone of our own. Mail ends up chasing us all over the place when we move around a lot, and tends to get lost more frequently than we have issues with the phones. Living addresses are the worst. We go on vacation, drop everything and move across the world at the slightest provocation, are presumed dead due to our corpses being found and have to flee…it's a huge mess, especially with Immortals being as mobile as we are."

"It's always best to keep the most up to date information you can get on all of the Immortals you know- appropriately encoded, of course, just in case somebody who shouldn't read it somehow gains possession of it- so you can avoid or find them if you want to do either. Know who's a trouble causer, a problem solver, that kind of thing. Know who the unfriendlies in your area are by sight- even if you don't meet them- so you can avoid them or be more on your guard if you see them, and know who the friendlies in your area are so that you know who you can talk to when you want to talk to another Immortal. Not everybody's going to update you when their contact information changes, but if you make an effort you can keep your contacts from becoming too out of date."

"Not that we'll give you our addresses until we're sure you have a good encryption scheme in place, or update you any way other than in person- too easy for others to discover it. The worst that can happen if you lose our phone numbers is excessive telemarketing, so we hand those out on a regular basis and don't bother with much security."

"Other than Kate," Eye Patch interjected.

"Really? Kate secured them? I didn't know that."

"What's the use in having a hacker in the family if you don't let her put her skills to good use?"

"Hmm, guess our phones aren't unsecured then. I bet the telemarketers can't even get through."

"Of course not. She does have her pride. Telemarketing calls get redirected to other telemarketers- which reminds me, if you take a job as a telemarketer, make sure you're not using one of their phones when you call us."

"It's probably a bad idea, with how thoroughly she likes to take her revenge."

"I've been desperate for a job before, but there have always been better jobs than telemarketing," Richie said.

"Eh, you never know what job you'll take in the future," Eye Patch said. "I've taken some strange jobs over the years. Although I will say, the story about the pied piper of Hamelin totally misrepresented me."

"You…wait, never mind, I don't want to know," Richie corrected himself.

"That's how most of his stories go," Jarod confided. "He always tells you some tantalizing bit, but after you've heard a few of his stories you realize you really don't want to know any of it. Even just the bit he lets slip without prompting is enough to give you migraines."

"Immortals can get migraines?"

"Not usually," Jarod said grimly. "If there are any universal rules, don't expect them to apply around Magister. And thinking about it just makes it worse. Really."

"Aw, come on, Jarod, you enjoyed our little thought experiments," Eye Patch coaxed. "Stretch your mind a little, learn new and exciting things…"

"Break my brain, is more like it," Jarod retorted. "After being raised by you, it's not surprising your son's remembered for breaking other people's brains. And being just as insane as you."

"What does that say about you, then?"

"I wasn't raised by you, just taught after I died my first death. Not that I have any great claim to sanity after the way I was raised."

"Who does?" Eye Patch asked. "Not that I believe in sanity, but even if I did it doesn't really apply to Immortals unless you use a different metric."

"Yeah, yeah, we all know your views on sanity. Probably because you're insane by any standard."

"I am not! …Any standard includes my own, which does not have sanity or insanity as options." Jarod rolled his eyes.

"Hey, Richie, where are you going from here?"

"I dunno, I'm kind of just wandering around the country until I find something else to do."

"If you don't have anything planned, we can give you some tips on where to go. Some of it might be a little bit out of date, but we travel around and hear from people traveling around often enough that most of them should still be good."

"A lot of the tourist-y stuff isn't really my cup of tea, though," Richie said. "And a lot of it's made for people who have their kids with them. I don't want to be surrounded by kids."

Eye Patch shrugged. "You might be surprised. Sometimes the ones you think you won't like are the ones you end up liking the most, although that can be really variable. Some of them it's good one day and bad the next, or good with one tour guide and bad with another, or depending on the weather or the other tourists. But we can give you a big enough list to choose from that you'll be able to find at least some that you like."

"Just remember to at least try some of the ones you think you won't like," Jarod said. "You shouldn't limit yourself. You're hopefully going to be around for a long time, and all of that won't."

Richie wasn't totally psyched about going to tourist-y things, but who knew? Maybe he'd actually like them, and like they said, they wouldn't be there forever. What if they actually were enjoyable, and he never got the chance to go in the future? "Fine, but try to keep it low-budget. And no guarantee I'll like them."

"Of course not," Eye Patch said scornfully. "You haven't been to any of them yet, and even the best places can sometimes be ruined by elements beyond your- or our- control."

He and Jarod shooed Richie off to window shop while they made the list- so it would be a surprise, they said- so he wandered around some more, halfway wondering if he should ditch them while their attention was elsewhere. He was enjoying his road trip without stopping to do tourist-y things, and he didn't want to do tourist-y things if they'd ruin his trip. But on the other hand, they were going through the effort of making the list for him. If he just left, they might be pissed at him- and pissed with Immortals tended to mean going for the neck. It was better to make friends, if he could. Though that would mean going to at least a few of the things on the list just to say he'd gone to them, and if they were anything like Mac that would mean going to museums, which might not be as boring to him now that he'd learned about antiques and history and shit from his time with Mac and Tessa, but they were still not his favorite places to go.

Eventually he wandered back to them, and they handed him the folded papers- to only open them once he was at his bike, they said- and they said goodbye to each other. At his bike he unfolded the papers, dreading what he'd see- but the list was a lot closer to one he'd make than one Mac would make. Amusement parks, theme parks- with a note that they knew he didn't want to be surrounded by kids, but they thought he might want to make an exception- stadiums for sporting events, some random places, and a few museums- but most of the museums looked like they might actually be interesting, not just art and history, but stuff he was actually interested in. Grinning, he drove off to the closest one on the list.

Richie's head was spinning, his world turned upside down. He'd run from Mac and Seacouver so fast that all he had was what was on him when Mac attacked him, and his bike. He couldn't stop himself from looking over his shoulder, afraid Mac was following him, even though he'd sped the whole way out of Seacouver and he'd see and feel Mac coming if he was following. And it wasn't possible for Mac to follow at the sped he'd ridden, at least not unless he got a bike from somewhere. Richie shuddered at the thought. The way Mac was acting now, he wouldn't be surprised if he stole one.

It was just so out of character. He knew it was a dark quickening, and he'd heard about the change in Darius when he took the light quickening, but he couldn't help feeling that he'd never be able to trust Mac again, even if by some miracle he managed to return to normal. How would he return to normal, anyway? A light quickening to balance out the dark one? Richie wasn't holding his breath on that one. How many people had to die because of this, anyway? A light quickening to balance out the dark one would mean the death of somebody who was good enough to give a light quickening. If Mac was defeated, the dark quickening would just spread to the person who took his head. And either way, he couldn't see how the world gained a single thing.

Eventually he had to stop for gas, and he went inside to get a Coke. When he opened his wallet to pay for it and the gas, a piece of paper slipped out and onto the floor. He picked it up, and thought nothing more of it until he'd paid and was stuffing the change and the paper back into his wallet. It was a business card, with nothing more than a phone number on it. He stared at it blankly, trying to remember who gave it to him without the usual cues of name and company, and finally it clicked. Eye Patch, and Jarod. He'd lost Jarod's number, somewhere, but he still had Eye Patch's. He was terrified and jumpy, and he knew he'd never be able to sleep, or if he did he'd have nightmares all night long. Eye Patch had offered to at least talk, and maybe more. Maybe he could help Richie get calmed down, somehow, even if he wasn't as comforting as Jarod was; he was strange, but somehow comforting at the same time.

Richie didn't carry around rolls of quarters, toll roads being thankfully rare in Seacouver, so he had to cross his fingers and hope that Eye Patch would accept a collect call. Most of the Immortals he'd met were pretty free with their money, probably because they had piles of it, so he wasn't worried that Eye Patch would decline the call if he remembered Richie- but they'd barely met, and they hadn't been in contact since then, so what if he didn't remember Richie?

He took a deep breath, tried to steady his trembling hands, and dialed. It was stupid to worry about something so simple when he could get his answers so quickly.

The conversation with the operator went as he'd expected, then she talked to Eye Patch, and…success! His call was accepted.

"Hi," he said lamely, his words deserting him.

"Hey, Richie. You calling because of something in particular, or just to talk?" Eye Patch asked, sounding welcoming on both options. Something in Richie relaxed at that.

"I- I-" the whole story came spilling out of him, although he avoided directly talking about Immortality- it wasn't a booth, just a freestanding pay phone on the side of the 7-Eleven, and there was approximately zero privacy. It would not make a fun addition to the day to accidentally let some mortal know about Immortality. "…And I don't know what to do," he finished. "I'm so afraid that he's after me that I know I won't be able to sleep, and if he wanted to he could track me down and kill me no matter where I am." Eye Patch listened through the whole thing, only asking a couple of relevant questions to clarify. At least he hadn't immediately rejected Richie.

"Okay, first of all, take a deep breath," Eye Patch said soothingly. Richie could tell he'd been an Immortal teacher before, because at the tone of voice he automatically followed the order and took a gasping breath. "Let it out, slowly. Again, in…and out." He talked Richie through the breathing exercise until his breath returned to normal from the ragged, one step away from crying state it had been in. "Good. Now, how much longer are you going to be able to drive? Where are you?"

"I probably shouldn't be driving now," Richie said. "But I think I can manage a couple more hours. I'm- I don't even know where I am," he said with a halfway hysterical laugh. "I took I-90 east, and I haven't hit Spokane yet, but beyond that I don't have a clue."

"Okay," Eye Patch said, his calmness taking the edge off of Richie's hysteria. "Here's what you're going to do- and don't argue with me, because you're not firing on all cylinders and you know it. You're going to drive to Spokane International Airport and get a plane ticket they'll be holding for you at the desk. Don't worry about a passport, it's not going out of the country. And then you'll get on the plane and I'll meet you on the other end."

"My bike-" Richie protested. He didn't particularly want to drive it around at this point in time, and god knew there were better bikes in the world, but it was his, and he couldn't afford to either buy a new bike or live without his own form of transportation.

"Leave it in long-term storage if you want to keep it," Eye Patch told him. "You'll have a bike or car on this end- to keep, if you want to- but you can't drive across the country in the condition you're in, and it's annoying to arrange shipment for vehicles." Yeah, of course an Immortal would know if it was a hassle to have a bike shipped; after enough years, you probably picked up all sorts of little details like that. But at least he would have transportation whenever he was with Eye Patch for whatever reason Eye Patch wanted him there. He'd just wanted some advice, but then Eye Patch had arranged a plane ticket and somehow talked him into it without even arguing with him. There was a reason he hadn't wanted to call Eye Patch until he had no choice, if he could just remember it…but that was the final sign that he was a mess; he couldn't remember. He just hoped he didn't regret it later. He probably would; he seemed to regret everything else he'd ever done.

He hung up and, in a fugue, somehow managed to drive to Spokane International Airport, put his bike in long-term storage (wincing at the prices), get his ticket, and board the plane. He had no idea where he was going, or how he'd gotten through the metal detector with a sword on him (since it was still there, and he hadn't gotten stopped- or at least, if they'd stopped him they'd let him keep his sword). He was, somehow, in first class seating. Unfortunately, he was still too much out of it to appreciate that fact.

He'd halfway hoped he'd be able to relax enough to nap on the plane, which was nice and enclosed and safe from any Immortals who weren't on it when it took off, but as soon as he started to drift off he thought he felt a Buzz and sat up straight, completely alert. But there wasn't a Buzz, it was just his imagination running wild as it tended to do when he was exhausted. And of course, it chose the worst possible way to react at the worst possible time. Because, after all, why make it easy on Richie? Even his own mind hated him.

He was even worse off when they landed than he had been when they took off, if slightly more alert. The combination of being on the plane and having to do had made him keep starting to nod off, only to jerk awake before he actually fell asleep each time. It had made him jumpy and twitchy and even more paranoid than he had been. Eye Patch would be lucky if he didn't attack him as soon as he felt the Buzz.

But the Buzz he felt wasn't a normal Buzz. He'd forgotten how different it really was. There was no way he could mistake it for MacLeod's Buzz even in the state he was in. And Eye Patch hadn't done a single thing to make him think he might not be trustworthy, even though he'd known Richie was a new and vulnerable Immortal on his own. Hell, if he'd wanted to kill Richie and Jarod had stopped him, he could have given Jarod the slip and caught back up with Richie at one of the places he'd recommended he go to.

"Hey, kiddo, let's get you home," Eye Patch said, and Richie was so relieved to see someone he trusted, even if it was irrationally, that he didn't notice how Eye Patch referred to it. He fell asleep in the car.

Richie woke up, unsure of where he was. He relaxed for a moment before he started to wonder why he was there, which made him star to worry…until he remembered, and then he started to panic. Mac had attacked him, and he'd been only a moment away from killing him- his sword raised to behead him- when Joe had stopped him! Mac wanted to kill him!

Someone knocked on the door, and he realized he'd felt Eye Patch's strange Buzz since before he woke up. It didn't make him panic, although he had no real reason to trust Eye Patch besides the unconvincing reason that he hadn't attacked Richie yet- how long did Mac keep from attacking Richie before he finally did? And Richie had always felt safe with MacLeod, even when he'd felt his most vulnerable: that comfort of thinking he knew that MacLeod would never attack him, maybe not even if he did something really bad. The comfort of Eye Patch was completely different; Richie felt it, but he had no idea why.

"It's open?" he said questioningly. He had no real idea if it was open or not, but it seemed likely.

"Good, you're up," Eye Patch said, opening the door. "I'm making breakfast. Do you have any preferences? Would you rather have breakfast in bed?"

"Uh, no, I'm fine with whatever. I'll be up in a bit," Richie said, trying to wake up enough to deal with the bouncy Immortal.

"There are clothes in the dresser and closet if you want to change. They should be in your size, and probably at least some of it's to your taste. Or at least wearable. Bathroom's through there," he said, pointing to the other door which didn't look like it led to a closet. "All the usual stuff in there. Feel free to poke through everything and use whatever. That's what it's there for. Breakfast will be ready when you come down- just follow the smells, or wander at random if that works better for you." He left and closed the door behind him, leaving Richie trying to sort things out in his still sleep-fogged brain. Shower. He dragged himself out of the comfortable bed and stumbled across the room and into the bathroom.

Clean and finally awake, Richie remembered what Eye Patch said about the closet and dresser, and opened them up to see if there were actually clothes in his size and style- or at least ones which were tolerable. The size was right, at least, and even if some of them weren't to his taste there were at least some he wouldn't feel weird or embarrassed about wearing- others, hell no he wouldn't wear them, except maybe if you paid him to. He wasn't exactly an expert on clothing sizes, but even he could see that Eye Patch wasn't the same size as he was, so why did he have so many clothes in his size just lying around? They weren't clothes that had been just laying around for decades since whenever he picked them up, either- some of them he could tell were in the recent fashions, and even if none of them had holes or were falling apart, he could tell that they'd been used rather than just having the tags snipped off. It was weird, but even though Immortals did a lot of weird things they usually had reasons for doing them, and he couldn't see any reason for Eye Patch to have clothes in his size. But really, he didn't care more than just idle curiosity, so he decided to ignore it.

"Follow your nose" Eye Patch had said, and that's what he did; he could smell it from across the house, the smell of delicious homemade cooking. He couldn't pick out any of the normal breakfast smells, but if Eye Patch had been around for a couple of centuries- more likely more than that- he'd probably picked up the knack of making food delicious. Richie only started to learn how to cook when he was taken in by Mac and Tessa- they cooked all the time, and since they were letting him live with them, he might as well help out where he could, right?- and he'd learned a few things, more than the usual bachelor fare at least, but he was nowhere near the level of Mac or even Amanda. After a few lifetimes of eating your own cooking, he assumed you got better because you knew you'd be the one eating it.

Eye Patch was at the stove, cooking something Richie couldn't identify- but it really didn't look like what he called breakfast food, even after having his food horizons expanded. He really hoped this was another 'make fun of the new guy' thing, like the Great Ice Cream Debate had been. Even if it was good, he didn't feel adventurous enough- especially after the mess yesterday- to try it for breakfast. He must have made a noise- they hadn't passed out of Buzz range of each other since Richie woke up- because Eye Patch turned to look at him over his shoulder. "Don't worry, I make normal food, too. This is for the International Festival. I wasn't planning to be involved with it, but hey, I've got the energy and they need foods which are unusual in the United States."

"Don't tell me," Richie begged, remembering the Great Ice Cream Debate. Maybe someday he'd be blasé about weird foods too, but today was not that day. "Can I have French toast?" It was the best breakfast food, in his opinion, especially with real maple syrup and powdered sugar. He'd be worried about his French toast tasting like…whatever Eye Patch was currently cooking…but he had a lot of pans, so he could use a different one and avoid flavoring Richie's food with things it should not be flavored with.

"Sure," Eye Patch said, and took another pan down from the overhead racks where they were stored to begin cooking. He didn't stop cooking his whatever, either, just multitasked impressively, switching back and forth between the pans like he was cooking in a restaurant rather than at home. Not that that image was outside of the realm of possibility: he could easily see Eye Patch working in a restaurant, or maybe even as a chef. As an Immortal, if you had the skills, why not use them when you needed a job? Like Mac running an antiques business, and then a dojo: they were things he knew, and he used them. And hey, it could have been the other way around: he got sick of bachelor cooking, and got a job as a cook to learn how to cook better. It made sense either way.

In between cooking the French toast and whatever, Eye Patch got out the syrup (maple, as he'd hoped) and powdered sugar, a plate, glass, and fork, and orange juice after he asked Richie what he wanted to drink, so when the French toast was done cooking everything else was ready and all he had to do was put it on the plate for Richie to eat. It was delicious, not that Richie had expected anything else, and he nearly moaned in pleasure. He had seconds, Eye Patch seeming to read his mind to figure out that he wanted more, since he didn't ask and had them done right when Richie finished his first serving. By the time Richie finished eating, Eye Patch had finished cooking his whatevers and had them packed up in Tupperware and stashed in his fridge, a stainless steel monster that would look less out of place at a restaurant than in his house.

"So!" Eye Patch said energetically, turning towards Richie. Richie felt a sudden feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach at the way he was grinning. "Now that you've joined the family, I should show you how we keep in contact."

"When did I join your family?" Richie asked, baffled. He didn't remember joining Eye Patch's family. Line. He and Jarod seemed to use the terms interchangeably, at least when it came to their own Line. Shouldn't he know if he joined a new Line?

"When you called me," Eye Patch said.

"I don't remember anything like that," Richie said. "I might have been out of it, but I think I would have remembered something like that."

He shrugged. "So I stole you. Are you going to tell me you object?"

Richie thought about it seriously for the first time, and found that he didn't really have much of a problem with it at all. What was he going to do otherwise? Go back to Mac, who currently wanted to kill him, and who he wouldn't trust even if he was restored to sanity? Stay on his own, like he had been before he called Eye Patch, where he'd be terrified that Mac was still coming after him, and where he couldn't trust anybody? At least Eye Patch and Jarod had the foundations of trust before his was shattered; he could build on that, but trusting complete strangers was something he wasn't going to be doing anytime soon. "All things considered, I think it's the best option," he said slowly.

"See? I told you you're part of our family," Eye Patch said. "So, come with me and I'll show you how we keep in contact most of the time lately." He led the way to another room in the house, one with a computer. "This drives up the phone bill like nobody's business, but it's worth it to keep in contact as much as we do now." He showed Richie how to get into the family's Usenet group, [usenet group]. "Our cover story is that we're playing a roleplaying game where we're Immortals," he explained. "Some of the others are actually mortals who believe the cover story, but they're fairly easy to spot. We just ignore them unless they say something completely wrong, usually, since none of us are into history in this life- might as well keep to the real life cover story while online, as well; it helps keep things straight. And that way, if someone hears you talking about Immortality in public you can use the group as an excuse- 'I belong to a Usenet group where we pretend we're Immortals', that sort of thing. Really, I don't know why more Immortals don't do that or something similar- the family's done similar for as long as it's been an issue, although it's something that has to change somewhat to make sense with the times. So anyway, let's get you an account, and get you introduced. It's faster to do it this way, rather than calling everybody individually, or worse yet travelling to visit them all- we're spread out all over the world, and most of us don't have cover stories that easily explain visits from each other. Come to think of it, that might be because they don't want me to visit." He typed an introductory post, then signed himself out and had Richie create an account to talk to them on his own, and left the room.

Richie was about to complete his first post, when the computer started to smoke. The monitor flickered out, and then it exploded. Richie just got an impression of heat and light before he felt a sharp pain in his side and died.

He woke up, once again, in the bed he woke up in that morning- if it was that morning, and he hadn't been dead for longer than he thought. The light coming in the window didn't look the same as it had been when he woke up for the first time, so he was going to assume that at least it wasn't the same time on a different day. He pulled the sheet down and realized he was naked. And the sheets weren't grimy or bloody so he'd at least had the blood wiped off of him before he'd been moved into the bed. It didn't make him feel any better about getting dressed without taking a shower, though, so he took one, drawing it out as long as possible. The hot water felt great, soothing his frayed and re-frayed nerves. Older Immortals barely even seemed to take notice of nudity, much less blink at taking the clothes off of a temporarily dead body and cleaning it, so at least that wouldn't make things more awkward than they already were. And the fact that Eye Patch had practically forced him to join his family probably negated the fact that he blew up Eye Patch's computer. He hoped.

A new set of clothes- if Mac's example was anything to go on, the old set had probably been thrown away or burned (burning favored as it led to fewer questions, unless fire itself was illegal and would draw attention while there was a temporary corpse in the house)- and Richie once again ventured out into the house.

He hadn't taken the time to wander around before, even though Eye Patch had invited him to, but since Eye Patch wasn't in the kitchen or the computer room (ruined by damage from the explosion and fire extinguisher foam) he decided to wander around the house until he found him. It was bigger than he'd thought, but a look out the window showed him why: Richie was used to the small size of houses in the city, but Eye Patch's house was in the middle of nowhere, nothing but fields all around- and a garden visible out of one of the windows. No need to build small when land values weren't sky high. The rooms themselves were large, with high ceilings. Where there was furniture- most of it shelves and tables with mysterious doodads on them- it was mostly shoved into the walls rather than being in the middle of the rooms, which just gave it the impression of having even more space. To Richie it almost felt like he had to walk for miles to get anywhere, it was just so ridiculously spread out. The décor wasn't as tasteful and art-y as Mac's, but it wasn't cheap like anything Richie could have afforded either, but just a mishmash of styles and colors that somehow worked- then again, maybe it didn't, it wasn't like Richie knew anything about decoration. It didn't blind him, anyway, which was all he really cared about, and it looked like a house that was actually used on a regular basis, which Mac's place had never achieved even though he actually did live there when he wasn't in Paris.

Eventually he found Eye Patch by heading outside. On one side of the house, there was a barn, or maybe a shed. It was kind of mid-size, and what did he know about the names of buildings in the country? He wandered out to it because a) it was the only other building anywhere nearby, and b) when he walked towards it he heard the rhythmic sound of metal hitting metal, which even if it wasn't caused by Eye Patch was at least interesting. The door was wide open, so he walked in, getting hit by what seemed like a wall of heat. The metal on metal sound was being caused by Eye Patch. Even if he hadn't seen it before, Richie knew enough to recognize blacksmithing when he saw it. The process was fascinating, made more so by the fact that he was now intimately familiar with one of the results of blacksmithing.

Shirt off and sweat pouring off of him, Eye Patch folded the glowing metal over and hammered it until it stopped glowing as much, then shoved it back into the fire. "I'm making you a new sword," he said. "If I can get it right. Sometimes it takes a while; it might be a good weapon on its own, but it's not quite the right sword for you- I usually end up selling those. I've been a weaponsmith for long enough that I don't have many unsellable products, but that also means I'm pickier about what I make specifically for people."

"How long have you been a weaponsmith?" Richie asked.

"Since the Bronze Age, at least…does it count if you weren't working metal before then, but you were still making weapons? Doesn't matter, I suppose. A long time, anyway, and if I specialize in anything it's weaponsmithing."

Richie's mouth dropped open. The Bronze Age? He hadn't exactly paid a lot of attention in History (a fact he'd been cursing since he met Mac), but that was a really, really long time ago, even by Immortal standards. The oldest Immortal he knew- had known- was Amanda, and she was only 1000 years old, and he hadn't even heard of older Immortals (although he hadn't assumed Amanda was the oldest; somehow that seemed unlikely); he hadn't thought the oldest of them was that old. Was Eye Patch-?

"Are you the oldest Immortal?" he blurted out.

"That depends on what you mean by oldest," Eye Patch said. "I wasn't born the earliest, that's for sure; Methos is commonly regarded as the oldest on that score. There are Immortals who have probably been consecutively alive longer since their last death than I have since mine. It's not like we have actual knowledge of any of this, just gut instinct and randomly observed patterns, and a lot of Immortals lie on a regular basis, even to other Immortals although that's frowned upon. Most Immortals would be hostile- to the point of going for the neck- if a formal academic study was conducted about Immortals and they knew about it, and I'm talking even ethical, anonymous questions only surveys. Our family being an amusing anomaly- we do unofficial studies of Immortality on a regular basis and share the results amongst ourselves and similarly-minded Immortals."

"But what if somebody finds your studies?" Richie asked. Anybody could find them, and use them against Immortals- like that doctor who kidnapped MacLeod and experimented on him.

"Well, it's not like we're recording information that would be incriminating. A lot of it's simple age, apparent age, place of origin, current place of residence, and gender- which aside from age is all innocuous, and age is usually called something else that makes it sound normal as well. And we do a lot of analysis on who loses challenges, or dies in accidents. Of course, it's all kept encrypted, because it would be stupid otherwise. A determined hacker might still be able to get into it, but it isn't accessible to the public at least- and we do keep it offline, too. And, again, it's not like we keep the more unusual information labeled as what it really is."

When Eye Patch started talking about encryption and hackers, Richie's eyes glazed over immediately, and he decided to drop it. Eye Patch had as much of a stake in keeping Immortality secret as he did, and it was obvious that he knew more about security than he did. And besides, if he wasn't keeping the research secure, what was Richie going to do- Challenge him? "So, you make a lot of weapons?"

Eye Patch shrugged. "It's mostly a hobby and for gift-giving now, so overall I don't forge that many. I make my money in other ways, most of the time anyway. Lately most of the people who have a need for good swords are Immortals, so usually I only forge weapons for family. The mortals just want swords for looking pretty and can't tell the difference between quality and a piece of crap. They see the prices I charge for swords that won't be used and decide to go elsewhere. I do occasionally get mortals who need good quality weapons to use, and I forge for them- and they're happy with the much lower price I charge when I know my babies are going to be used."

"Like, recently you had mortals who needed weapons?"

"The last one was a couple of weeks ago, maybe? You'd be surprised at the uses there still are, but it's a bit early in your studenthood to start breaking your brain worse than it already is. I do let you recover some between shocks."

Richie took a second to chase that thought down, then let it go with a silent whimper. Eye Patch was right, it was too soon to have anything else break his brain. It wasn't even Krazy Glued back together yet. "So, uh, what should I do? Since the computer exploded and all."

Eye Patch shrugged. "Whatever you want. If you want to get started on your education, you can help me with the forging."

"Uh, I don't know anything about forging," Richie said slowly.

"But you still want to start your education?" Eye Patch asked. He did. Maybe focusing on learning would take his mind off of his issues and the gaping wound of MacLeod's betrayal, however involuntary. Eye Patch smiled at his nod. "Good, this part doesn't require knowledge, just muscles. It makes a good foundation for martial arts, sword fighting, all of that." He unhooked something from the forge. "You might want to take your shirt off." As Richie did that, Eye Patch pumped something attached to the forge that looked like it was some sort of relative of an accordion. "This is a bellows. It pumps air into the forge to control the heat of the fire. You have to pump it, neither too fast nor too slow, so that the fire stays the right temperature. Pump it like this, and I'll tell you if you're going too fast or too slow, or if you can take a break." He switched places with Richie. It wasn't too hard to start off with, and Eye Patch's lecture- which was nominally about weaponsmithing, but took detours to history, politics, amusing anecdotes, and science to name just the foremost topics- was really interesting. It was weird to hear how it all fit together- history influencing politics and weapon design and both of them influencing his stories, and all of it backed up by the science people hadn't even known when they noticed that some things worked and some things didn't. Why didn't they teach like this in school, rather than the dry as dirt method they used that never told how things were related to each other?

But even if it started out being easy, it wasn't long before Richie was as sweaty as Eye Patch, and only the breaks that he let Richie take were letting him keep on going rather than collapsing into a heap on the floor, allowing him to catch his second (third, fourth, fifth…) wind as only Immortals could. If he hadn't been so determined to not make a bad impression, he would have already. It was hard work, harder than even swordwork. He was about to collapse for good when Eye Patch called it quits for the day.

"Good job," Eye Patch said, ignoring the sweat and clapping him on the back. "I didn't expect you to last for so long, so you're ahead of the curve. Go take a shower and a nap. I'll get you when supper's ready."

Richie stumbled out of the forge and into the house, a tired smile on his face. It hadn't exactly been the most effusive praise ever, but still, it was praise, and he was tired enough that it felt bigger, somehow. He felt like he'd accomplished something, getting so exhausted- his arms were trembling from the effort he'd expended- and he could feel how it was making him stronger. It was all he could do to take his third shower of the day and stumble into bed and a sleep deep enough that he didn't have nightmares about MacLeod.

Richie felt more human when Eye Patch woke him up a couple of hours later, and he was starving. Fortunately, Eye Patch had planned for that, making more food than Richie thought the two of them could possibly eat, but which was all gone by the time the meal was over. Eye Patch turned the conversation on Richie, asking him questions about his life- mostly about his life history before he met MacLeod, and his likes and dislike, keeping the conversation out of treacherous waters. Talking about his past, Richie realized he hadn't told Angie when he left Seacouver, and they'd planned to do something in a week. Eye Patch pointed out where the phone was, and that he could use it for whatever calls he wanted to- "Just try to avoid any calls that get us arrested, if the phone on either end is tapped- you never know, after all, and it's a pain in the ass to get one of the family to come bail us out of jail." The computer- which would soon be replaced- had its own dedicated phone line, as did the fax machine.

Richie dialed, wondering if Eye Patch would ever stop putting him off balance. The phone rang for long enough that he started to wonder if Angie'd even pick up. "Hello?" Her voice sounded sleepy.

"Did I wake you up?" Richie asked, surprised.

"Just a nap, don't worry about it," she said. "What's up, Richie?"

"That's kind of a long story," Richie hedged. "Long story short, Mac went psycho and I'm staying with a friend so he can't find me."

"What!?" She demanded. "I thought you said he was a good guy!"

"Yeah, well, that's what I thought too," he said bitterly. "So anyway, I'm not going to be able to make it next week."

"You're not in Seacouver? Or you think he'll find you if you go in public?" she asked.

"I'm not in Seacouver," he said. "I'm…I don't know where I am, actually. I was kind of out of it, and he got a plane ticket for me. Still in America, though, I know that."

"How much do you trust this guy, anyway? You never told me anything about him. What if he's another psycho like MacLeod?"

"MacLeod- it's complicated. It's not all his fault. Doesn't mean I'm going to trust him, but he's not usually psycho. And this guy…I met him when I was on my road trip a while ago. He recommended some places to go, gave me his phone number. I wasn't planning to talk to him again, but then I saw his card in my wallet and it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Richie! What if he's some kind of a pervert or something? You barely know the guy!"

"Yeah, well, I wasn't exactly thinking clearly. He's been good since I got here, though. He does some blacksmithing as a hobby- making swords and stuff- and he's got me helping him while he tells me all of this weird stuff that he knows. And what else am I going to do? MacLeod's got resources. If he wants to track me down, he can if I use my bank account or anything. This guy's not making me pay rent or anything- I think I could even get away with not helping with his blacksmithing thing- and he's told me he's adopting me into his family, unofficially. He wanted to do that when we first met, actually."

"And you're not worried about the weird guy who's acting weird about you? I thought you were smart, Richie. That's a good way to get yourself killed."

"I know, I know," Richie said. "Normally my danger sense would be pinging like crazy. But I dunno, for some reason I don't think he'd do anything like that. I mean, he could- the guy has muscles on his muscles, and after helping him out all day I can see why- I about died from overwork, and I was just pumping the bellows. He says he's starting me out on that to build up muscles before he starts to teach me how to actually forge things. But it's like, I can take my chances here, with somebody who seems nice and like he likes me, or I can go somewhere else where MacLeod can find me again if he wants to, and kill me if he hasn't gotten over his thing."

"Why don't you just go to the cops?"

"Who's going to take my word against his? The worst he's got on his record is parking tickets and being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he's a successful businessman with enough money to go to Paris whenever he wants. Me? I'm just a good-for-nothing punk kid. You know how the world works, don't pretend you don't."

"Fine, but if you end up getting killed don't come crying to me."

Richie smirked. Of course, with his Immortality that was an actual possibility, just not if Eye Patch decided to kill him permanently. "Don't worry, I won't."

"Good, 'cause you know I'd just say I told you so."

"Yeah, yeah."

"So, since I can't convince you to change your mind, who are you staying with, so I can tell the cops when you get killed? I expect regular phone calls so I'll know when it happens."

"I'll try for every week, but I don't know how hard he's going to be working me. I might not be able to hold up the phone after a couple more days like today."

She snorted. "I'm sure you'll manage. So spill."

"Well, actually, I don't know his name."

"What? Richie!"

"What? Apparently he never goes by it. When we met he was with another member of his- I suppose our, now- family, Jarod, and he said that nobody knows what his real name is, even people who have known him for years and years. He just goes by nicknames. No idea what he does at banks and everything."

"That's weird. Really, really weird. You're going to end up buried in the backyard. So what do you call him, then?"

"Hey you? In my head I've been calling him Eye Patch, cause he's got an eye patch that he wears all the time, but I've got no idea if he actually needs it or not."

"Wow, it's like a horror movie: you can easily spot the bad guy, and yell at the good guy to run, but he just doesn't listen."

"I'm not stupid, I know what can happen."

"I never said you were, but you have to admit it isn't exactly smart behavior."

"No, but what am I supposed to do? He's weird, but I don't think he's weird that way."

"It's your life. Call me next week? I've got to go."

"Yeah, sure, I'll call to tell you I'm still alive."

"You'd better. Bye, Richie."

"Bye." Richie hung up, happy that he'd gotten to talk to Angie even if she did think he was going to get killed. It sounded really weird if you didn't know about Immortality, and only a little bit better if you did know about it- what Immortal seriously stole a student from another Line? But at least there was some sort of connection between them if you knew they were both Immortal; without that link it was just some random guy who gave him a ticket to fly across the country after meeting him once and having no reason to connect with him, which sounded more than a little skeevy.

Richie yawned. Even though he'd barely woken up from his nap, he was tired again. The day had really taken it out of him, the stress of dying and reviving only the least of the day. He went back to 'his' room and went to sleep.

When he woke up the next morning and took his shower, it was once again to the smell of cooking, but this time it was more recognizable scents- pancakes or waffles, bacon, eggs. Stomach growling, he headed to the kitchen. As soon as he sat down, Eye Patch slid a plate in front of him, full of artery-clogging breakfast foods. Not that it mattered, what with them being Immortal, and if they were going to have another day of forging weapons it was best to have the energy from a traditional breakfast- cereal just wouldn't cut it, Richie knew that after his experience so far learning swordwork. Any sort of physical exertion took a lot of energy, and pumping the bellows seemed to take more energy than most even if it was simple repetitive motion rather than something mentally intensive as well.

Over breakfast, eye Patch told him what they'd be doing that day- mostly more of the same, of course, as that sword would take a while to complete. He continued the casual education he was giving Richie, telling him about the techniques he was using and why, and what alternatives he could use if he wanted to, and their effects. Richie hadn't known so much went into making a sword, although he'd never thought about it, and he asked questions- he'd be using a sword for the rest of his life, it was a good idea to learn as much about them as he could. After all, swords weren't really being made a lot these days, and even fewer swords that were meant for actual use were being made, much less the ones of quality. If Eye Patch was the only Immortal who kept making swords, if he died the knowledge would die out and eventually there wouldn't be any swords. It wasn't exactly a bad picture, but if it happened he didn't want to be one of the ones without a sword when there were still Immortals who did have them.

Eye Patch seemed to know everything, and it kept striking him, more than it ever had with MacLeod. He knew the history, as Richie would expect any Immortal who had lived through it to. He knew the most recent science about it, studies scientists had conducted on swords they had, because apparently scientists studied everything. He knew the uses of the swords, which was a given for an Immortal- it was essential to know which swords worked against which, and which would be horribly outmatched- greatsword against rapier, anybody?- as well as which would actually do the job Immortals needed them for. Mortals might be able to be killed by any sword, but if a sword couldn't remove an Immortal's head the only thing it could do is kill them temporarily. He knew which Immortals used which swords- although he didn't seem to have met any of them unless they were either in the family or over a millennium old, having just heard about them through the grapevine. He talked about the artistry of some of the swords, and whether it was preferable to have a decorated sword or a plain one. He knew the debates about every aspect of sword forging and use.

His enthusiasm about the information he was telling Richie made Richie want to learn more about it all. It was easy to not be excited by things when nobody around you was excited by them, or when they didn't try to make you interested in them as well, but it was clear that not only did Eye Patch know a lot about the subjects he was talking about, but that he loved them, and wanted Richie to love them too. Macleod had done that, too, but on a more limited basis, only having much success in getting Richie interested in justice, which he'd always seemed to be interested in more than anything else. How many times had he convinced Richie and his friends to go along with his efforts to get justice done, even though they didn't care much about it on their own? Eye Patch seemed to do it effortlessly, passing on his enthusiasm about everything through sheer force of personality.

Richie found the following years much the same: Eye Patch encouraging but not forcing him to learn about anything and everything, no matter how random ("everything is relevant when you live as long as we do," he said often), teaching him when he asked, whatever he asked to be taught, gently exposing Richie to both his own opinions and those of others. He hadn't ever been much of a reader, but he found himself raiding the massive library for a book to read each night, out of self defense: Eye Patch wasn't the only one he talked to who seemed to know everything; the whole family tossed casual references into their posts, expecting them to be understood. The only thing Eye Patch really insisted he learn was Latin. As Eye Patch told him, Latin had been so widespread for so long that it had been used as a common language for Immortals since long before Rome fell, and was still used that way at least some of the time. And if he ever wanted to pretend he was older than he was, the best way to do that was to learn how to speak Latin. There was a whole side conversation about the progression of common languages for Immortals, but the end result was that Richie learned Latin, and they started to use it exclusively around the house…until Eye Patch declared him fluent, and asked what language he wanted to learn next, and they switched to using French since his was pitiful.

And, of course, in there he also learned how to fight. It was immediately evident that Eye Patch was better than MacLeod- no matter how hard he tried, Richie couldn't make a hit on Eye Patch unless he let him, and he'd been able to on Mac. Eye Patch taught him more than one style of fighting, none of them named- one which wasn't very pretty but worked, one which made it look like he didn't know what he was doing but worked (for when he was pretending he didn't know how to fight), and one which was very pretty, almost a dance, and was almost showing off- but which worked better than either of the others. But the third, Eye Patch said, would probably only be needed if he was fighting another member of the family- nobody else was good enough for it to be necessary. He didn't stop at swords, either, but taught Richie how to use a multitude of weapons, and all of them against each other in an effective way. Fighting with a sword when the other person had a length of chain didn't work the same way as fighting against somebody with a sword, or a halberd, and while nearly all Immortals used swords, it was stupid to be caught unable to defend yourself because you didn't bother to learn about the other weapons.

The rest of the family (with the exception of the other new family members) knew so much more than him that when he measured his progress against him it seemed almost nonexistent in areas without direct results- he knew he was making progress in learning weaponsmithing because he could see the results and Eye Patch showed him what he did right and wrong in detail. He only knew he was making progress because on their weekly phone calls, Angie started asking him to explain what he was talking about- things he'd just picked up since he came out here without realizing he'd learned them. It was like some sort of weird knowledge osmosis.

Richie's years at Eye Patch's place were just what he needed, but eventually he felt the urge to go back to Seacouver. He'd finally managed to get rid of his fear of MacLeod- after all, there were scarier things in the world, and some of them were his own family members, if he believed the stories they'd posted on the group. Apparently at least a few of them hadn't been above raising a little- or a lot- of hell when they were younger. Eye Patch called it adolescent rebellion, but when he was describing his own life Adam (who he'd actually met before the dark quickening, even if he hadn't known Adam Pierson was a member of the family then; fair enough, Richie hadn't been a member of the family at that time) had described it as nearly genocide. "Silas, Caspian, Kronos and I got ourselves a nice mention in the Bible: Revelations 6:8. You don't get that by having tea parties. Now I just use it on behalf of the family, usually not even when I'm attacked." The family, not his friends: if it came down to a standoff between MacLeod and Richie, he'd choose Richie, hands down, because they were family. "When you get the chance to choose your own family, either they mean more to you than everybody else in the world or you've chosen the wrong family. Family is supposed to be deeper than friendship."

Still being within his first century, Richie wasn't allowed to just go off on his own- but fortunately he was going to Seacouver, where Adam lived, at least in the short term. But then, everything was short term to an Immortal- the only difference was just how short term. So Eye Patch gladly sent him off, with a Family bank account set up in his name- supporting the other members of the family, especially the students, being another of the obligations that the family took on themselves. His bike had long since been sold, and of course he didn't have an apartment or a job, but Richie wouldn't have any problems. He'd been enrolled at the University of Seacouver in a variety of courses which all counted towards a degree; he'd take classes which would hopefully be interesting, but if he found he didn't like college any better than high school he could get a degree in a short amount of time. Eye Patch had recommended he do it at least once early in his life- it would eventually change, and while he could fake a degree and as long as he knew how to do what he said he did it wouldn't make any real difference, it was best to at least have the experience since it was different than high school had been.

Adam picked him up at the airport- outside since the rules had changed and he couldn't get past airport security without a boarding pass- and drove him back to his apartment. They talked about mostly inconsequentials, since they were already up to date on each others' lives from their posts on the group, but Richie was delighted to learn that Adam's building now had an empty apartment, since one of the tenants had moved out. He'd gotten spoiled by living in places he wouldn't have been able to afford if his life had continued without a hitch, and it was convenient to live near Adam for a lot of reasons. It wasn't some sort of decadent palace- Adam was still playing the part of an academic who spent all of his money on beer- but it wasn't a rathole, either.

But that was something to take care of tomorrow- for today it was good enough to crash on Adam's couch. He entered the apartment and, used to Eye Patch's tidy house, he noticed that Adam kept his the same: everything loose up and off the floor. And suddenly it clicked for him that it was defensive: if the floor was kept clean, there wasn't anything to trip over and lose your footing. He'd always thought it was just because it was the way Eye Patch liked it, and that might be a consideration, but after millennia of thinking about how to defend yourself it had to kind of take over your thinking until you did it automatically, and that's what they did. The same as both of them had alarm systems on their houses, and kept at least one weapon in reach at all times. Richie'd only started doing that when Eye Patch had decided to start teaching him for real and started attacking him at random to teach him to be ready for a fight at any time. After getting attacked a couple of times when he was sleeping or in the shower, Richie started carrying at least one weapon wherever he went, too. It got to be habit, something you barely even noticed unless something was wrong. Carrying a weapon was like wearing clothes, now: he didn't consciously notice when he did, but he sure as hell noticed when he didn't, especially when he was going somewhere there were other people.

Despite trying to convince everybody to the contrary, Adam did have more than beer in his apartment. Not that beer influenced Immortals much anyway, but a steady diet of beer and nothing else got boring after a while. And aside from drinks, he had enough food to cook gourmet meals with- which the two of them did, continuing the casual conversation they'd had since they'd started really talking on the group. Adam might have originally been unfriendly towards Richie, but he'd warmed up once he joined the family, and it was good to know that their easy online relationship continued now that they saw each other again in person rather than becoming awkward without pauses to think things out. Richie's skills in the kitchen had improved in leaps and bounds, even if he still refused to have anything to do with food that was too strange (his list of foods that weren't too strange was gradually expanding, but it still had a ways to go), and they easily split the task of cooking between the two of them.

The next morning, they talked to the landlord and Richie rented the apartment, and then they killed a couple of hours choosing a bike for Richie, and finally, after dropping the bike off at the apartment, went to IKEA to get some furniture for Richie's new apartment, since it came unfurnished. It wasn't the best, but then again Richie was a college student; it wasn't supposed to be the best. And he probably wouldn't be here for long, even if he did want to spend more time with his "big brother"; he didn't need the best furniture for a temporary apartment. After setting it all up, they both felt too lazy to cook and went out. Richie was surprised to find it wasn't as good as Eye Patch's, Adam's, or even his cooking, even though it was a relatively good place, which made Adam laugh at him, like he should have expected that they were better than any mortal at cooking. Adam corrected him: "Family is better than non-family, full stop."

The next day, everything set up, nothing more to do, and no pressing reason not to (at least as long as Adam was with him), Richie and Adam ventured out to Joe's, where they were likely to run into MacLeod. Richie was nervous, but he kept himself from showing it, which made Adam give him an approving look.

"Richie!" Joe exclaimed in shock when he walked in the door.

"What am I, chopped liver?" Adam asked sarcastically.

"You steal my beer all the time," Joe told him. "I haven't seen Richie in years."

Richie ducked his head, embarrassed. Joe hadn't done anything to him, but he hadn't talked to him since he saved Richie's life that day, which was a shitty way to treat a friend. "Sorry I haven't talked to you, Joe," he said.

"Don't worry about it," Joe said. "What have you been up to? You fell off the Watchers' radar."

Adam handed him a beer. "Thanks, Adam. I found a new teacher."

"And now you've learned it all from him, so you've come back to Seacouver?"

"Work release, actually," Richie said, quirking a grin. "I'm going to the University of Seacouver for a while. Never thought I'd do school again, especially this soon, but Alex has been cramming my head with all sorts of information for the past few years, so it shouldn't be that much of a change." Alex was one of Eye Patch's up to date aliases. Eye Patch had plans for that alias, but he was very secretive about what they were- he just grinned mischievously whenever Richie asked, so Richie was watching the news for an Alex Thomas popping up, if he made the news.

"Except more boring," Adam said.

"It would be hard for anything to be as interesting as one of Alex's lectures."

"Why's that?" Joe asked.

"Explosions," they said in unison. It was, after all, the standard response.

"Not literal ones," Richie explained.

"Though there are those too," Adam added.

"Metaphorical ones."

"Alex will blow your mind."

"He knows how everything's related, and he tells you about it, but his mind works in this crazy way where he sees real connections that nobody else sees."

"And he knows more than he should- he took me on a trip around the world."

"So?" Joe asked, when Adam didn't say anything more.

"It was BC. We were in this tiny boat that wasn't made for going out of sight of land, much less circumnavigating the world. He wanted to convince me that the world wasn't flat. He picked up a student in the Americas, actually."

"Of course," Richie said, rolling his eyes. Everybody in the family knew about Eye Patch's tendency to pick up students at the oddest times, and on a regular basis. They joked that it was a shock that half of all the Immortals weren't part of the family, considering how many students he taught.

"He's a bit insane," Adam told Joe. Richie nodded emphatically. "But he's a great guy."

Richie was about to say something when he felt a Buzz and stiffened. It was MacLeod, it had to be. The joking mood disappeared, and suddenly he didn't feel as ready as he had been. Adam nudged his leg with his own under the table, letting only his eyes show his concern for Richie. It reminded him that he wasn't alone- Adam was here, and Joe who'd proven he could do more than you'd think. Richie managed a strained smile and they all faced the door as it opened.

"Richie!" MacLeod said as soon as he saw him. "You're back!" he headed towards Richie, looking like he was either going to attack Richie or hug him, and right now Richie couldn't tell which.

"Stay back," he said, his voice strained. "I know you attacked me because of the dark quickening, but I can't trust you anymore. Maybe someday, but not today. My instincts are screaming at me that you're going to attack."

MacLeod's face fell. "Richie…I'm sorry. I know there isn't anything I can do to make it up to you. I just hope someday I can convince you I'm better now." He looked at the three of them sitting together at the table, and said, "I can go, if you don't want me here. I don't want to keep you away from Joe or Adam if you have a problem with me being here."

"No," he said, relaxing a little since MacLeod wasn't pushing it any. "Just…don't come too close, just the other side of the table. I'm still a little freaked out about it, and I can't change that at the drop of a hat."

"I understand," MacLeod said, and sat down on the opposite side of the table. It relaxed Richie to know that not only was he that far away, but he could keep an eye on him, since he was directly opposite. And if he went to the bar or the bathroom, he wouldn't have to pass behind Richie. Hey, at least Eye Patch had taught him how to be logically paranoid and arrange things without being obvious about it.

Joe broke the uncomfortable silence that followed. "So now that you're back in Seacouver, what are you planning to do?"

Richie eagerly jumped on the topic which thankfully didn't involve avoiding talking about how Adam knew Eye Patch so well. Because, seriously, that would be awkward without lying. Not that they were unwilling to lie in the usual course of things, but Joe was a friend, and with the crap he'd put up with over the years he deserved the truth. Lying by omission was the best solution, and not really possible when direct questions were asked.

"Alex and some other people managed to talk me into going to college. I'm back here because the University of Seacouver is pretty good and I haven't seen Angie and you guys in years."

"Translation: he missed getting attacked on a weekly basis," Adam said.

"I was living with Alex," Richie retorted.

"Never mind then, you missed only getting attacked on a weekly basis."

Richie rolled his eyes but didn't object to Adam's interpretation. It was true, even if that wasn't one of his main reasons.

"Attacked?" MacLeod asked, sounding upset. "Why?"

Adam and Richie looked at him in exasperation. "There's a little something called training," Adam said sarcastically. "Maybe you've heard of it?"

"But that doesn't require being attacked," MacLeod protested. "Just sparring."

"And what, if someone decides to attack me they're going to ask nicely and wait until I'm ready?" Richie asked. "You learn best by living it."

Dismissing MacLeod from their minds, they returned to talking about Richie's plans. "What classes are you taking?" Adam asked.

"I don't even know," Richie moaned. "I asked Alex to help me choose some and he picked them out for me. He did say he was putting me in sociology, math, and physical education, but other than that I have no idea."

"Sociology will probably help you get a leg up on getting used to some of the realities of being an Immortal, just because a lot of it's about keeping an open mind and not judging people. Math, that's something that a lot of Immortals are terrible at. I mean, I was born before the invention of the zero and it's everywhere now- who knows, in the future what's college math now might be used on a daily basis. Calculus was only invented- or is it discovered with math?- in what, the 1600s? So it's better to have a good grounding in math now so that if that happens and in the future everybody learns that math in middle school or whatever, you don't have to be quite as remedial a student as you would be if you didn't take math now. And physical education, he probably signed you up for something interesting."

Richie paled. "Interesting? By Alex's standards?"

Adam patted him on the back consolingly. "Don't worry, it's only for a semester. And you know to choose your own classes now."

"What about a language?" MacLeod asked. "I know the University of Seacouver requires four semesters of a language before you can graduate."

Richie shrugged. "I'm fluent in French and Latin, it shouldn't be too hard to pick up another language, especially when I'm sure that whatever it is the two of you speak it."

"You're fluent in Latin and French?" MacLeod asked, baffled. The last time he saw Richie he was far from fluent in French, and didn't know any Latin unless it had snuck into regular use in English.

"Alex insisted," he said in perfect French with a Parisian accent. "If I want to pretend to be older, I can use Latin, and French gives me a good backup nationality."

"How would knowing Latin let you pretend to be older?" MacLeod asked.

Was he usually this slow? "Latin was the common language of Immortals for a long time, and English only started to phase it out recently. If I didn't speak Latin I could be caught pretty easily."

"At least as an Immortal who appears to be of European descent," Adam pointed out. "Since it was never as popular elsewhere. You have to pay attention to those things, for any students you'll have."

"I don't think I'll get students any time soon," Richie said. "I'm a bit young, you know."

"That's no reason to not pick up the information now."

"That's why most of the Watchers have to learn Latin," Joe said. "Though I rarely have to put mine to use."

"That and the fact that most of the Chronicles are in some form or another of Latin, though I suppose that applies more to the researchers. There are enough Chronicles that we have trouble translating them all into something relatively easy to translate, much less every language currently spoken. And if the Methos Chronicles weren't translated I'd have to read them in hundreds of dead languages," Adam said.

"That would have been so hard for you to do," Richie deadpanned. "You never would have had time to try to find Methos."

Joe and MacLeod had sudden and inexplicable coughing fits. Ignoring them, Adam nodded in agreement. "I was so grateful that they'd already been translated. It gave me more time to see if he went back to Bora Bora."

"Had he?"

"I didn't find any evidence, but maybe it was hidden. Future researchers will have to see if they can find the evidence."

Richie gave him a sympathetic look. "The Watchers won't pay for you to go back?"

"No," he said. "And I'm positive a Chronicle is hidden there."

"They just don't have your dedication to history," Richie said, and MacLeod and Joe cracked up.

After learning from Eye Patch for so long, Richie was shocked to find that his classes seemed easy. Yeah, he got Adam to tutor him, but that was mostly to make it more interesting, and to make him better at Japanese than the class would make him. His Japanese class, he was shocked to learn, hardly required anything from him. He'd learned Latin and French under Eye Patch's very intense tutelage- being forced to speak it in a perfect accent and with the best grammar he knew at all times, and picking up vocabulary at a rapid pace, quickly switching to speaking them as exclusively as possible. Japanese was all by rote, making none of the demands on him that Eye Patch had. By working with Adam, he was far enough ahead to easily help the other students in the study group they set up- and their study group consistently made perfect and near-perfect scores on the tests.

Eye Patch had, actually, signed him up for a normal physical education rather than an "interesting" one: martial arts. After the first day, Richie ended up helping teach the class, and sparred with the teacher after it let out. Their audience grew every day. Richie was just glad the woman was good. Maybe not up to the family's standards, but better than most outsiders who hadn't had a few centuries to practice. Eye Patch and Adam both ordered him to get rid of any issues he had with fighting a woman: the average Immortal woman had to be tougher, smarter, and nastier than the average Immortal male to survive because of their physical and societal limitations. He suspected that's why Eye Patch chose martial arts for him rather than ballet or something more interesting.

Sociology had, actually, captured his interest. Sure, it was just explaining the obvious for the most part, but it explained the how and the why, and how it connected together. Not quite to the extent that Eye Patch explained things fitting together, but it was only the introductory course. He'd seen the results all of the things sociology covered, even if mostly in a strange way when it came to Immortals because they had more time. Whenever he studied sociology or went to a class, he saw the things he studied in his daily life, how they affected everybody, even him. And it was a science! Richie hated science in high school. He never imagined he'd enjoy any sort of science. Jarod started to send him sociology papers once he learned about his interest, most of them unpublished papers about the sociology of Immortals.

Math was math, never anything thrilling, but at least the memory of Immortals came in handy there (if they didn't have good memories, how would they remember everything they lived through?), and he didn't have to try hard to memorize the formulas and how they were used.

His classes continued, and as the semesters progressed Richie found himself taking more and more sociology classes, and declaring it as his major. Maybe he'd do graduate school, he thought. That all hit a speed bump when, in the beginning of his fourth year, Immortality was exposed to the world.

It hit the internet first, which meant that long before it got reported on the news everybody at the University knew about it. "It" was a very graphic, high-resolution video of an Immortal dying- it was impossible to fake that kind of injury without leaving signs, and the video was picked apart frame by frame- and not only dying, but reviving, gaping wounds closing, broken bones snapping back into place, the first gasp of revival, the Immortal walking off as if nothing had happened, having not seen the cameraperson.

Before there were any facts beyond the video, everybody was talking about it. How did it happen? Was he an alien? Was he the only one? Who was he? And on and on and on, never going anywhere because there weren't any facts. And there was the group who only talked about it to say they couldn't form an opinion without any more facts- Richie being one of them. Immortals everywhere discussed it, the Seacouver group talking about it with Joe.

"It's not exactly a surprise that this happened," Adam said. "There are cameras everywhere these days."

"You expected this?" Mac asked.

"Not this exactly, but some sort of exposure of Immortality," Adam said. "I know the Watchers have plans in place."

Joe nodded. As the Regional Coordinator he was heavily involved in it- and arranging the funerals of a few Watchers whose Immortals had become more paranoid once Immortality was exposed and noticed their Watchers.

"There's a group of Immortals who are planning to do some spin doctoring," Richie added. He didn't know what they were going to do, exactly, since they'd switched to posting in a language he (and presumably the mortals on the group) didn't know when the mortals realized that what they'd thought was an RPG was real. Some of them had gotten really obnoxious, but they'd always ignored the mortals among them and they kept on doing that. The language switching was just to keep them from learning what their plans were, and French, Latin, and Japanese were all widely known.

"Crash and Burn are making sure no Immortals interfere with their plans," Adam said. "I think they have help, but I didn't ask. They wouldn't expose the identities of anybody other than themselves, and that only if they needed to to get help that they sincerely needed, so it's a non-issue."

"Crash and Burn?" Mac asked.

"Hackers, at least currently, so they can keep anything on the internet from becoming an issue if they have enough help, and if they need help they can get it. Still, the PR group's trying to move quickly, before it really hits the news. They just have to decide how exactly to do it, and who's going to expose their identity. We really don't need more of the usual persecution, and this could so easily go that way."

"The usual persecution? That makes it sound like you think it'll all go badly. Kind of paranoid, if you ask me. I think you're underestimating mortals."

"If you think persecution isn't status quo, I don't know what rock you've been living under. It's harder to find a counterexample than it is to find an example. Any time humans- mortal or, to a slightly lesser extent, Immortal- see people who are different from them, they persecute them. Hate crimes, the Holocaust, witch hunts, religious wars. Racism, sexism, anti-Semitism: it's really nothing new. We're different, therefore we'll be persecuted if and when they learn who we are."

"But the world's been taking a different direction lately, with the human rights movement."

"That all presupposes it's agreed upon that we're human," Adam said, stopping Mac in his tracks. "Which some people won't. And even if it has, so what? Countries have headed this direction before, only to fall, and even if the current ones all fall that knowledge isn't likely to be lost as easily as it could have been before all of this technology- the printing press in particular. And if you truly think that human rights have managed to spread everywhere in the world, you are truly delusional."

Richie and Adam took a trip to see some of their other relatives, before the secret got completely exposed; the mortals didn't know how to spot an Immortal yet, or even whether there was more than one of them, but with the press release scheduled for that weekend, that wouldn't last long…and who knew what would happen after that. They were expecting a certain amount of chaos, but there was always chaos in the world. The only difference was that this chaos would be more relevant to them.

Benton met them at the Chicago airport with his friend Ray, since Benton didn't have a car. Fortunately Ray's GTO was big enough for Ray, Benton, Adam, Richie, their luggage, and Diefenbaker, Benton's wolf. Some confusion ensued, because Ray thought Richie and Adam were getting hotel rooms, Richie and Adam were planning to get hotel rooms, and Benton planned for them to stay at Ray's apartment since Benton lived in the Canadian consulate and couldn't take them in. Somehow, despite the group favoring going to a hotel's clear majority, Benton managed to win that particular argument. Adam and Richie could afford hotel rooms without a problem, and Ray's apartment only had one bed, so it was awkward when they got back to the apartment after having dinner and dropping off Benton, though not as awkward as it could be- Benton had told Ray about Immortality and how they knew each other, so they didn't have to hide anything from him.

"We could still get a hotel room," Richie suggested. "We don't even have to tell him."

"No," Ray and Adam said simultaneously.

"He'd know," Adam said.

"And he'd give us this look," Ray added, twisting his face in an attempt to imitate it, but only managing to look constipated. "Horrible guilt trip, like you kicked a puppy or something." Adam nodded in agreement.

"So how do you want to do this?" Richie asked. "I don't mind taking the floor."

"I'll take the floor," Ray argued. "You guys are the guests, you decide which of you takes the bed and who takes the couch."

Adam looked into the bedroom. "You have a king. Nobody needs to sleep on the floor, even if somebody would rather sleep alone."

"I just met the two of you, I'm not sharing a bed with you."

"Not before the third date?" Richie quipped.

"Don't worry, your virtue's safe from me," Adam said sarcastically.

"Yeah, but you like to hog the covers," Richie shot back.

"How do you know that?" Adam asked.

"Uh, you do remember that we have like a billion relatives who just love to share personal details about all of the other relatives, right?"

"Most of it's out of defense."

"Yeah, if you're a big fan of defense by going on the offense," Richie snorted. "There are some things about you guys that I never wanted to know."

"Remind me to break out the baby pictures," Adam said. "Sweet revenge!"

"How can you have baby pictures?" Richie asked. "You didn't meet them until they were adults, and there weren't any cameras back then anyway- except for the youngest ones."

"Sketches, paintings, that sort of thing. Not literal baby pictures, but from when they were still students, all cute and awkward like- I don't know, baby deer? Falling over because their legs aren't steady enough, doing the usual embarrassing things young people do…"

Richie narrowed his eyes. "Don't think I don't know why you're taking so many pictures of me. Don't forget, I know Mac and Joe. I can make your life a living hell."

"Hey, let's not get into a blackmail war," Ray said. "If you want to share, take the bed and I'll take the couch. Otherwise I'll take the floor."

"Sure, we'll share," Richie said. "After Alex and now Adam, I'm used to having my masculinity challenged, and in the past they apparently used to sleep a bunch of people in each bed for more warmth, so Adam's fine with it."

"Constantly adjusting to new social norms is annoying, it's easiest to just go with the flow and not rest anything. Lip service to whatever's big- nudity taboos, single beds, religions. It saves on headaches and lynchings."

"Hmm, I wonder if Immortals are going to stop following mortal social norms as much after the press conference and the shit storm caused by it are over," Richie mused. He could see it going both ways, really, or even both ways at once. Immortals were used to blending in, just as a matter of habit and paranoia, so the older Immortals might be unlikely to change without some sort of extenuating circumstances, but the younger Immortals hadn't had the time to get into the habit of remaking themselves and paying lip service to the social norms of the mortals around them, so they might not ever get into it.

"Who knows," Adam said. "To a certain extent it's possible to predict what will happen, but not to that extent. It's a change as important as the beginning of the Bronze Age, at least to Immortals, and who could have guessed the effects that had?" The Bronze age had started the Game, although nobody was sure of the specifics of how it started- all they knew was that before the Bronze age there wasn't a Game; it had been nearly impossible to behead an Immortal before the invention of bronze weapons, but with them it was possible, even easy if the other Immortal didn't have a way to defend himself. The Bronze Age had also nearly brought an end to Immortals proclaiming themselves gods, or being proclaimed gods, due to reviving from death, although it had never entirely died out- even at the present there were some Immortals who were called gods somewhere in the world. Once the Game had started, it became unsafe to stay in one place and be widely recognized for what they were- that just drew Immortals who played the Game to the known Immortals, and in many cases led to their death. Bronze weaponry was still new and expensive, and it took most Immortals a while to figure it out, without anybody to teach them tried and true methods since none had been developed yet, and the Immortals who learned them from playing the Game were Hunters who were more likely to kill than to teach. It took a while longer for the Line system to change, Immortals as a whole being resistant to change, and "generations" spanning so many years, but the start of the Game was the direct cause of that as well, since it was no longer safe to be well-known by so many Immortals.

But that was enough heavy thoughts for the night; they went to bed, and when Richie woke up in the morning he was cold because Adam had stolen all of the blankets.

Richie didn't know how they'd gotten on the subject, and maybe (make that probably) he didn't want to know. All he knew was that it was confusing. Adam and Benton had resorted to using props, and somehow they'd managed to get the whole diner interested. That would have been more impressive, of course, if the rest of the diner didn't consist of three people.

Adam began placing the condiments carefully in position on the table. Other patrons of the diner looked curiously at him.

"Okay, so this salt shaker represents Democracy, and the pepper Communism, and-"

"But," interrupted Ray, "I thought the pepper was Anarchy."

Benton shook his head. "No, the mayonnaise is Anarchy, the pepper is Communism, the mustard is Constitutional Monarchy, the ketchup is Theocracy, and the little packet of Splenda is the Autonomous Region of a Confederate Commonwealth. Get it?"

Ray looked up at Benton, his expression completely blank. Adam sighed.

"All right," he began "let's try it with the crayons this time."

"Somehow, I don't think that will work," Richie said. "Are you trying to confuse us? I'm fairly certain that the type of government doesn't matter very much in regards to what laws they'll make about Immortals."

"Perhaps not," Benton said. "However, I must admit I don't have high hopes where Canada is concerned."

"What?" Ray asked. "But Canada's all…polite, and stuff."

"There are…undercurrents," Benton said. "It wouldn't take long for them to change their laws to something more just, but in the meantime…" Benton was law-abiding enough in his current persona that he'd leave if the laws went the way he thought they would, which made it fortunate that he was already living in the United States, as they were sure to tighten their borders in that case. Benton wasn't the only one who thought that it would go that way; through the Immortals' grapevine they'd heard about a lot of Immortals leaving Canada lately, and the press release hadn't even come out yet. But Immortals, at least those who'd been around for a while, had instincts about this sort of thing- they'd seen it before, so they recognized it and knew to get the hell out of Dodge.

From there, the conversation drifted for a while, before it got onto the topic of taking on a new identity. Ray, having gone undercover before- and technically being undercover at the moment- was also interested in the subject, even if he got to have time off to live his own life, which the Immortals didn't get, and wasn't able to create his own identity most of the time, which the Immortals did most of the time, except when it was more convenient to do otherwise.

"See, the trick is to make everyone believe you're a bad liar. That way, when you're lying about the really big stuff, they'll believe you," Benton said.

"…I am never trusting anything you say ever again," Ray replied. "How much trouble did you get us into because you refused to lie? And now I hear that you've been lying about big things. You could be lying about everything! And not just the things you say you're lying about."

"The best lies are the ones that are the closest to the truth," Adam said. "And unfortunately Immortals have never had the luxury of being able to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

"People want to be able to shove you into a little box and label you," Richie added, remembering what he'd been told by the family. "They're fine with labeling you multiple labels, but you have to fit within them, and they get uncomfortable if too many of them fit you, or too few. And Immortals live for so long that they don't really fit any labels that mortals have. If we completely stop hiding and lying, they'll freak out so badly. They're having enough trouble with just the vague concept of Immortality. When you add in the facts of it, the Game particularly, it's going to be worse, and when we finally stop hiding ourselves it's going to be even worse. And that last I wouldn't bet on being an issue for a while, within your lifetime at least. We're cautious to paranoid by habit. I wouldn't bet on a lot of Immortals even exposing themselves as Immortals unless it's forced in some way, though if it goes well more will gradually do that so they don't have to switch lives when they don't want to."

Their second, and last, stop was Santa Barbara, California. The weekend was only so long, and Richie wasn't willing to miss any class if he didn't have to- even if he found his current classes easy, they were enjoyable. He'd lucked out by getting all of the really good, engaging professors, in addition to having completed all of the requirements for his major that he didn't really want to take.

Juliet was a police detective, and she was called out on a case when Richie and Adam's plane landed. Unfortunately, she hadn't given them any way to get into her house without her being there. They could pick the lock, but the alarm was a bit more iffy- Eye Patch's students had a tendency to get creative with their security, and they hadn't had the chance to scope it out beforehand. Besides, when visiting a detective it was usually a bad idea to break into their house, especially when they were the type of person who would visit you in jail just to laugh at you and deny you bail. Juliet was definitely one of that sort. So instead they took themselves, luggage and all, to the police station ot wait for her to return.

It was actually shockingly easy to get in and shown to her desk, considering nobody seemed to have heard that Juliet was having people visit her, despite being caught up on all of the rest of the gossip about her. The officers and support staff all seemed odd compared to Richie's experiences with the police, but by this point any sort of strangeness was just water off a duck's back. He and Adam allowed themselves to get distracted by the Chief's baby, who was a little bit cranky until Adam shared a few of the baby tips he'd picked up some time in his life, and demonstrated them. It was like he had the magic touch with babies, but then he'd had a lot of time to learn how to do it the right way. Experience counted for a lot, after all.

They didn't realize how much time had passed until they heard, "Is this luggage? Spencer! Did you put luggage here?"

"Of course not, Lassie. The spirits tell me it's the luggage of people who are visiting Jules from Seacouver. By way of Chicago."

"Ha! There isn't anybody visiting O'Hara. And even if there was, why would their luggage be here? This is a police station, not her house."

Richie felt a new Buzz. "Oh, hey," a woman's voice said. "Are Adam and Richie here? They didn't have any way to get into my house since I didn't give them a key, and we were on the case so I couldn't pick them up at the airport."

"Lassie" started spluttering, while "Spencer" made happy noises. "Guess that's our cue," Richie told Adam.

"Yes, Juliet does get rather upset when her cues aren't followed," Adam said, getting up and heading out with Richie following on his heels.

Richie snorted, having heard the stories. Of course, it wasn't exactly an uncommon thing in their family; there were stories like that about all of them who were old enough. Their family didn't exactly encourage being the kind of person who didn't have that sort of stories floating around about them. They just had high standards that it usually took a while for their students to meet, in the story-making category. Add in the fact that Juliet was Juliet- the woman who wanted to join the Mafia and only couldn't because she was a woman and didn't feel like disguising herself as a man at that point in time, and, well, it was a good thing that the only people who usually knew those stories were family, or nobody would dare cross her. Family, of course, wasn't safe from her wrath, but they were just as tough as she was, on average, which was impossible to come by outside of the family.

"Adam!" Juliet exclaimed as soon as she saw them, and hugged him. "And this must be Richie. It's so good to see you in person." She hugged him, too, and just as tightly as she had hugged Adam. The members of their family didn't discriminate in their love of the other members on a basis of how long they'd known each other, or at least they didn't after they'd been in the family for long enough. Richie would still be struggling with it if he hadn't met them all in such close succession- even if that meeting was only on the internet for most of them so far. Richie knew that Juliet had known Adam since she was still a student- he'd been a trader, traveling around the world, and Eye Patch had decided that was exactly what Juliet needed to be a part of for her "cultural education": learning about the world and the cultures and people in it, one of the staples of Eye Patch's teaching.

The whole family was, in general, very physically demonstrative, although they did allow for cultural norms- some places and times might kill two men for hugging each other, others might kill a man and woman for hugging each other without being related or married, and various smaller consequences. So Richie was getting used to it. Adam might not hug him in public, but he did in private, and so had Benton and Jarod. Eye Patch tried, but he didn't quite seem to get human interaction right- sometimes he hugged Richie, sometimes he didn't, and whether he did or not seemed random and unconnected to whether they were in public or not. That had probably done the most to relax Richie about his demonstrative family- either they did or they didn't, but they always meant it, and who cared what other people thought? The worst they would do was kill them temporarily, and even then that only rarely happened. His family wasn't going to go from hugging him to hitting him, as his previous experiences had told him would happen. Being hugged tightly by a hot woman was still something he had to get used to, though. Even in his admittedly odd family, the demographics weren't skewed quite so much that there were anywhere near as many women as men, although there was no denying the fact that they had a higher percentage of women than Immortals as a whole. They'd always practiced gender equality and taught them to the same standards the men were- which would have been higher than the men's standards if everybody in their family wasn't taught to the highest possible standards. But the fact of the matter was, not only did other Immortals see women Immortals as weak and easy to kill- in short, easy prey, and never mind that quickenings were worth almost nothing if they weren't taken after a true fight- but women, more likely to be kept sheltered enough that they would think they'd be accepted if they just told somebody about the miracle that brought them back to life, tended to go back to their loved ones and end up dead at the hands of mortals. After all, in most places and times it was nearly impossible for a respectable woman to support herself, if not downright illegal. The option of leaving didn't even cross the minds of most newly Immortal women, historically speaking- and it was ridiculous to look at first deaths in a non-historical way. Only in the past few decades had it become widespread for women to be independent, even if there had been anomalies in that pattern in the past.

"You too," Richie said, relaxing into the hug that meant Juliet really accepted him as family. Every time he got one now, it was like a reaffirmation that he was regarded as family by all of its members, whether they'd met in person or not. "Is your case over, or should we hang around here or go out to eat or something so we don't get eaten by your security system?"

"Hey! My security system wouldn't eat you! …I think. Jarod designed it." The three Immortals winced in unison at that thought. Jarod had a tendency to get creative, so it was disturbingly likely that Juliet's security system actually would eat them, even if it was more likely designed to make them stuck in place. All assuming he hadn't made exceptions for all of the members of the family, which he probably wouldn't have done without asking Juliet even if he knew the answer would be yes. They only invaded each others' spaces politely. The mortals, of course, looked confused. They didn't know about Jarod, didn't know that Juliet had the resources she did, and likely assumed it was just a normal security system. "The case is completed, but I still have to do the paperwork for it," Juliet said. "Why don't you get a smoothie with Shawn while I do it?"

"Pineapple?" The one Richie assumed was Shawn asked, perking up. He'd heard about him from Juliet, of course; a lot of the family's talk consisted of talking about their lives and the people in them, in a complex game of one-upmanship that unofficially awarded points for having odd lives and coworkers. Juliet had won a few points by talking about Shawn and her coworkers, but most of them from Shawn. The antics of the fake psychic- for after being in the family for long enough, which Juliet certainly had been, it was easy to tell the difference between the real thing and an imitation- had amused them all, even if they weren't anywhere near odd enough to win the contest. It was ongoing, anyway, with no real winner, but it did keep the participants from getting bored with their lives- if you deliberately sought out the interesting, it kept things from getting stale. There were members of the family who were taking a lifetime or century off because they needed a break- Adam, for one, although to a certain extent that had gone down the toilet. First he was recruited to the Watchers, then he met MacLeod and got dragged into his exciting life, neither of which was exactly boring to an Immortal. Eye Patch was unofficially disqualified, although he wasn't deliberately playing. He never talked about his life outside of the life he was currently living, but it was universally agreed upon that it was exciting enough to win, hands-down. Having heard some of the stories the others knew about Eye Patch, Richie agreed. If those were the stories everybody (or at least everybody within their family) knew, which ones were extreme enough that he kept them secret from even the family, or that he just hadn't had anybody around for?

"They have pineapple smoothies here?" Adam asked, leading the way out of the squad room. "Richie needs to expand his dietary horizons." He snickered, having "tried to expand Richie's dietary horizons" in a number of disturbing directions in the past. Richie waved bye to Juliet, and followed.

"He hasn't had a pineapple smoothie?" Shawn asked, looking scandalized. "I'll show you the best place to get them." A crafty look crossed his face, and he added, "you're buying."

"They don't have a lot of places that serve pineapple smoothies in Washington," Richie said. "Or any smoothies."

"Probably because of the climate," Adam offered. "Who wants to have a smoothie when it's overcast?"

"Yeah, but still. Not my fault I haven't had one, since they're not exactly everywhere in Seacouver or by Alex." He had finally found out where Alex lived- or at least had lived, as Richie had no idea whether he still lived there- and Kansas wasn't much more likely than Seacouver to have a lot of smoothies. Besides, when he went out to eat the last thing he wanted to eat was more strange food like what he was forced to eat with his family- even if that was nowhere nearly as bad as the foods they took delight in talking about while they ate. Wikkety grubs as food were seriously not appropriate dinner topics. Although on the bright side listening to them talk about it had seemed to improve his ability to not throw up at disgusting things. Mastering the gag reflex: just an early step in getting the cast iron stomach that his family insisted he needed.

Pineapple smoothies, however, weren't something he needed a cast iron stomach for. They were delicious, and he could see why Shawn liked them so much (and seriously, he really loved them, blissing out when he drank his smoothie). Of course, this wasn't the only culinary experiment that he'd liked the results of, but it was at least one which he wasn't surprised at the taste of- even if something was delicious, if you were expecting a different taste, you didn't like it as much. Once Eye Patch had used a sauce called mole that he'd been dreading the taste of, only to find out that it was made with chocolate. He still wasn't sure if he liked it more or less after expecting one thing and getting another. Of course, the fact that it had made Eye Patch hyper hadn't helped much. A hyper Eye Patch was a hard thing to take- which was the true reason that Adam hated boats, since Eye Patch had once dragged him on a trip around the world in a tiny boat and stopped in the Americas to pick up a sizeable supply of chocolate- or cacao, anyway, as it had been unrefined until he'd flavored it with something or another; Adam still didn't know what that was. And if being on a small boat with a hyper Eye Patch had given Adam a fear of boats, training with a hyper Eye Patch had almost made Richie run away. The only reason he hadn't was because he'd already been warned by the other members of their family.

Of course, spending time talking to Shawn Spencer meant that Adam and Richie got to be amused by his claims of being psychic. Eye Patch was undeniably psychic, even if they tended to not talk about it. He seemed to know exactly who to take as a student to make the family better than the rest of the Immortals- yeah, sure, a lot of it was the training, but it couldn't all be put down to nurture rather than nature, especially considering who some of the students had been before they became members of the family. And somehow they all seemed to end up being completely awesome, at least in Richie's admittedly biased view. Most Immortals didn't just take in any new Immortal, even if they found them, often handing them off to a friend to train, and the family was no exception. The ones who Eye Patch rejected had generally turned out to be scum of the earth types with no redeeming qualities, at least in the long run- many of them hadn't had anything much that made them seem like bad people to have in the family until a few centuries or years down the road, when they went totally batshit insane. In contrast, the members of the family that Eye Patch had forcibly recruited had eventually ended up being even better than the rest of the family, and that was saying a lot. Every time he thought about it, Richie started to wonder about himself. After all, Eye Patch had forcibly recruited him- and even more so than the rest of the forcible recruits. Eye Patch hadn't poached anybody else once they'd already found a teacher.

Shawn kept guessing at their personalities and pasts, ending up being relatively accurate if you assumed he was only going after the personas they were currently using. Of course, since he didn't know they were Immortals, that was a reasonable assumption to make. The press conference hadn't even been held yet, so while there might be speculation that there was more than one Immortal, there was no reason to think either of them was an Immortal. Once the press conference took place, though, all bets were off. Juliet didn't know the specifics of how Shawn knew what he did, just that it wasn't by being psychic.

Richie could see how Shawn could manage to fool anybody with a willingness to believe in his powers- if he hadn't known better, he would have believed as well. He managed to somehow figure out that Richie was studying sociology and was a senior, and that Adam was an academic, all with clues that Richie at least couldn't see. Of course, who knew about Adam; the man seemed to have the same ability Eye Patch did to know everything, at least when he cared to use it. He just didn't use it a lot, or at least acted like he didn't use it a lot. Richie supposed the world must be a very predictable world after a few thousand years- except perhaps in the details- but usually Adam tried to blend in better than he would if he blatantly used whatever knowledge he had. Of course, in comparison to Eye Patch's methods of using his knowledge, nothing was blatant, but that really only applied when he was playing to an audience who knew Eye Patch as well.

They finally got back to the station, Shawn delaying them and saying that Juliet and her partner weren't done yet, and leading them on an impromptu tour of Santa Barbara whose star attraction seemed to be a pharmaceuticals company where Shawn's friend Gus ("Burton Guster…Shawn, what are you doing? That's confidential information! Get out of that! Do you want to get me fired?" "But Guuuus…" "Out!") worked, although he pointed out various other "places of interest" along with interesting facts about them all, some of which were either strange or random, or both. To be honest, Richie had found out a while ago that this was his preferred tour style, whether or not the facts were true (as long as he knew whether they were true or not), so he had no objection to it. It was a lot like the tours Eye Patch and Adam gave when they went places, just a bit more limited in scope thanks to Shawn's shorter lifetime. And Shawn seemed to know everything in as much detail as either of his teachers, even if he relayed it in a more dramatic fashion- it seemed like whenever Richie asked a question, Shawn knew the answer, although there were a few he hadn't known, though he covered it by saying something about the spirits refusing to tell. Whatever; the family had taught him that all that mattered was the substance, not the masks people wore or the lies they told. The only difference lies and masks made was how they decided to tell them and wear them, and why. As far as Richie could tell from meeting Shawn and hearing Juliet's stories, he was only putting on a charade so he could solve crimes in a more interesting way, without having to act like a usual detective. Before he started Psych, he'd worked a multitude of jobs which had bored him after a short period of time each, but he'd stuck with Psych for years now, which said something about his strategy.

They actually reached the squad room right after Juliet and her partner finished typing up their reports, which of course Shawn claimed as a victory for his psychic powers. Juliet exchanged an amused glance with Richie and Adam before chiming into the argument Shawn and Lassiter were having over whether Shawn's powers were real, on Shawn's side. The family as a whole tried to support the cover stories of people they liked, and it was difficult to dislike Shawn. Even Lassiter wasn't being as hostile as he could be- there were certainly ways he could more effectively harass Shawn than just by arguing over whether he was a real psychic and whether he should be allowed to work the cases. In amusement, Richie and Adam joined the Juliet and Shawn side of the argument, pointing out how well the "spirits" had guided them around the town.

All excitement aside, the trio did eventually get out of there, for large values of "trio": they allowed themselves to be talked into giving Shawn a ride back to his house, but didn't take him back to Juliet's house with them. That night was Family night; they weren't willing to let an outsider in, even such an amusing one. There was enough time for that later- they'd already made plans to watch the Immortality press release together. It seemed counterintuitive to watch something so relevant to themselves in a group with mortals who they hadn't told about them before now- and possibly might not tell after the press release, depending on their reactions and the extremity- but really, it was for the best to watch those reactions as they learned about Immortals. It was harder for most people to hide their initial reaction than it was to hide their feelings later on- though, as with all human reactions, there were exceptions- so it would be easier to gauge how they would react in the beginning.

That night, after a- of course- excellent meal, they played a drinking game that had been making its way around the family. Ironically, considering how Immortals' alcohol tolerance increased over time, the advantage went to the youngest Immortals playing. The game involved a list of life experiences which by now was ridiculously long- you kept playing until you passed out or died, and some Immortals (such as Adam) had ridiculously high alcohol tolerance, though coincidentally they were usually the ones who had to drink the most in the game. The list was read out, and whoever was the last Immortal conscious and alive won.

The list was compiled of possible significant experiences in an Immortal's life- the first question was always "died your first death". They were read out, and for each of them a shot had to be drunk if it was true for the Immortal doing the drinking. Younger Immortals, having lived for a shorter period of time, had had less time to accumulate significant experiences. Richie had never been a slave; there might be human trafficking somewhere in the world, but for as long as he'd been alive it had been illegal and far away from him. Though, when he did have to drink because of his life before he tried to steal from Mac, it was comforting to see the other two taking a drink at the same time. They both had things they hadn't done- though Richie really wondered how that was possible at Adam's age- but overall they drank for most of the list items. Richie, drinking once in a blue moon, still passed out first.

Blessing the fact that Immortals didn't get hangovers, Richie made breakfast the next morning for his appreciative relatives. "So, is there anybody who's done everything on the list?" he asked.

"I'm not sure how recently he saw the list, but the last time he did Alex had done of the items on it," Adam said.

"We should make it an online quiz," Juliet said in amusement. "Call it the Immortal purity test, or something."

"Would people bother to take the time to read the questions on something that long? For that matter, do those quiz sites let you have that many questions?" Adam asked.

"We could make our own site," Juliet said. "Get Kate and/or Dade to set it up, buy a domain name, pass it around, voila! Instant popularity!"

Richie groaned. "Is this the sort of thing we want instant popularity for? A drinking game?"

"Well, we could set it up with a few pages of educational material, kind of a 'this is what we had to deal with in the past' sort of thing. It might make a few people think," Adam said reasonably.

"Not that it'll do anything for the ones who are dead set against Immortals, but then what would?" Juliet asked. "Extremists are always impossible to reason with. They don't even consider the other side of it."

"You're not going to get much out of a quiz and a site, no matter what, unless the quiz is just a sideline to the site, and the site is both informative and entertaining. But I never thought about it that way. I guess it might sway a few people if they got hit with what Immortals go through in their lives," Richie said, thinking it over. "Get some Immortals to give you anecdotes, write some context for those stories, what it's really like to be an Immortal. Some funny, some sad, some just normal life- make that a lot just normal life. I think a lot of what we have to get through to the mortals is that we're just people, despite our different healing rates."

"Right," Adam said firmly. "You're in charge of the site. Recruit whoever you want. I'll put you in contact with Benjamin Thomas-"

"Who?"

"He's the guy who's doing the press conference. No shady past, only participates in the Game in self-defense, and died during the American Revolution- which is documented. Stayed out of politics his entire life. PR-wise, the best Immortal we could find for the job."

"Right, recognizable Immortal who can give me stories that make us look at the least not like monsters."

"He's been a doctor and done charity work for much of his life," Adam added. "Other than that, gather your resources and do it. It's probably best of you use a lot of non-family sources. You know how we are."

Yeah, the family was a bit odd. And very protective of their privacy when they wanted to be. They didn't make the best representatives of normal to good Immortals, though some of their stories, anonymous or using the name they used at the time that the story took place…that was probably a good policy to put in place, anyway, because he could guarantee that a lot of Immortals wouldn't want to be known by either the name they went by currently, or their "real" name, the one they introduced themselves to other Immortals with. There was sure to be both anti-Immortal backlash from the mortals, and backlash from Immortals who wanted to stay secret, so neither name would truly be safe. And in some cases, even the name they'd used at the time wouldn't be safe. It wasn't always possible to get out of pictures and paintings, or to acquire them afterwards; sometimes Immortals didn't even know their picture had been taken or that a sketch of them had been done. But on the other hand, other Immortals weren't as paranoid as the family was; maybe they just wouldn't care. It was hard to know, because MacLeod was horribly careless with his identity- he still used the same name, and Richie had never heard of him using something different- and, well, the family was just the opposite. It wasn't even considered odd for an Immortal in the family to refuse to go by anything other than the name of his persona, or to refuse to act differently than that, although it certainly wasn't something that they all did. And even if they had no objection to being referred to by their "real" name, most members of the family were consistently called by the name of their persona by the other members of the family. Other Immortals were probably somewhere between the two extremes, but Richie had no idea which end of the spectrum they tended towards, paranoia or recklessness.

Richie would have objected to being put in charge of such an important project- sure, it would most likely amount to nothing, but it also might end up being the most important thing any of them could do to advance the Immortals' cause- but he had ideas, and with some help it was a project that was well within his skill set. The family might consider new Immortals to be students for a hundred years, but they didn't coddle them. It was fortunate, because a hundred years of not being allowed to do anything sounded like hell to Richie. So he'd set up the site, getting everybody to double-check his efforts and suggest improvements and making changes that sounded good, because he could totally do this even if he only had a little bit of amateur experience from a computer science class he'd taken. There were guides, right? And he knew what worked on a website and what didn't, which was apparently a leg up on a lot of people out there. The only problem was that he had to plan for it being a popular site, at least briefly, and make sure his site didn't go down under a tide of visitors. He left Adam and Juliet behind to clear away the dishes, and wandered off to get a start on making the web site. First step: get a computer, since he didn't have one of his own. It had always been convenient to use Adam's (they lived next door to each other and had each other's keys, how much more accessible could it get without them living together? And wow, that sounded gay), but the web site promised to take up a significant chunk of his time, forcing him to spend it on the computer, so it was probably for the best to get a computer of his own. A laptop, since he'd have to take it back to Seacouver with him and he wasn't thrilled at the thought of packing up a desktop and taking it with him. The TSA might think it was a bomb, given that they also thought that water might be a bomb.

So Richie had a task to occupy himself with for the day, debating between the different laptop models and programs that he might need. A display of graphics software reminded him that he needed to make the site look pretty, and he needed somebody to do that, since his skills didn't lie in that area (yet? The family seemed to have a way to pass on every skill its members needed, or might possible have a slim chance of needing, so he wasn't precluding the possibility that they had some way of teaching artistic ability). Some of the relatives were really skilled at art, but he wasn't sure whether any of them were good at the sort of art that would look best on the web site. Oil painting, yes. Photoshop? Maybe. The skills might not transfer well without training which they may or may not have gotten. He added it to his mental list of things to check on and do for the website. If nobody in the family had the abilities needed, he'd have to find somebody else to do it, without being too obvious about what it was for. The site should stay secret until its release. But he was able to call a few of the family to ask their general opinions and advice- when he was reasonably certain he wasn't being overheard, meaning when he was back at Juliet's house- and got a few of them to commit to helping him, including Kate and Dade, although neither of them could talk much since they were still hard at work keeping the internet subdued until the press conference- at which time they would drop what they were doing, just like every other Immortal and no few mortals, and not return to it. All they really wanted to do was keep the misinformation and unfavorably skewed true information reduced until the facts were all out there. It would be impossible to keep up forever, even with their epically large circle of hacker friends who were helping them with it.

By the time it was time to gather with his family and Juliet's friends/coworkers, Richie hadn't technically accomplished much, but he'd managed to get some sort of a grasp on how much he had to do, and what he had to do, which was at least a starting point. Rome wasn't built in a day, after all, and while this might not be Rome, it was still time-consuming to do properly. There would doubtless be half-assed sites out there within minutes of the press conference- there already were some which were purely speculation and the video clip playing on repeat, not to mention the YTMND site of it, which had music in the place of speculation. That Immortal would have been so embarrassed- and probably would be in the future- if he hadn't run off to somewhere where he wouldn't come in contact with a single living person who might be able to identify him. Whatever; Richie's site was going to be awesome.

The crowd was bigger than Richie had been expecting, but then again he hadn't been paying a lot of attention to the arrangements. Not only was it the family, Shawn, and Lassiter, but also Gus and Henry Spencer, Shawn's dad. But apparently Juliet hadn't known their group was going to be expanded, either, because she looked at Shawn to silently ask why Gus and Henry were there. Not that she minded one way or another, but she hadn't planned for them to be there, which meant there wasn't enough food for all of them if they all wanted to eat, not that there was much more than snack food anyway.

"I brought a casserole," Gus offered.

"I brought a pineapple upside-down cake," Shawn offered. Richie was starting to think he was obsessed with pineapple. Or possibly got his abilities, whatever they were, from pineapple. Hey, stranger things had happened in fiction, and if there was one thing his life had taught him it was that life was always stranger than fiction. Maybe that was just his life, though; surely other people didn't have as strange of lives as he did.

Juliet rolled her eyes and let them all in. She hadn't planned to kick them out, anyway, even if the house wasn't really designed for that many people to all cram themselves in one room. It ended up being a bit clown car-ish, and Richie was fairly certain they were violating the fire code, but whatever. He'd always wanted to die in a fire while squished into a room with six other people like they were sardines. It had made his top ten list of ways he wanted to die. Okay, maybe he was being a bit sarcastic, but as long as he confined it to his head nobody would know other than Adam and Juliet who had the family's near-psychic powers of knowing what the rest of the family was thinking. He didn't mind if Adam and Juliet knew what he was thinking; they were family, and if you didn't feel comfortable with the family reading your mind who did you feel comfortable with reading your mind? Wait, that came out a bit odd. Anyway, the family near-telepathy was handy when they were in a mixed family and non family group and wanted to communicate with each other. They just knew, no talking required. Richie was still working on his, of course; it wasn't an actual superpower, just something borne of the family's knowledge of each other (and observation skills, in the case of the students), and Richie was still young, as he was constantly reminded by the older members of the family.

So, they all gathered around the television, which was fortunately a nice large one. Immortals tended to fall into one of two categories when it came to technology: slow to adapt, only picking it up when there was no other choice, since it was still new to them; or delighting in new things, getting the newest and the best and the most full-features, embracing what was new because someday soon it wouldn't be new anymore, but old. Juliet was one of the latter, as was most of the family except for a few odd cases who didn't quite fit into either of the categories. But then, the family had always been more adaptable than the rest of the Immortals. It was just another thing they did better than everybody else. And damn, if it didn't make Richie feel great every time he was able to think that. His family really was the best.

They caught a bit of the news when they switched the TV on, before they turned the channel to the correct one. "-The woman is armed and dangerous. Once again, Jennifer Smith murdered her boyfriend gruesomely, and is currently on the run from the police. If you have any information about her whereabouts, call-" the channel was switched to the correct one, which was currently showing a commercial for a prescription drug. The Immortals exchanged amused glances; of course the pharmaceutical companies wanted to advertise while the mortals were feeling vulnerable from all of the talk about Immortals.

"Hello, I'm Benjamin Thomas, and I'm an Immortal," Thomas said, which came as a surprise to nobody. After all, it was supposed to be a press conference with an Immortal. He had been young when he died his first death, and handsome. "I was born in 1755 in Virginia, and I died my first death in the Revolution, fighting for America's freedom from England. Immortals are just like mortals, until their first death; they don't know they're going to be Immortal, and they live their lives in the usual way, and get injured and heal in the usual way. That changes when we die our first death. We get fast healing, but there isn't a way to pass it on to our loved ones, and Immortality is extremely rare. If there were a lot of us, you'd see us everywhere since we live for so long. As it is, in the larger cities you might- might- get a dozen Immortals who are permanent or semi permanent residents, and a more or less random number of Immortals who are just passing through for one reason or another. We're worried that when we say Immortals say they don't know they're Immortal until they die their first death, people will commit suicide on the off chance that they might be Immortal. Please don't. You have a better chance of being struck by lightning. A lot of Immortals- I'd say the majority of them- have studied medicine to try to find a way to duplicate our Immortality, and so far we haven't had any success. Medical experimentation won't show you any more than we have already learned ourselves; we'll be making that information available soon. And please, realize that Immortals have had to be cautious for all of their lives to avoid discovery. The habits of a lifetime, especially as long of lifetimes as we have, are hard to break or to muster the willingness to break. I'll be taking questions now. You, in the green shirt."

"Why the secrecy about Immortality?"

"I'm nowhere near being the oldest Immortal, and what you have to realize is that many, if not most, Immortals have lived through times of terrible persecution. The vast majority of us were around for the Holocaust, and a good number of us were around for the witch hunts- or at least the most recent series of witch hunts- which were terrifying for Immortals, from what I've heard. They were killing ordinary mortals for nothing more than being a bit odd, or baseless accusations, how happy would they have been to get their hands on an Immortal who healed quickly? We might not die permanently from being burned alive or hung, but it still hurts. There are Immortals who have gone insane from being burned at the stake. And before that, there was the Inquisition, and before that…you get the message. And that's only the examples that everybody here will know something about, not any of the ones the modern world has all but forgotten about. There are a number of us who have personal experience with that sort of thing."

"Who was the Immortal in the video?"

"I don't pretend to know every Immortal in the world, or even in this country. I have no idea who he is, just that he went off on his own to try to avoid the issues fame brings with it."

"Don't you care?"

"Not really. If he wants his privacy, let him keep it. He hasn't done anything wrong; he hasn't even done anything out of the ordinary for an Immortal."

"Can you show us the healing?"

"I figured this was going to get asked, so I brought my own knife, unless you don't trust that it's a real knife? Does anybody else have one?" The answer was no, and he went on, pulling a knife out from his waistband. "Okay, I'm going to cut my hand because it's visible and won't leave any holes in my clothes. Ready?" He held his hand up so that it was easily visible to the camera and drew the knife across it in what was nearly the standard of proving that Immortality was real. Of course, he was a real Immortal, so the sparks of the Quickening traced over the cut and healed it within seconds. It wasn't impressive to the Immortals, barely even a shaving cut, but there was the sound of an indrawn breath from all of the mortals at the press conference. For all that they'd seen the video, and that it had been certified not tampered with, it hadn't seemed real to them until they'd seen it in person. It wasn't surprising. Living in the world of science they did, Immortality seemed like a magic completely incompatible with the reality of the world, and it was something that was easy to brush off when it was only seen on a screen. But as always, it was difficult for them to brush it off when they saw it in person. Special effects weren't so advanced that they could do that in real time, while the audience was there. Sure, it wouldn't entirely convince all of the TV viewers, but at least it would convince the newspeople who would be relaying this information to the world, or at least those of them who weren't already in on it- most of whom were in on it because they were Immortal, themselves.

Shockingly for today's media environment, some of the reporters were willing to play hardball and had somehow managed to figure out more about Immortality than the public had been told so far. So of course they asked about the Game.

"I've heard about something called the Game. Can you tell us more about that?"

"Damn, I just lost the Game," Shawn muttered. Richie'd never thought of that interpretation of the Game, and found it taking on a new dimension.

"The Game is duels to the death between Immortals- yes, there's a way we can be killed, but I won't be sharing that as I'd prefer to keep the hate crimes from becoming deaths. Most Immortals only play the Game out of self-defense. If another Immortal decides he really wants to Challenge you, you can try to ignore him, but the only sure way to keep from getting attacked is Holy Ground or staying in public, before the video was released. Neither of those is a good way to live your life, so it's generally better to accept the Challenge and hope you're good enough to win."

"Why do Immortals attack each other?"

"Why does anybody attack another person? Greed, hatred, insanity, it's all there. Our motivations are the same. Some Immortals believe very strongly in playing the Game, others just use it as an excuse."

The rest of the press conference went as expected, and was more than a bit boring to those of them who knew it already, but the Immortals knew how to fake interest well. Of course, it was all new information to all of the mortals, except perhaps Shawn. None of them knew how he got his information, and he wasn't acting any more or less attentive than usual, so there was no way for them to know if he knew it before.

Lassiter's response to the press conference was predictable: hostility. Even without the stories Juliet had told them, if they had only met him a day ago, and that for only a short time, it would have been obvious that that would be his reaction. Lassiter wasn't exactly a tolerant person. Henry Spencer's reaction was similar, but less extreme. Gus thought it was awesome- Richie was right there with him, even years after he first learned about Immortals, and after he'd experienced firsthand the uglier sides of being an Immortal, or being attached to an Immortal. Immortality was just awesome when you didn't have to worry about the indirect effects it had on your life- the Immortal culture, on the other hand, with the exception of the family, was terrible enough that he'd get out if he could, and he knew that a lot of other Immortals felt the same way.

"We should just arrest them all now," Lassiter said. "At the least, they have fake IDs."

"This game of theirs means that they're all murderers," Henry added. "And how many cases could have been solved if they hadn't run off instead of sticking around?"

"But…Immortals," Gus protested. "How can you say that? It's so awesome."

Richie had to wonder if he actually thought that argument would work, because to him it was obvious that it wouldn't. Probably nothing would work, short of them finding out that they were Immortal- which they wouldn't be- and even then he wouldn't give it good odds; then again, there were some Immortals with the same sort of attitude even if the details were different, so maybe they would.

Shawn wasn't taking part in the argument, which seemed odd; from Juliet's stories, he never turned down a chance to argue with Lassiter and Henry. So Richie looked at him, and saw a thoughtful expression on his face (okay, it would have been a thoughtful expression on somebody else's face; Shawn just squinted his eyes and looked between the three Immortals). When Shawn realized he'd been caught, he looked at the Immortals one last time, winked at Richie, and threw himself into arguing against Lassiter and Henry. Richie relaxed; Shawn had been the person Juliet had worried about, since he was the most likely to figure it out. If he wanted to, he could expose Juliet to the world, or stop being friends, or anything really. He held her life in his hands, and sometimes it was hard to tell which way Shawn was going to jump. It made things interesting, but unpredictable. Fortunately the gamble had paid off this time, as it did most of the time with Shawn. He'd keep her secret for as long as he needed to, just like she would do with her knowledge of the fact that he wasn't a psychic.

Richie's next sociology class was taken over by discussion of Immortal society. Fortunately, it was a sociology class and not a philosophy class. Richie wasn't sure he could have stood people who knew the barest details about Immortality discussing whether their actions were moral. But sociology didn't ask whether things were right or wrong, merely why they happened, culturally speaking, and what the effects were. Everybody had their own reasons, morality was cultural, and that was as close as they would come to talking about morality.

"Does anybody know any more about this Game?" one of the students asked. "He wasn't exactly informative about it."

"What more is there to know? They have duels to the death," another student replied.

"But why? And why did it start? When?"

"A friend of mine told me it started in the Bronze Age, when the technology was developed that made it possible to kill each other relatively easily- swords, axes, bladed weapons. Before then it was barely possible to do before an Immortal healed."

"But why? They just picked up swords one day and started trying to kill each other?"

"Nobody knows for sure, since there aren't a lot of Immortals that old still alive- and good luck finding one- but the prevailing theory is that it started with just one or two homicidal Immortals who went around killing the other Immortals. That was such a shock to them- remember, before that Immortals dying was almost unheard of- that the other Immortals who heard about it got swords to defend themselves with, became paranoid, that sort of thing. Somewhere along the line somebody called it the Game as a sick joke, and as the Immortals who had any clue about how it started died off, the younger ones came up with their own theories, and we got the myth of 'there can be only one'." The other students and the professor stared at him. "What?"

"How do you know so much about Immortals?" someone asked.

"I know some of them," he said. "Mostly online, but some of them in person."

"How do you know they're not lying to you?"

"Because I knew about Immortality before the video was taken," he said. "Besides, the ones I know in person all proved it."

"So how do they know so much? You said the Immortals who were old enough to know were all dead."

"Not all of them, though the older ones tend to not admit how old they are. But there are Immortal scholars. I know a guy who's a kind of Renaissance man; he's studied Immortal biology and sociology and psychology, and probably everything else too. History, of course, since everything having to do with Immortals involves a lot of history."

"Fine, I guess you know. So, do you know anything else about the Game?"

"I know a ton," Richie said. "Should I just talk, or do you have questions?"

"Why don't you talk, and if we have questions we'll ask them?"

"Hmmm. I suppose the best place to start is the statistics. It's not exactly easy to get the statistics since most Immortals a, were born before science was dominant, b, don't want to be studied, and c, are willing to eager to kill the person trying to get data. And that's only if the person's an Immortal- a mortal couldn't get any information from any Immortal who wasn't friends with them already. So the statistics aren't exactly accurate, and I don't even know how you'd get a representative sample of Immortals since they come from everywhere and everywhen. But from mostly anecdotal evidence they've figured out that most Immortals die before they've been Immortal for a hundred years."

"What? But they're Immortal!"

"They're forced to fight, from as soon as their teacher lets them go, against people who have centuries of experience at swordfighting. And a lot of teachers consider a year or two good enough for their students." They didn't seem to get it. "Have any of you done martial arts?" A couple of them raised their hands. "So, if you'd been doing martial arts for a couple of years, in preparation for unending no-holds-barred fights to the death with experts in multiple martial arts, would you consider that good enough?"

They looked horrified. "No way! That's just asking to get killed."

Richie nodded. "That's what Immortals do, though. In part it's because after a while working so closely together you start to get sick of each other, and the student thinks he's good enough and seeks fights anyway, but mostly it's because no matter how close they are, most Immortals find it impossible to completely trust each other. They've mostly been taught that eventually it's going to come down to two Immortals who have to fight to determine who wins the Game, and it could be any two Immortals. And except for the ones who join traditional Lines, it's the same thing their teachers did with them."

"Traditional lines? What's the difference between them and the other ones?"

"Modern lines," Richie said. "Well, traditional Lines have almost died out- as far as I've heard, there are only two of the left. They're what lines used to be like before the Game was invented or discovered or whatever. So, modern Lines, they're basically one teacher, one student, for a couple of years, and then they split up and do their own thing which may or may not involve seeing each other in the future. The student probably doesn't meet their teacher's teacher or other students or anything while he's a student, although there's always the possibility later on assuming they're still alive. Modern lines popped up after the Game started and Immortals got more paranoid- there are examples of new Immortals killing their teachers, and older Immortals pretending they're new so they could get an easier kill.

"Traditional Lines are older. They've been around for as long as anybody can remember or find evidence of- which is basically as far back as writing goes. In a traditional Line, when an Immortal takes on a student, it's a huge commitment. I only really know about the one Line, but when they take a student he remains a student of the family for a century, during which he isn't allowed to fight in any Challenges and is expected to learn what his teacher and the rest of the Line tells him to learn. It's not really a one teacher one student situation, though most of the learning is one-on-one; the Line sends their students to the other members of the Line to learn, since some people are better at some things than others and it's better to learn from the best rather than somebody who's just decent. It helps keep down the 'I've spent so much time with you that I want to kill you' situation, too. Traditional Lines are a lot tighter-knit, since everybody knows each other, but on the other hand members of Traditional Lines are supposed to never kill each other because of the Game, and support each other in all endeavors. Which might not sound so bad- you do that with your family, right? But if you're all living for centuries, there's pretty much a guarantee that some of the other members of the Line are going to want to do things you don't agree with."

"Like what?"

"Well, I know of one Immortal who wanted to join the Mafia," Richie said. "They wouldn't let her join because she was a woman and it was the '20s. Uh, let's see. There's the usual fighting on opposite sides in wars. I mean, it could be anything. Immortals do everything mortals do except have children- and even then, some of them adopt."

"Wow, I wonder what it's like to be raised by an Immortal."

"Depends on the Immortal. A lot of Immortals' adopted kids have no idea their parent's Immortal. Some of them do know. But Immortals try to blend in a lot, so it's probably not much different than being raised by a mortal. A lot of Immortals don't even adopt, though."

"Why not? Since they can't have kids of their own…"

"Yeah, but the problem is that there's always a chance that they'll lose a Challenge and die, and there are Immortals who are perfectly happy to kidnap or kill mortals to get an Immortal to accept a Challenge. They're usually the same Immortals who don't care about any mortals, just see them as nuisances."

"Well, if they feel that way about mortals, I don't see why we should keep them around. They're not even human."

"Hey, do you want all mortals to be judged based on Hitler or Dahmer, or do you want them judged as a whole? It's the same thing. You can't judge Immortals based on only a subsection of them. There are Immortals who are more like Mother Teresa than the other end of the spectrum, and most Immortals fall in the middle of the spectrum most of the time. And as far as not being human? They share all of the physical characteristics of humans other than healing, otherwise everybody would have known about them long before now. They don't know they're Immortal until they die and revive. And most importantly, they're sentient beings. No matter what your definition of human is, it's still wrong to treat sentient beings the way we do animals- not to mention, it's a bad idea in a more practical sense, because if mortals decide to commit genocide on the Immortals they'll never get them all, but if Immortals decide to do the same in revenge, well, biological warfare won't kill an Immortal."

"Yeah, but compared to the number of humans- mortals- on Earth, there are very few Hitlers and Dahmers," a student pointed out. "I don't know how many Immortals or psycho Immortals there are, but unless half the world's Immortal, there has to be a higher percentage of psycho Immortals than there are psycho mortals."

"Okay, that's true, at least as far as I've been able to tell," Richie conceded. "But part of that's because of when a lot of Immortals were born and raised- it's only really recently that war started to be considered a bad thing, and in the grand scheme of things stuff like chivalry are really new too. I mean, the oldest Immortal is 5000 years ago- that's the Bronze Age, depending on where in the world he was at the time- do you really expect him to have the same mindset people who were born a few decades ago? There used to be things like honor killings- and I'm only talking a couple of hundred years ago in the West, and still going on today in other places- where you killed members of your family who besmirched the family's honor, which sometimes was by doing things that don't seem dishonorable to us today. And add to that the fact that by definition Immortals are foundlings, mostly in times where orphans weren't exactly welcomed with open arms. So if they're lucky enough to avoid infanticide, a lot of Immortals were raised as slaves of one sort or another, even in relatively civilized areas like Rome. And some of them had good masters and some of them had bad ones, just like some of the ones who got adopted had good adopted parents and some of them had bad ones. I mean, you've all heard and read the statistics on kids who aged out of foster care- you really think most of them are going to have their shit together quickly after they learn they're Immortal, or even at all? And back in the day, there was really nothing to protect against child abuse. So you take all of that and add on the fact that Immortals are forced to either play the Game or die, which weeds out the most pacifist, the ones who aren't skilled in swordsmanship, and the ones who aren't prepared for whatever their opponents throw at them, dirty tricks or not. Which mostly leaves behind people who are devious, willing to fight, probably had a bad childhood, are told that they have to kill other people if they want to live, and have had at least one traumatic incident in their life. It's a formula made for a psychotic break, and a lot of Immortals have a period of headhunting before they hit a century. Some of them go back to not hunting, and some of them don't."

"That's depressing. Can't the Immortals adopt the pre-Immortals? I read that they could sense them."

"Sort of," Richie said. "Some Immortals can sense pre-Immortals, at least partly because of the Immortal's age, but it's not really a concrete thing. I mean, all Immortals can feel the Buzz from all other Immortals, but with pre-Immortals it's like that annoying hum that you don't quite hear but might be there, only nobody else hears it, and it fades in and out. And sometimes it gives false positives. But the thing is, it probably wouldn't be for the best to have pre-Immortals raised knowing that fact, and not among mortals, because if they're raised among mortals they feel closer to them- a feeling that at one time they were one of them. Raised as pre-Immortals, what's to keep them from getting an Immortal superiority complex? They don't have that connection to mortals. And taking on students who grew up in the present helps most Immortals keep anchored to what's current, forcing them to learn about new things and not stagnate- it's easier for an Immortal to hole themselves up on a mountain somewhere than to keep up with the latest trends unless they put real effort into it. I mean, how many people over age 50 have trouble using a computer? And most Immortals are over 50, but because they look the age they died at they're expected to have the cultural lexicon of somebody who actually is that age. Somebody who looks our age who stares blankly when you mention the Matrix or IMing stands out a lot, and it might be possible to explain away a few incidents like that, but there's a limit to that. And in return the student learns how to be an Immortal, hopefully how to make the psychological adjustments necessary to be an Immortal, and the older culture that they might not be able to pick up on their own."

"You said that taking on students helps keep most Immortals anchored to the present. What do you mean? Shouldn't that be all Immortals?"

"Not really. I mean, there are some Immortals who are really, really good at modernizing themselves. There's an Immortal that I know of who's an elite hacker, for one thing, and has been since at least when personal computers were invented. There are Immortals who are heavily into pop culture, always at the bleeding edge of what's new. Some Immortals don't take students, for one reason or another- think they'll do a bad job at it, think they're too young, are terrified that their student will kill them, there are a lot of reasons, really. Not all Immortals need help staying anchored to the present, and not all Immortals take students, so it's not the kind of situation I can say all about."

"There's an Immortal hacker?"

"There's more than one of them. I only know of two elite hackers, but probably a lot of Immortals have picked up that kind of skill lately, since everything's becoming computerized. Even on a casual level, before the video went public Immortals had to: sneak out of morgue without it looking suspicious and starting more investigations into missing bodies, transfer their funds when they were supposedly dead- though mostly they go for banks which don't care who you are as long as you have the right information, like the Swiss banks, and get new identities, some of which needed to be airtight- I know of an Immortal working on a top secret project for the military, and he was in covert ops before that. It's not the kind of identity that you can trust your friendly neighborhood fake ID vendor to make for you, especially when you need to get a sword through customs and really want to avoid coming to the attention of the police- police make your life a mess when you occasionally duel other Immortals to death, carry a concealed sword with you everywhere, and only have a fake ID because they hadn't invented identification papers when you were growing up, and even if they had it would be from too far ago to use."

"How do you know about all of these Immortals?" Someone asked, and Richie froze. He'd been hoping nobody would pick up on that little fact, but he supposed he should have expected it. This class was full of bright students who liked to argue and learn everything they could, and they were experienced at finding the vulnerable point in an argument and attacking it.

"Uh, well, I'm an Immortal?" he said tentatively, wincing at how bad he sounded. He was hoping for a good reaction, at least from this class, but people were always unpredictable, so he was prepared for an adverse reaction. And considering that one person had suggested genocide of Immortals? He might have to deal with that from at least one person, although they might have just been playing devil's advocate.

"Really? How old are you?" one voice said over the clamor that resulted. At least that was an easy enough question to answer.

"I'm not even thirty yet," he said. "I've only been immortal for ten years."

"So there's a good chance you won't make it to a century?" a woman he'd talked to before asked, sounding very upset at the idea.

"Technically, yes," Richie said, spurring a wave of upset voices. He hadn't realized he was so popular. "But I'm actually a student of a Traditional Line, so unless something goes horribly wrong I won't be fighting any Challenges before then, so I shouldn't have that problem. And I was part of a Modern Line before I was adopted into the Traditional Line, and I fought a few Challenges then- when I was very poorly trained, by my current standards- and won them, so I'm not very worried at all. I've got another 90 years to brush up on my technique before I have to fight anybody for anything other than training."

"Oh wow, so you know all of the stuff about Lines first-hand," someone said. "I thought it was just from somebody telling you."

"No," Richie said. "Well, sort of. I mean, I don't know it all personally, but a lot of it I do, and my Line has a tendency to study Immortality and pass the information on to the rest of us. But I do have personal experience with both types of Lines, and I've met enough Immortals who weren't a part of either of my Lines that I know what's generally true and what's just a quirk of the individuals involved. Everything I know about Traditional Lines other than my own isn't first hand at all; we try to avoid the only other Traditional Line because they're mostly scumbags, and like I said there's only the two Traditional Lines that are still around."

"So your information about other Traditional Lines might be completely skewed?"

"Yeah, it could be, but the only way would be if my Line members were lying to me, not if they had bad information. My Line tends to be a bit on the long-lived side, so there's more than one of them who was around when the switch from Traditional to Modern Lines took place."

"A bit?" someone snorted. "Didn't you just say that most Immortals die before they hit a century? And you have multiple people in your Line who are thousands of years old."

"Okay, okay, I may be understating things a bit. But my Line's pretty big- Alex keeps taking in students, and some of them follow his example."

"Who's Alex?" was asked.

"He's the founder of my Line," Richie replied.

"Alex? That doesn't sound like the kind of name he would have if he was really thousands of years old."

"It's only the name of his current identity," Richie said. "Alex never tells anybody his real name, as far as we've been able to determine, and he insists on being called by the name he's currently going by."

"That's crazy."

Richie shrugged. "It's Alex, nobody expects anything else out of him. He's always been unusual."

"And by unusual you mean crazy."

"Alex doesn't believe in sanity or insanity, so I'm going to have to say no, unusual is the word I mean."

"What does it feel like to die? Did you have to leave behind your family when you died your first death?" And voila, rude questions. He knew they'd come up eventually.

"It depends on the method of death. Sometimes you don't even notice you're dying until you revive from being dead. Other times, it's very painful until the pain stops when you die. With experience, most- or possibly all- Immortals get used enough to pain that it's easy to ignore. For mortals, pain is a warning sign, but for Immortals it's just something to push past- either it's something that'll heal, or it's too late and you're already dead. As for my family… I was a foster kid, and I only got off of a dark path because I was stealing from an Immortal who got attacked and then took me in to keep me from saying anything. So I didn't really have a family to leave, but the people who took me in for a while- the Immortal and his girlfriend- already knew about Immortality and there wasn't an issue there. I just wish his girlfriend hadn't been killed at the same time that I was. Now, the Immortal- my first teacher- he had to leave when he revived. It was 400 years ago, superstitious clan, and when he came back to life they thought he was evil or something- and that was the first he heard that he was adopted, which was a huge shock. Personally I think he should be glad he wasn't rekilled after that, which I know a few people who were, sometimes over and over and over. Apparently the Spanish Inquisition was not a nice place to be if you were an Immortal- or a mortal, of course, but once a mortal dies that's it. When an Immortal dies they get to revive for another round of exciting torture. And apparently the Inquisitors were more careful about their mortal captives than their Immortal ones- because, after all, Immortals healed."

"You're just full of cheerful stories today."

"Well, a lot of human history is dark, and a lot of the time at least one Immortal was hit by the brunt of it. I mean, Jack ended up in the Line because Alex ran into him as a pre-Immortal in a concentration camp, and he didn't make it out without becoming Immortal. We tend to travel the world, which makes us stick out, which makes us likely targets for whatever bigotry's going around."

"Why do you travel the world? I mean, I get that you need to switch locations every lifetime or whatever, but you don't have to move very far for that, right?"

"That's partly true. Apparently it used to be that you could move three villages away and nobody would know you, but then they invented better transportation, and you had to travel farter before you wouldn't be recognized by anybody- it's a bit more of a problem when you look exactly the same way as you used to do than if you change as you age until you might not like anything like you used to. But in large part, it's because if you're living in one place for long enough it'll eventually get boring- you know the area, you know the people, you've been doing the same job for four decades, and you want a change. You want something different. And in the meantime, there are other Immortals coming through your town and telling you about all of these awesome places they've been- how many of you want to go to London or Paris or Barcelona? It's the same thing. And you can afford it because you've been saving your money, and you know you can get or learn a new job once you've moved- you have no kids unless you adopted, your wife dies, what's holding you back? And then if you stay in one place too long, word gets out that you're a permanent resident, and headhunters come looking for you, one after the next. And lately, even mortals are traveling the world if they have money, and if you've been Immortal for a while or have a good support system in your Line you tend to be filthy rich."

"So, does that mean you're filthy rich?"

"It's hard to believe of somebody who was nearly a street kid, but yeah, I am. The Line's very supportive of its members, and especially the students, and that extends to money. I don't have to work until I want to, just like everybody else in the Line, and if I ever want to take a few decades off to contemplate my navel or whatever, I won't have to worry about where my food's coming from."

"Man, I wish I had an Immortal sugar daddy or two," someone muttered, provoking peals of laughter.

"Well, it makes sense to support the students of your Line to the fullest extent possible that isn't damaging- there is a point at which it's not support, it's coddling, and that's not a good thing. For one thing, Lines are basically families, the closest thing a lot of Immortals will ever get to having children of their own since they won't adopt. For another, they're the strongest mode by which ideas about Immortality are transmitted. Students tend to have the same attitudes about Immortality, Immortals, mortals, and the Game as their teachers, closer the longer they spend with their teacher. And obviously Immortals want their own ideas to survive, and to do that they need to make sure their students survive. I mean, we can't pass on our DNA, but we can pass on our ideas, and that's a powerful motivator, especially when you do have the resources to spare to support your students entirely without feeling the crunch. A lot of the Immortals who adopt do the same thing with their mortal adopted children. Again, it's mostly a case of why not? But if they aren't related to you through either being a student, an adoptee, or a friend- assuming you can convince them to accept your money, since a lot of people are touchy about being given money- most Immortals don't care very much, just like most mortals. So a lot of Immortals give a lot of money to charity, because they care in the abstract, just not about any random person. There are six billion people on the planet Earth, and you can't be the sugar daddy of all of them. Plus, that's a bit skeevy, and I'm told Immortals do eventually get over the stage most people your age are at, of being willing to have sex with anybody who wants to have sex with us. It's easy enough to find casual relationships and free sex, but it's a bit harder to find love, and casual relationships get old after a while. It's all the same, even if the trappings change over time- there's not really a difference between a prostitute in ancient Rome and one today except for the context, and the social mores and legality of hiring one. Plus, when you think about the fact that arranged marriages used to be the norm everywhere, not just in some places, no dating, it's really not surprising that Immortals tend to want long-term relationships a lot of the time, whether that's with a marriage license or some other method. Mortals' lives are too short anyway, for anything with them to be considered too long unless something goes horribly wrong- those divorces where they say that even one week was too long to be together, much less the five years they were together or whatever."

"As interesting as this discussion is, class is over now, and we do have to cover the material that will be on the test," the professor said. They'd run over, actually, and the next class was hovering around the doorway waiting impatiently to be allowed inside the room for their class.

That evening, he and Adam would be seeing Mac and Joe for the first time since the press conference, so he wondered what their reaction to it had been. Certainly, there would be Immortals who were upset about the press conference, who preferred to keep the details quiet and assumed both that that would be the best course of action, and that it was even possible. And never mind that their dedicated hacker army had worked hard to keep other Immortals from getting their version of it out there before the press conference; some Immortals were a bit slow to pick up on those little technological improvements like computers and the internet, and the effects they had on even those people who didn't use them. And he had no idea what the Watchers' reactions would be. Joe might grumble a bit, but he'd be okay with it, but Richie didn't even pretend to know anything about Mac's thought processes these days; he might react in any way and Richie wouldn't find it surprising. It wasn't like he hadn't reacted unpredictably at other times, and even the thought of Immortality going public seemed to upset him. No matter how much studying under Eye Patch and Adam had improved his ability to read people, it seemed to have decreased his ability to read Mac, to the point where he was friends again with Mac, but he couldn't predict hardly any of his reactions. Whereas before the Dark Quickening, he'd understood Mac even if he didn't agree with him, understood what he was going to do and been able to predict it. It was a somewhat confusing backslide- if he'd been able to predict Mac back then, why couldn't he now?- but not something he thought about more than casually, just relegated it to a background piece of knowledge and acted accordingly, never dropping his guard when Mac was around. He thought that Mac didn't even notice that he was always on guard, now, so he supposed all of those lessons in faking it that Adam and Eye Patch had given him had paid off.

Joe was on the phone when they got to the bar, and he looked wrecked, like he'd been working too hard and not getting enough sleep, if he got any, lines etched into his face reminding them all that he was only mortal. After talking for a few minutes on the phone and writing on a pad of paper, he hung up.

"That makes six," he said grimly. Adam and Richie instantly understood what he meant, but Mac was a bit slower. When had Richie become more perceptive than Mac? Or had Mac gotten worse, rather than Richie better?

"Six what?" he asked in confusion.

"Six Watchers who have been killed in the line of duty," Richie told him.

Adam looked concerned, too. Of course, he'd always been more of a researcher, and even then stationed in Europe for the most part, but he was still a Watcher and felt a certain kinship with them, and he'd played poker with some of them at Joe's poker nights. If Mac and Joe took the rumors as true, they probably believed that he'd founded them, but the Line knew that he hadn't been involved in the creation of the Watchers at all, even if he had become a Watcher for the first time within a few generations of the founding of the Watchers. So it wasn't guilt on his fault, except maybe that his fellow Immortals had killed his fellow Watchers. That was actually an exceedingly rare event. The vast majority of the Watchers killed in the line of duty- and there were no few of them, Immortals having a tendency to venture into situations that were dangerous in one way or another, knowing they would survive the experience- were killed by other mortals. Even those Immortals who discovered they were being Watched had a tendency to shake their tails rather than kill them. There were exceptions, of course, but once one Watcher had been killed by an Immortal the remaining Watchers backed off and only Watched from a distance. And many of the field Watchers were nearly fanatics, who wouldn't say anything about the Watchers even under torture- Joe being a curious exception for a number of reasons, but then again at the time he was assigned to Mac, Mac was living a very quiet and uneventful life. There were more Watchers who had killed themselves to avoid exposure than ones who had been killed by Immortals- and a significant percentage of the Watchers who had been killed had managed to obscure the Watcher symbol before they died, keeping the secret. Not counting the fiasco with the Hunters, the Watchers had lost maybe twenty of their members to Immortals killing them in the last century. For them to have lost six in this short period of time, when they hadn't even fully recovered from the other recent losses, was nothing short of horrible. And Joe was the supervisor of the region; he was responsible for all of them, and most of them he'd assigned or had a voice in assigning.

"Anybody I know?" Adam asked.

"I don't think so- wait, did you know Carl Barron?" Joe asked.

"Carl Barron? I thought he was in research. I played email tag with a Carl Barron, and I don't remember reading that there was more than one Carl Barron in the Watchers," Adam said.

"I'm not even going to ask why you think you know the names of everybody in the Watchers, because I'm fairly certain I don't want to know," Joe said. It was probably a good idea, because as a lowly research Watcher on a project that was practically mothballed, there was no way he should have access to the lists of Watchers. But on the other hand, he had programmed the Watchers' electronic database, and kept up a regular correspondence with Crash and Burn, so there was really no doubt about how he got access to the information. "But yeah, that's him. He was filling in for Susan Rogers- the Immortal had a long history of not being any sort of a problem, staying out of the Game as much as possible, not causing problems for anybody, never killed a single mortal in his life. It wasn't his lucky day, I guess, and there's no doubt that it was that Immortal who killed Carl."

Adam winced. "I guess he lived up to his nickname."

"What?" Mac asked. "What nickname?"

"Bad luck Carl," Joe said. "He used to have the worst luck. Even came under investigation a few times because of it, but nobody ever seriously thought he was doing anything wrong- he was under such a close eye that he wouldn't have been able to unless he was James Bond or something. It was always just terrible, terrible luck."

"Once somebody walking past his office when the door was open tripped and spilled their coffee all over a one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable tome. Had nothing to do with him, except that he was reading the tome then, but that's the way his luck always went. Getting killed by a pacifist Immortal while subbing for somebody else is just par for the course," Adam added. "If he'd been a field Watcher for real, he'd have gotten killed his first day on the job and everybody knows it."

"I thought you said you barely knew this guy," Mac said.

"Well yeah, we only ever met through email. He was decent enough in his area, but it didn't overlap much with the Methos Chronicles," Adam said with a straight face. "I mean, other than that one rumor that will likely never be authenticated, there's not much in common considering he dealt with the pre-Columbian Americas. But the Research Watchers are bigger gossips than the field Watchers. Everybody knows about everybody else's business- you'll notice there weren't any research Watchers in the Hunters, though I'm sure at least some of that is because it takes a different mindset to want to go out and kill all Immortals and to sift through barely legible documents in dead languages hoping for a mention of an Immortal that you recognize as one. The rest of it's because we all know each others' business and get rid of our bad eggs quietly when we need to."

"Are you saying that when Shen Li took early retirement…"

"He took a bit more permanent type of early retirement than a lot of people might have been thinking, yes," Adam said. "The research Watchers have been preventing their own version of the Hunters from cropping up since the beginning, and they've done a better job of it overall than the field Watchers have. Not that field Watchers ever learn about the earlier versions of the Hunters, of course- wouldn't want to give them ideas, would we?"

"But the research Watchers do learn about them?" Mac asked. "That doesn't seem right."

"Yeah, but research Watchers are language geeks or historians, or most often both, and they tend to learn from history more than the average person. Though come to think of it, some of that might be because most of the research department is made up of Immortals," Adam mused, and wandered off to a table.

"Wait! What?" Mac and Joe demanded. "There are Immortals in the Watchers?"

Adam gave them a sardonic look. They knew he was an Immortal, and they knew he was a Watcher, and they didn't connect the dots until now?

"Other than you," Mac said in exasperation.

"The research department is usually mostly made up of Immortals," Adam explained. "There's a very strict code in place to keep the Immortals in the research department from killing each other or using the Watchers' information for their own gain, but enforcement isn't usually needed. The Immortals in the research department tend to be repeat Watchers, who don't want to take part in the Game at all, and a lot of us are interested in preserving the knowledge of our history for the future, or just interested in the past. And honestly, if there was a mass purge, either with executions or just a mass firing, there wouldn't be much of a research department, except for a few oddballs like Carl was. Obviously, we can't be field Watchers except in a few strange cases- the Buzz has a tendency to give us away, no matter how hard we try to hide, so unless it's a friend or something it's a bad idea- and we have a tendency to know multiple languages, most of us Latin at the least, so becoming research Watchers when we want to contribute is just natural."

"But- almost all of the research Watchers are Immortal? Why didn't you say anything earlier?" Joe asked, trying to wrap his mind around the concept. In his mind, hardly any Immortals knew about the Watchers, and most of those were because of Mac's indiscretion with information about the Watchers. He saw Adam as an anomaly, who probably only knew about the Watchers because he'd invented them as his version of a little black book- those were really hard to keep updated when all Immortals were highly mobile and you might go centuries without being in the same region even as a specific other Immortal, much less talking to them for long enough to find out their most recent contact information. To hear that the Watchers were not only known about, but infiltrated by, a number of Immortals, blew his mind.

"It doesn't really have any relevance," Adam said with a shrug. "It isn't against the Watchers' rules to be an Immortal- we made sure of that- and none of them are likely to blow their cover any time soon."

"But that there are that many Immortals that we didn't know about-"

Adam wore a perplexed expression. "Do you think those are the only Immortals you don't know about?"

"No, there are always a few who pop up from time to time and can't be identified."

"A few?" Adam asked. "There are probably at least as many Immortals who haven't been spotted by the Watchers as there are Immortals who have been spotted, and let's not even mention all of the ones the Watchers only ever get a glimpse or two of. The Watchers are in for a shock if there's ever some sort of forced exposure law, because I guarantee there are going to be a ton of Immortals who the Watchers have no record of at all. Though I suppose they might be distracted by all of the Immortal research Watchers." He wore an amused smile at that thought. That would really freak out the Watchers; everybody else would be freaked out by…certain other people who would be exposed as Immortals.

"What do you mean, forced exposure law?" Mac asked, panic in his tone.

"What, you didn't consider the possibility?" Richie asked. It wasn't like there wasn't already talk about it, which Richie would have thought that all Immortals were paying attention to, in the interests of knowing what everybody thought about it. Widely-held personal opinions tended to become policy, after all. But then, he supposed Mac didn't really spend a lot of his time around mortals, or at least not in a way that included paying attention to them. He went out and did the usual casual tasks among them, but when he wanted actual conversation he came to Adam and Richie and Joe- who was practically counted as an honorary Immortal since he spent so much time around them. Joe's opinions were more likely to be in line with the Immortals' opinions than in line with the average mortal's opinions, at least on this matter. There were unmistakably differences- living for so long and being socialized the way Immortals were did make a difference, after all- but in the whole Joe knew their side of it enough that he sympathized with it.

"I don't even know what you're talking about," Mac said, although it was obvious that he had at least a suspicion.

"Forced exposure, as in we have to give some sort of indication that we're Immortal or get arrested or fined or something," Richie said. "Mostly people favor forcing us to wear our swords visibly- which says nothing about if you use a different weapon than a sword, or don't habitually carry a weapon."

"It's a very popular idea right now, especially in Seacouver where it seems there have been a number of decapitations over the years," Adam said. "You didn't know about this? I just hope it doesn't go the way of those little yellow stars they used to make the Jews wear in Germany."

"In today's world? I think we have more to fear from rogues- either rogue government organizations or groups like the KKK- than we do from 'official' sources like sanctioned discrimination or the government rounding us up," Richie argued.

"No matter what the source, the end result is the same," Adam said.

"Hey, if they're rogue, then hopefully the government will be trying to solve the crime and fix things and keep it from happening again- bad PR when that kind of thing happens, you know? So it's not really the same result, when the other way around it's the government throwing all of its power into it."

"They could still do it as a black ops sort of thing, where they deny that it's sanctioned when it really was."

"Yeah, but even then the government can't put all of its strength behind the black ops group, and they could do that with the ghettos and concentration camps and death camps, except for that whole World War II thing that cost them a lot of money."

"True," Adam conceded. "And you have a point about society today. They're willing to protest anything, so if we needed to protect ourselves we could have a few rabble-rousers go out and find a few protestors for us. It shouldn't be too hard. After all, we look just like them so they can't help but see us as the same as them- except, presumably, some people in the abstract, and when dealing with some of the less ethical members of our society, but then they do see even human serial killers as monsters before they see them as humans."

"Yeah, well, somehow I don't think they're going to be too happy when they realize the press conference was a bit sugar coated," Richie said. "Did he even mention the Game? I kind of zoned out after a while. Wasn't like it was new information to me."

"Yes, but he made it sound like an occasional thing that's mostly self-defense," Adam said. "Not that I think that'll keep the mortals from latching on to that point, but I suppose it means it might buy time before they're hit with the shock of realizing that a lot of the time it's the so-called 'good' Immortals who Challenge other Immortals. Still, legally speaking the Game isn't even a grey area most of the time, what with all of those pesky no dueling and no homicide laws."

"Which will be fun to deal with."

"Brat, it's not like you'll even have to take a Challenge for another ninety years," Adam said. "By the time you have to deal with them all of the wrinkles will be ironed out. Or we'll all have moved to our own country or killed each other off."

"Or gotten killed by the mortalists," Richie shot back.

"Mortalists? Good word for it, and maybe having a term for it will curtail some of the mortalist behavior."

Richie snorted. "How quickly is the Supreme Court going to hear a case about mortalism? How soon is there going to be an amendment written to make it official? Let's not forget the wonderful record there is with dealing with that sort of thing."

"Yeah, yeah," Adam said. "It's not directly comparable, but I get your point. Don't forget that we might be a minority in number of people, but we're not a minority power-wise. How many of us are in positions of power? How much money do most of us have? Despite what they may claim, the government tends to make things favorable to those with a lot of money and power, especially when we have so many people who are the ones making the laws."

"Yeah, but if the laws don't get enforced they aren't any use," Richie argued. "So if we don't get a majority of the everyday people on our side, we'll have problems. Especially if an involuntary exposure law goes into effect, and then hey! If the mortals aren't on our side they won't reelect our people, and then the mortals will be able to do whatever they want to do. I mean, somehow I don't think there are enough Immortals to change the outcome of anything but a neck and neck election."

"Not even in Seacouver," Adam agreed. "And you're right, but there's only so much we can do. Your site's getting some hits, maybe that'll help."

"At least it's something," Richie agreed, "and my sociology class was relatively accepting. But it just doesn't seem like enough. I mean, we're going through something that's huge, major, that's going to change what Immortality means forever, and it seems like we're just sitting on our asses and not doing much."

"It doesn't seem like much, but you said it yourself: what we need is the everyday people on our side. So what we're doing, talking to people and convincing them one at a time, is maybe the most important thing we can do since we weren't in a position of power when this all started. You convince one person, and they go out there and talk to other people and convince them, and they convince even more people, which is something that the media just isn't able to do as well as we can one on one."

"So, you really think this involuntary exposure thing is going to become a law?" Joe asked. "It just seems so far-fetched. Though I suppose it would make our job a bit easier."

"So far they're shocked and want to know who the Immortals in their midst are," Adam told him. "There's a bit of anger that we've concealed it from them, and in some places fear from the people who have figured out that virtually every Immortal who is alive today has killed at least once." He rolled his eyes. "And just what do they think all of those people who were in the military did?" he demanded. "Sit around playing tiddly winks?"

Richie snickered. "Considering some of them? That's exactly what they think. How they can be the ones who picked up on what the Game means in practical terms, I don't know, but somehow they are."

"Give it a few more days, and people will start to really pick apart the press conference for clues," Adam said. "And some of them are disturbingly sharp, so I'm sure it won't be long before they know everything there is to know from the press conference, whether stated outright or merely implied."

"We should just move before things get worse," Mac suggested.

"Speak for yourself," Richie said. "I've got school."

"Besides, what makes you think it'll be any better in another country?" Adam asked. "Canadian Immortals are fleeing the country in anticipation of what they'll make their laws, and the other countries seem to be more up in the air than either America or Canada is. France still has their old guillotines sitting around, if they decide to go that way." The Immortals all twitched at that- the guillotine was something of an object of horror to them. A sword or axe could be used to kill or defend against Immortals, but a guillotine was good for one thing and one thing only, and it had been invented by a mortal who didn't even know of the existence of Immortals, much less how to kill them.

"Why is America so likely to end up that way?" Joe asked. "It isn't much different than other countries, is it?"

"Not really," Adam said. "We've just had a lot of Immortals taking positions in politics and reporting lately, so we're more prepared to work it to our advantage than other countries are. We have hopes that other countries will follow America's lead, though, since America is so prominent globally. I mean, what's a little exposure if we get everything else we want? Which we're poised to do: laws against discrimination and hate crimes, free immigration and emigration as long as we're not spying, the Game controlled by Immortals only rather than dealing with the government interfering in it, we're going to get it all, and hopefully the new laws won't be switched back in the future. And if America is the first country to come up with laws, that's precedent that the other countries can follow, set up their laws similarly, that kind of thing, so we're really pushing for it to happen quickly."

"How quickly?"

"Basically as quickly as possible," Adam said. "Which wouldn't normally be terribly fast, but the preliminary bill has been written up for a while now, just waiting for this to happen, and with as many Immortals in Congress as there are it shouldn't take too long."

"Wait, if the preliminary bill has been written up for a while and you think that there will be an involuntary disclosure law, does that mean the involuntary exposure law is from Immortals?"

"Yes," Adam said. "It's been decided that, despite the negatives, it's better to be visible than to be a minority that nobody ever sees unless something goes wrong and one of us ends up on the 9:00 news for going on a bloody rampage or whatever. If the mortals see us doing our groceries and everything, we'll just seem like normal people that they won't see anything wrong with. Or at least that's the theory."

"In the short term it won't be very fun," Richie said. "But considering how long we live I think it's better to think about the long run more than we think about the short term consequences. It's not like we're going to be able to fade back into myth and legend, what with all of the video cameras and shiny new forensic methods there are now, so it's better to present ourselves as something that's almost boring except for the fact that we can heal and a few exceptions. But the fact is, there aren't that many Immortals who are willing to volunteer for that sort of thing, having all eyes on them because of their Immortality when they've spent most of their lives avoiding just that."

"You knew about this before now?" Mac asked Richie, sounding wounded that he hadn't shared. "How?"

Richie snorted. "Some of us keep in contact with other Immortals," he said. "I mean, I know it's a novel concept to you, talking to Immortals when you haven't just randomly bumped into them after a couple of centuries apart, but some of us manage it just fine, and it's a good way to keep up to date on what's going on in the world as it pertains to Immortals. Did you even call anybody other than Connor and Amanda about it?"

"Amanda didn't answer her phone," Mac said sulkily.

Richie was sure he wasn't alone in rolling his eyes at that. "That's just sad, Mac. I've only been Immortal for a decade and I'm probably on a speaking- or at least regular communication- basis with more Immortals than you are. You're becoming a hermit, despite all appearances to the contrary."

"I am not becoming a hermit!"

"You only really talk to us, Amanda, and maybe Connor on a regular basis," Richie argued. "The rest of the Immortals you run into are either old enemies, old friends become enemies, or friends- if I'm being generous, since they seem to be closer to acquaintances- who breeze into town one day and waltz back out shortly afterwards, ne'er to be heard from again. So you might not technically be a hermit, but it's not from lack of trying, since we usually have to drag you out to do anything fun."

"Fun?" Mac exclaimed in outrage. "You wanted to go to a monster truck rally!"

"What's wrong with monster truck rallies?" Richie demanded. "Not highbrow enough for you? There's more to life than opera and museums, you know."

"But, monster trucks!"

"I found it to be lots of fun," Richie said. "You, Adam?"

"Of course I liked it! It was my bloody idea!"

"It was your idea?" Mac asked. "But you're…" He floundered for words, having managed to avoid mentioning Adam's real identity in Richie's presence so far and not knowing that Richie already knew it. "Shouldn't you be more, I don't know…"

"A bit more what?" Adam asked, drawing Mac out and having fun with his dilemma. "I'm what?"

"You're, you're, you!" Mac said oh so articulately.

"Yes, Macleod, I am me, and I have been since the day I was born. Possibly before, depending on which theory of Immortal origin you proscribe to. But I don't see what bearing that has to the current topic. I quite enjoy monster truck rallies."

"You're Methos!" Macleod burst out in frustration. "Why do you pretend to like all of these horrible things?"

Adam glared at Mac, even though he'd been goading him into it, and it wasn't the first time he'd tried to get him to slip. Mac, realizing his slip, gulped, and his eyes darted to Richie. Richie put a suitably stunned expression on his face. He probably looked like a fish now, his mouth open and his eyes open wide. Glub glub. Joe, who knew both that Richie knew that Adam was Methos and that Adam had been trying to goad Mac into slipping up in front of Richie, looked between them all in hidden amusement.

"Methos, I'm sorry-" Mac started to apologize, but Richie cut him off.

"You're Methos?" he asked, putting just the right amount of awe and amazement into his voice- the right amount, of course, being all he could possibly manage. Adam hated that reaction. "Did you build the pyramids? What's the meaning of life? What was Cleopatra like?"

Adam glared harder at Mac. "Look what you've done! Now he's going to be following me around like a lost puppy, or going after my head in an attempt to gain my knowledge or something ridiculous like that. And all because you couldn't keep your big mouth shut. I can't believe you never got yourself burnt at the stake because you told the nice villagers with torches and pitchforks and a witch finder at their head that you were an Immortal. And horrible things? What, because they're new they're automatically bad? Am I supposed to just wait around for a few centuries before I go to a monster truck rally? Before I listen to Queen? Before I read the latest Harry Potter book? What, you think opera is better than Queen because it's been around for longer than you have? Well, news flash, MacLeod: there aren't a lot of things that are older than I am, and hanging around the pyramids all the time gets boring. I'm not about to ignore things I like just because they're new. There are too many things in this world that disappear too quickly to wait for them to become old enough to meet your exacting standards of age, and that applies to Immortals as well."

"What do you mean, Immortals?" Mac demanded, getting ready to argue back at Adam now that he'd gotten off of the topic of Mac's slip up.

"What do you mean, what do I mean, Immortals? You all die, except Alex. I've even got to the point where I can predict how long you'll last, at least once I see you settled into your Immortality. No idea on Richie yet, of course, but you'll be dead for good before you hit 600- too much of a boy scout to leave well enough alone, and you'll eventually run into somebody who's better or just plain sneakier than you are, and you'll die."

"What are you talking about, "of course" you don't know about Richie? He's settled into his Immortality. He's not a student any more, he's out on his own."

Adam snorted. "First of all, not even you Immortals from those pathetic Modern Lines are settled into your Immortality after only a decade. Second? Richie isn't from a Modern Line, he's from a Traditional Line, and that means he's still got another 90 years to go as a student before he'll have even a chance of settling into being an Immortal."

"What are you talking about?" Mac asked in confusion. "Richie was my student, that means he's from a Modern Line."

Richie beat his head on the table, dropping the pretense of being in awe at Adam being exposed as Methos. "Thanks a lot, Adam," he groaned.

"Sorry, Richie," Adam said sheepishly. "I got caught up in the moment." Richie waved him off in forgiveness, and he turned to Mac to explain. "Richie got poached."

"Gee, that makes it sound so great," Richie snarked. "You're really patching things up, here."

"What, you think you can do better?" Adam asked.

"No," he said grumpily. "I'll go get another round. Everybody want the same?" He went to the bar and left the awkward conversation behind. He didn't want to be in Mac's line of fire when he realized that Richie had ditched him completely in favor of a new Line.

"You remember when Richie killed Mako?" Adam asked Mac. Mac didn't have time to wonder how he knew about it before he continued. "Well, he went on a bit of a road trip. Thought he'd been kicked out, because that's what most of his experiences with human kindness were up to that point: the kindness only lasts until it doesn't, whether it's because he screwed up or some other reason. He met Alex and Jarod on that trip, they pointed out a few places he might want to visit, gave them their contact info, had a bit of a talk. Which turned out to be a good thing, because when you had that dark quickening he fled from you and ended up going to Alex. Now, Alex is a bit of an odd duck. He takes a lot of students and teaches them to be very, very good at whatever they want to do, and seems to have a sixth sense for Immortals who will do well in life. Oh, the stories I could tell you about some of his students' successes- oh! By the way, Joe, I've been meaning to tell you: one of his students is working on prosthetics, and they're apparently very close to being perfected. Light years ahead of the competition, apparently. I need to get you in contact with him."

"I'm a bit skeptical of anything that's supposedly that far ahead of the competition," Joe said uncomfortably, "and I don't think my insurance would cover that."

"Joe…you have friends who have more money than they need, and are happy to spend it on a friend," Adam said. "And as for your skepticism, Edward uses prosthetics himself- just prototypes for now, but he's been Immortal since the 20s with a prosthetic arm and leg. If he says they're light years ahead of the competition, they are." Joe still looked uncomfortable with it, so he decided to let it lie and returned to his conversation with MacLeod. "So anyway, Alex got this idea into his head that Richie would make a great addition to the Line, regardless of that pesky 'he already has a Line' thing. Well, maybe he's psychic or something; I don't know, but I wouldn't put it past him. So he got the whole Line talking about Richie, and then one day out of the blue Richie calls him because he needed a safe haven because you'd taken a dark quickening. Now, Richie wasn't even thinking at that point. He was barely even reacting. Alex saw it as an opportunity and summarily declared that Richie was now part of the Line."

"I don't think I've heard of this Alex before," Mac said.

"Alex is merely his most recent identity," Adam explained patiently. "He doesn't go by whatever his real name is. I've seen whole rooms full of Immortals sharing 'strangest encounter with an Immortal' stories, not knowing they were all talking about the same Immortal due to him using different aliases, until he entered the room and they all said 'that's him!' So it's entirely possible that you've heard of him by another name. But he's most recognizable as the head of one of the only two remaining Traditional Lines in the world."

"Which one?" Mac asked, tensing.

"What are these traditional and modern lines you two are talking about?" Joe asked.

"They don't teach the field Watchers about them?" Adam asked. He knew the research Watchers were taught about them, and it seemed likely that field Watchers who were assigned to an Immortal who was known to be from a Traditional Line were taught as well, but he hadn't known that the other Watchers weren't taught. Of course, it made sense: what relevance did Traditional Lines hold for a Watcher who would probably never see the differences in action?

"If they do, it's been a while and I've slept since then," Joe said.

"Modern Lines are the ones you're used to seeing: student and teacher not overly connected, student usually doesn't know the other students of his teacher, student stays a student for a few years max. Traditional Lines are very tight knit: the student stays a student for decades at least, meeting most or all of the other students of their teacher, and they all stay in contact after 'graduation'. Started dying out when the Game started, and now it's down to two Traditional Lines: one which hardly anybody seems to know anything about other than the fact that it exists, and the other, which is infamous for turning out the evilest, vilest Immortals to walk the face of the Earth."

"So which one is this Alex the head of, then?" Joe asked.

"The first one, of course," Adam said, sounding amused. "Oh, if you knew some of the people in his Line you'd realize how preposterous a question that is."

"There really are a bizarre number of law enforcement officers right now," Richie chimed in as he returned with their beer.

"Oh, that?" Adam asked, then paused to drink some of his beer. "Didn't you ask them about it? They all decided to do it one day- or should I say night since they were drinking?"

"Considering how they can drink? Probably both."

"-One day and night- when they were drinking- as part of some sort of a dare. Or at least that's what they've been able to figure out. Their memories of the day and night in question are a bit fuzzy, and they ended up in Mexico, naked and painted blue from head to toe, for some reason."

"Or so they claim."

"Or so they claim," Adam agreed. "But anyway, no matter how similar or different the official version is to the real version, the fact is they're in it together. Which is why there are so many of them."

"And Jack?"

"Jack's not law enforcement."

"No, but he is in the Air Force."

"Completely unrelated, even if he's now doing something strange and awesome at Cheyenne Mountain."

"Couldn't hack in?"

"He asked me not to, or I would have," Adam said. "Apparently he's second in command there, and at least partly in charge of security, so he'd be forced to have me arrested. I'm too pretty to go to jail."

"With that nose?"

"Hey, you know what they say about big noses…"

"They're good for smelling things with? Does Jack always manage to do awesome things? I heard about his past life."

"Personally, I think he's making up for his first life," Adam said. "I still can't figure out how he manages to fall into that sort of situation, though. Maybe it's something natural, good karma making up for his first life or something? It defies the odds, that's for sure. He's had two lifetimes which were apparently completely awesome, and he's still a student."

"Jealous?" Richie teased.

"You're damn right I'm jealous. I swear, he has the luck of the gods."

"How do you know so much about that Traditional Line?" Mac asked in confusion. "I thought you said this Alex was the founder of it, so obviously you're not a member, but you seem to know so much about it…"

"Um…" Adam found sudden interest in playing with the rings of water from his glass. "That 'oldest Immortal' thing might be a bit of an exaggeration?"

"You mean you were lying about being Methos? Why?" Mac demanded.

"No," Adam said in irritation. "Why is it that your first reaction is always to assume that I'm lying? I'm Methos, okay? I'm just not the oldest Immortal alive. Technically."

"What do you mean, technically? Either you are or you aren't," Mac said.

"Apparently there's time travel involved," Adam said. "I told Alex he's still lived for longer than I have, which makes him older, but he refuses to consider anything other than birth dates in the matter. Wants to feel young, I guess, which is the same reason I think of him as older. That and the fact that he was my teacher."

Nobody at the table had an immediate reply, so an awkward silence fell over the table as Joe and Mac stared at a fidgeting Adam, and Richie…what was Richie doing? Fiddling with his cell phone and completely ignoring the conversation. It wasn't like he hadn't heard it hashed out in person. Personally, he was on Adam's side in the matter. What mattered was the amount of time lived, not some arbitrary birth date. And apparently Alex had been even crazier back then- seriously, sailing around the world in the Bronze Age? But then again he supposed age wasn't based off of craziness, even if it certainly seemed that way when you looked at his family. Maybe it was more accurate to say that craziness increased with age, rather than age increasing with craziness. Either way, old = crazy.

Mac had a confused expression on his face still, but it was obvious that Adam and Richie weren't about to elaborate on how exactly time travel was involved, even though Mac and Joe hadn't thought that time travel was possible. But he shook it off, dismissing what a person he hadn't even met had said as irrelevant to him at the moment. "Are you trying to distract me? I wanted to know how you think Richie isn't part of my Line any more. I was his first teacher, of course he's part of my Line."

"I already explained that to you," Adam sighed in annoyance. "How many times do you want me to tell you?"

"But I'm his first teacher, that means he's part of my Line."

"You're repeating yourself, MacLeod. Let me see if I can explain this to you in words that are small enough for you to understand. You were his first teacher. Then you violated his trust and attacked him for real, breaking any connection between you if Richie wanted them to be broken, which he did. That left Richie without a Line, and Alex adopted him into our Line. And you're not getting him back."

"What do you mean, breaking any connection me and Richie? It's not possible to leave your Line, no matter what."

"I see your education was remiss," Adam said. "Line relationships are broken when there's betrayal- which, let me remind you, there was in your case. Richie trusted you, and you attacked him in earnest, regardless of what the surrounding situation was. Now, if he'd been willing to forgive and forget and still regard you as his teacher, that would be a different case, but he doesn't, and he hasn't since you almost took his head. In situations where there's a betrayal, it's simply ridiculous to force the relationship to continue to exist when in truth it doesn't and shouldn't."

"But he's my student, and that wasn't me," Mac protested.

"I'm Adam's student, and currently Adam's student, and the rest of the Line's student," Richie said. "You tossed me out, remember? I wouldn't be your student any more even if we were in the same Line. And I'm sorry, but I don't think it's a good idea for my mental health to consider myself in the same line as a guy who tried to kill me and that I still have nightmares about. I mean, I might consciously know that you're not going to suddenly try to attack me again, and that you really wouldn't stand a chance of you did, but my subconscious is a whole different kettle of fish. It's not exactly rational, you know? It just tosses everything in, more of it if it's particularly emotionally charged, shuffles it around, jumbles it up, and feeds it to me, without a stop along the way to ask if it's rational."

"I wouldn't try to kill you, Richie," Mac assured him. "And what do you mean, I wouldn't stand a chance? Not that I would try, but…" he gave up; there was no way to fix what he'd said and make it sound better.

Richie snickered until Adam hit him with a glare. "Oops, was I not supposed to let that slip?"

"No," Adam growled. "He's thought I was barely able to defend myself with a sword since we met. Why did you have to shatter his illusions? It was fun to mess with him."

"Sorry, Adam," Richie said. "It seems to be the night for accidentally dropping secrets. Mac, everybody in the Line is very good at what they choose to do, which for most of us includes self defense, as I'm sure you can understand."

"So? I'm very good with a sword. And I have more experience than you do. The last time we sparred you couldn't beat me."

"It's not like I stopped learning just because I wasn't learning from you," Richie said. "Alex is much, much better than you are, and he's got a lot more experience at teaching- very successful teaching, I might add."

"What do you mean, much better than I am?" Mac asked. "I would have heard of him, if he was as good as all that."

"You really, really wouldn't," Richie said. "He's just that good. His reputation doesn't have to spread. Your problem is that you're thinking of him in terms of other great swordsmen you know. But he's nothing like them. He doesn't have any need to be acknowledged as the best. He actually has very little interest in fighting or the Game, only fights when he has no choice and can't talk his opponent out of it-"

"And that in and of itself is a bit of a rarity," Adam added. "He seems to be able to talk anybody into anything, even if they would be unable to be convinced to do it." Richie snickered and nodded, remembering the stories.

"But then, he never loses when he fights, whether he's fighting for real or just while sparring. And you can't take him unaware- he always know somehow, and even if he didn't and you got a lucky shot, he heals so quickly that anything but a neck shot just isn't worth it."

"I actually saw him taken unawares once," Adam chimed in. "He was fighting one Immortal ,got briefly distracted when he was attacked by a second Immortal. The first Immortal took advantage of his distraction to shoot him. He dropped to the ground, dead, and just rolled and got back up without a pause to behead both of them in one stroke."

"He wasn't dead, then," Mac said. "He was just wounded and knocked off balance by the bullet."

"He had half of his head blown off," Adam said blandly. "Trust me, he was dead. And by the time he got up, the only sign was the blood."

"But how?" Mac demanded. "No Immortal can heal that fast."

"Apparently, he can," Adam said. "Healing time is related to both type of injury- extent of the damage that has to be repaired, and the body's experience with healing that type of injury- and age of the Immortal in question. Alex is older than me, but I have no idea how much older than me he is. He could be a decade older, or he could be another 5 millenia older than I am. And if there's one thing his life has been, it isn't peaceful. He has scars and a missing eye from his first life, and an experience with war and pain that he couldn't have gained only before his first death."

"How did he behead them in one stroke? I didn't know that was possible. Kill two mortals with one stroke, yes, but two beheadings at once? I didn't think that was possible. And he'd have to take both of the quickenings at once."

"Like we told you, he's very, very good. He just maneuvered them into line with each other- which was amusing to watch, as the Immortals were of very different heights- and lopped them off with his axe. The quickenings were impressive to watch, but he shrugged them off like usual, so who knows what it was like to be on the receiving end of them."

"Axe?" Mac asked. "There aren't many Immortals who use axes. They aren't very good against swords in Challenges. Too unwieldy, and not maneuverable enough to block the attacks."

"You wouldn't be saying that if you'd ever seen a true expert with an axe in a fight. Alex makes it look almost easy, like it's the sword that's unwieldy to use, and not the axe. Actually, he's like that with any weapon he picks up, just poetry in motion making his opinion look as graceful as a hippopotamus in comparison to his dancing. But really, he admits that the axe is his favorite weapon, even if he claims it's mostly for sentimental reasons, and it shows. There's just no comparison to his ability with an axe. There might be a few who are relatively close to him in ability to use a sword- and I'm using close in a very loose way here- but nobody comes even remotely close to him in ability to use an axe. He can block all of the attacks thrown at him without any effort, and attack with these massive, limb severing swings of his axe that makes you worried about being within ten meters of him, especially if you've seen him throwing his axe in the past. And we're not talking some throwing axe or axe for chopping firewood, even if he uses it for those purposes without a second thought. No, he uses a massive double headed battle axe by preference- replaces it whenever he needs to, with another that's very similar in design except for the decoration. It's something that, by all logic, shouldn't be able to move the way he can make it move, but when it's in his hand it looks like it's as light as a feather, moving at his direction without any effort at all, until it slams into something and does a massive amount of damage to it."

"But still, not many Immortals use axes."

"They're harder to conceal," Adam said. "Well, if you're feeling too lazy to use the magic sword hiding trick, anyway, and honestly it's a drain to keep that up for every second of every day. And swords have always been more of a status symbol. After all, any peasant might have an axe to gather firewood with, but it took wealth to be able to have a weapon that was only a weapon, and designed solely for use against other humans and not for hunting. If you weren't rich, you couldn't afford such a luxury. And that mindset stuck with the Immortals who grew up with it, so obviously they're more eager to use a sword than an axe, at least as their primary weapon, especially since in most places the art of using an axe isn't as highly developed as that of using a sword. And of course, Modern Lines give their students so little time to spend as students, so they don't have enough time to learn how to use all weapons, so the teachers teach mainly only the use of a sword."

"Axes aren't meant to be used in Challenges and duels. They just don't work."

"What idiot told you that? I'd have his head. There's nothing wrong with using an axe, or a spear or a naginata for that matter. They work perfectly fine in the right hands. And if they don't work perfectly fine, well, they're probably the wrong hands either because the user is unskilled or because it's the wrong weapon for that person. It's just like how some people just can't use greatswords because they're too large for the person who's trying to use them."

"And I suppose you're going to claim you've seen Immortals using these weapons in Challenges?"

"Of course I have," Adam said, taking umbrage at the fact that Mac didn't seem to believe him. "My Line uses a variety of weapons. We're not boring like some people."

"It's probably helped along by the fact that Alex seems to be addicted to forging weapons for all of the members of the Line, and he doesn't confine himself to just swords," Richie added.

"That is true," Adam agreed. "Although he's his usual perceptive self when it comes to choosing which weapon to make for which member of the Line: swords for some, axes or daggers for others, more exotic weapons for the ones who want to go that route. Juliet has a beautiful pair of long matched daggers, not quite long enough to qualify as swords and easily concealable. Jarod has- I don't even think I know, currently, he changes them out at the drop of a hat."

"I think he was using a kora, the last I heard," Richie said. "But before that he was using a halberd or something, if I remember right."

"Like I said, he changes them out at the drop of a hat," Adam said. "It's really not worth it to try to memorize all of the ones he uses, although of course it is important to pay attention when he gets a new one so that you can ooh and ahh over it, and then go back to petting the weapon you like to use, or ask him to teach you how to fight against that type of weapon."

"So, what other sorts of strange weapons do Immortals in your Line use, since you claim there are more than just them who use unusual weapons?" Mac asked.

"Umm, let's see. Actually, lately there haven't been as many unusual weapons per se, probably related to our burgeoning law enforcement population, so much as there's been an unusual lack of weapons," Adam said. "Hmm, I never realized it before now. There have always been a few, so it kind of slipped in under my radar that there were so many who don't habitually carry a weapon- or at least a weapon to use in Challenges."

"What? There are members of your line who go around unarmed? Are they trying to get killed? There's no way to keep out of the Game, and they have no way to defend themselves," Mac said, his sense of- justice, maybe? - getting him upset on the behalf of people who were not only older than he was, but also perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.

"Don't get so upset on their behalves," Adam advised. "Most of them have been around for longer than you have- some of them considerably longer- and they're perfectly capable of defending themselves without traditional weaponry."

"Case in point, Jack's past life," Richie chirped.

"Exactly," Adam said. "Although Jack's only been Immortal since World War II. Still, he was taught how to defend himself while armed or unarmed by the best, and he had a longer initial attention span than most of us did." He shot a look at Richie.

"Hey, don't look at me, you know what Alex is like. If you could have moved to study under an older member of the Line other than him, you would have, but no, you had to be the oldest. And Jack's a bit of an anomaly. The poor guy was traumatized from Dachau, of course he needed a while to recover from it, and Alex was somebody he saw as safe since he protected Jack while they were in there. So of course the guy studied under Alex for a couple of decades rather than the few years that are all most of us can handle in a row."

Adam snorted. "You took those psychology classes just so that you could make excuses for yourself, didn't you?"

"What, you want the rest of us to stay with Alex for as long as you did in the beginning, and maybe end up like you did for a while? Because I don't."

"You may have a point there," Adam admitted. "And nowadays chocolate is freely available."

Richie shuddered. "Tell me about it."

Adam shuddered too. "I'm still trying to repress those memories. Curse this Immortal memory of ours," he said mournfully. "But yeah, in the past century we've had how many going around unarmed? Alex and Jarod, of course, even if Jarod never sticks with it, but then again he's Jarod so it's not exactly like anybody expects him to stick to anything other than his hobby. We had Jack, still a student, and he didn't carry any sort of weapon, even with his job."

"What job?" Mac asked curiously.

"Er. Well, he started off that life defusing bombs in Vietnam, and then…something with the DXS, maybe? And then he ended up as the top agent of the Phoenix Foundation until the end of that life. Essentially, high-risk jobs where he was expected to carry a firearm, and didn't."

"How could he do that sort of job without carrying any weapons? Even if he wasn't concerned about the mortals, those kinds of jobs would make him run into a lot of Immortals who were very dedicated to their cause, whatever that cause was."

"Well, not as many as you'd think. A lot of it was Cold War spy-type stuff, and in comparison to the number of Immortals on the other side, there weren't that many Immortals who sided with the Communists- it was just too different from what they were used to, and Immortals tend to be a bit traditional. But, yeah, Alex was always concerned about that even after he spent so much time training Jack to fight in every conceivable way. After all, he wasn't supposed to fight any Immortals until he'd been Immortal for a century, no matter how good he was, and with the types of jobs he had it wasn't possible for any of us to go with him wherever he went. But Jack's very good at avoiding fights, when he wants to, both talking his way out of them and avoiding them in a physical way- running and hiding and trapping the way behind him so he can't be followed. He really put his knowledge of science to use."

"Of course, now he's playing an Air Force Colonel who can't stand science," Richie said. "It's a hilarious change, even if I didn't know Jack before he became Jack."

"It really is," Adam agreed. "Especially since now he works with scientists, and he has to pretend he knows nothing about whatever they're talking about even though he could have easily gone into either of their fields in his past life. Apparently he's practically a legend to one of them."

"The other one has the book he wrote," Richie said. "It's hilarious all around. Either they'll be angry, or a bit too happy, when they hear about his past identity."

"Why not both?" Adam suggested. "People do it all the time. So we had Jack- actually I think he goes without a weapon most of the time now, since his job takes up so much of his time and he can't have a sword on him on base, but there are some in his teammate's office, and when he's off duty he has a nice cavalry saber he carries. But now we have Benton, who decided to be a stickler for the law this time around, so he refuses to do anything which breaks the law, including carrying around concealed weapons or a firearm. He has this whole long spiel about it, but what it all boils down to is that he's a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police- a Mountie- in Chicago, teamed up with a Chicago detective and his wolf, and together they fight crime! Lots and lots of crime, in very dangerous ways. And it's Chicago, so it's not exactly a quiet area, Immortal-wise- honestly, Chicago is right up there with Paris and Seacouver in terms of Immortal activity, and possibly even more active than that. Although, bizarrely enough considering how randomly Benton decided to come to Chicago, all of the permanent Immortal residents of Chicago know Benton. I mean, okay, for some of them that's very understandable- after about a millennium you get to know everybody else who's at least a millennium old, unless there are two of you who have remained stationary for most of your lives, and Benton's had two to get to know Immortals, but some of them were the most random encounters ever. And anyway, having met Benton they don't feel the urge to Challenge him- though, honestly, I have to wonder if anybody who can think rationally ever does. The man is disturbingly good at convincing people to do the right thing, no matter who they might and what the right thing might be. And, of course, there's Blair, which is a combination of the personality he set himself up with this time, and the fact that he's watched pretty closely."

"What personality did he set himself up with?" Mac asked.

"Essentially, he's a pacifist hippie," Adam said. "Currently a police detective after some mess involving his dissertation- there's a good story there, but he's waiting to tell it until he gets permission or the other person involved is dead, whichever comes first. But the personality is hilarious if you know Blair. He was raised as a Spartan and died his first death in the Battle of Thermopylae, and he's only good at keeping up a façade up to a point. Granted, that point is a lot farther than almost anybody outside of the family can keep up a façade, but still it's less than the rest of us who have experience in it. And when Blair's façade breaks, it breaks completely; he reverts to his base personality and he's usually not able to return to the façade at all, much less as soon as he needs to. So currently he's a hippie pacifist who, if he breaks, ends up being not so pacifist. And by not so pacifist, I mean he doesn't care if he fights or kills, and mostly prefers it. His first move is usually towards his weapon, whatever that is at the moment. And right now he doesn't carry a weapon because that doesn't fit his personality and would definitely be noticed. He's also in a high danger, high stress job, so honestly we're all waiting for the day that his façade breaks and he isn't able to fix it. Really, he's the only weaponless one who's an actual surprise. The rest are exactly the people I'd expect to go around weaponless, just not all in such a short period of time. Is it a fad or something? There's a few more out there, too, but they're mostly in places where they don't have much to worry about in terms of running into other Immortals- or at least so Radek claims."

"Radek?" Richie asked. "I don't know Radek, do I?"

"No," Adam said. "He's tied up in some secret project with Rodney McKay, one of Alex's mortal children, that's apparently so remote that it's nearly impossible to keep in contact with them with more than a few emails- and the emails are all censored, because it's a secret project with military at least involved, if not running it. And they've had problems with spies in the past so Radek and Rodney don't dare use an actual code because they might catch on to it and start asking awkward questions. You know Rodney's sister Jeannie, though."

"The one with the daughter?" Richie asked. "I don't know her well, I mean she's always busy with her daughter. But I know who you're talking about. She said if I was ever in Vancouver I could stop by and babysit, or not babysit if I want." His eyes were wide.

"Scary, isn't it?" Adam asked. "That she'll trust you with her daughter just like that, when she barely knows you."

"We spoke like once," Richie said. "And then suddenly she's saying she trusts me that much even though I barely know anything about kids. It freaks me out. For all she knows I might want to kidnap her or something, and here she is saying she wants me to babysit for her!"

"You're family," Adam said. "Why shouldn't she trust you? Everybody else in the family trusts you."

"But she's mortal! Her kid's mortal! Shouldn't she be, I don't know, more cautious? I mean, if you hurt an Immortal they'll be fine, but if you hurt a mortal they could die! And I don't know anything about kids! I've never babysat before! I could mess up so easily, accidentally let her drink bleach or something! And Jeannie just trusts me with her, just like that?"

"She does," Adam said firmly. "And I suggest you take the opportunity, if you can- assuming Canada doesn't turn out to be quite so terrible to Immortals as we think it will, or if she visits the United States. Madison is your niece- our niece- and you have to opportunity to babysit her while she's still young. They grow up so fast, a child one day and an adult the next, that you might not get the chance more than once. And Richie? Jeannie does trust you, as much as she trusts any of us. I know you're still new to the family, and that you weren't raised like this, but that's part of being a member of the family, along with the insane relatives and long period as a student: trust. Jeannie was raised in the family, so it comes naturally for her to trust the members of the family. She couldn't even imagine doing anything else, and Rodney's the same way, even though he has problems trusting everybody else. It's just something that you'll learn how to do, eventually. Nobody expects you to be able to right away, even if it sometimes seems that way. We're all- except our mortal adoptees and students, who haven't lived long enough yet- used to the new members of the family not being used to trust, either given or received, except maybe from a few isolated exceptions, and we make allowances for that. But that doesn't mean there's a single one of us who doesn't trust you, trust your character, anyway, since no individual can master every skill and it would be madness to expect expertise in everything, especially after such a short amount of time."

Richie was stunned. They trusted him? All of them? Even though he was new and young and inexperienced? He could tell that Adam was telling the truth, which stunned him even more. What had he ever done to deserve so much trust? He'd never been anything like reliable, but they trusted him when all logic, and all of his experiences, told him that they shouldn't. He couldn't help but feel that he would mess it all up; after all, what had he ever done right in his life? What had he ever not messed up? He'd been saved from failing high school by teachers who didn't want to see his face for another year. He'd been saved from getting arrested yet again by an Immortal who didn't want him running his mouth off about the swordfighting he'd seen. He'd been saved from dying by the random chance of his biology. He'd been saved from death again by Joe with a gun. He'd almost failed so many times, and he didn't get out of any of those situations by his own effort.

But now, people trusted him. And trust meant that they were depending on him. Him, who hadn't managed to get anything right in his life without a huge amount of help. And he liked his family, all ten billion crazy members of it. He didn't want to fail them and hurt them. He didn't want to fold like a house of cards at the worst possible moment, leaving them high and dry and without any alternative. But if they trusted him, that might happen. Would happen, if they depended solely on him for anything, because he knew himself and that was the way things always happened. And he didn't want that to happen to his family, but it would, as long as they trusted him, because he just couldn't be what they needed him to be.

"Easy, Richie," Adam said soothingly, but suddenly his voice was very far away, as if he was under water or wrapped in cotton, and suddenly he looked very far away too, and Richie's vision got dimmer and dimmer until it turned black.

Richie woke up to the familiar view from Adam's couch, and the very unfamiliar sound of Adam talking in a clipped, emotional tone that Richie couldn't read, in a language Richie didn't speak. When Richie sat up and looked around to see who Adam was talking to, he saw Adam on the phone, holding it in a grip that turned his knuckles white. His face was blank of any emotion in the way Richie had only seen glimpses of a very small number of times, the one he wore when he felt so much that he had to remove all of the emotion from his face or he'd end up doing something drastic about his emotions- and something drastic coming from Adam was nothing to sneeze at.

Adam hung up, his face still blank, blank, blank. "Richie," he said, his voice tight with emotion. "There's been a death."

Richie froze. He'd known it was big- no, not just big, but huge- but this, this was…he didn't even have words for it. Their Line wasn't immune to death, of course, but their deaths were few and far between. The last death in their Line had been centuries ago. "Who?" he asked, almost in a whisper.

"Tim," Adam said, shocking Richie to the core. Tim had still been a student, someone who should have been protected to the fullest extent of the family's ability to protect anybody- and as Richie knew, having been Challenged in a few odd places and had a relative pop out of nowhere to accept the Challenge in his stead, the family's best was very, very good.

"How?" he asked. Had the mortals found out that he was an Immortal and killed him, somehow? It was the only possible scenario that made any sort of sense to him; there was no way an Immortal could have both dodged his Immortal bodyguard and overcome his own defenses.

"One of the Scumbags, is all we know," Adam said grimly. "We're declaring War."

Line War was yet another thing that Traditional Lines did that Modern Lines didn't- and another reason why the Traditional Lines had dwindled down to the two remaining, which would soon become only one. Line Wars weren't entered into lightly, even for belligerent Lines like the Scumbags; there was just too much risk. The whole point of a Line War was to wipe out one of the two Lines participating, and usually even the surviving Line didn't have all that many surviving members. Their Line's reasons for not being eager to have a Line War weren't the same as the reasons of the other Lines- not only were they far enough better than their competition that they had no reason to worry, but for the most part they didn't fear death either temporary or permanent. Their Line just didn't really like to take part in the Game, for the most part; they tended to find it boring. But when one of their students was killed right under their noses, they objected strongly to that, and they'd stop at nothing to get their revenge for it. Line War sounded about right. The Scumbags had no idea what they were getting themselves into.

"Good thing the Game law's already been passed," Richie said. The Game law- not that it was officially called that- exempted the Game from all of those pesky laws banning murder and dueling. It hadn't actually been used, yet- since their exposure Immortals were being a bit more cautious about Challenges given and accepted, since the police would know to look for Immortals when they saw the body dumps of headless bodies, and the police hadn't picked up on any Immortal deaths since then. "Tim…?"

"We're flying out to pick it up," Adam said.

"Really? We're not the closest."

"You can drop your classes without much problem, and at this point I'm about ready to drop being a Watcher," Adam said. "Who knows what they'll do to the research department when involuntary exposure goes into effect. Everybody- who's closer, at least- has more to do to arrange things for themselves, vacation time and that sort of thing."

Richie nodded. "Is the flight booked yet?"

"Not yet," Adam said. "I just got the call and haven't had time."

"I'll get that done," Richie said. "You, pack. You know what we'll need for Tim and the War."

When they arrived in Miami the sun was shining brightly in defiance of their grim task, made worse when they saw it reflecting off of the very shiny police station.

"We're here to pick up a body," Adam said to the receptionist. "Tim Speedle." She told them to wait while somebody came down to get them.

The man who came down to meet them was a Lt. Horatio Caine, Tim's superior. He led them in a winding path through the building before escorting them through a door and into an interrogation room.

"How dare you?" Caine demanded. "Trying to claim the body of an officer who didn't have any family. It's despicable. You think you can just waltz in here and steal his body from under our noses just because you saw it on television?"

"It was on TV?" Richie asked. Of course they hadn't stopped to watch TV; they were too pissed off to do anything which didn't further their goals of getting Tim's body and wiping out the Scumbags.

"I suppose that makes sense," Adam said. "But we did not hear about it via the television- or the radio, or the internet, or whatever other source of news you are imagining. We heard about it because we got a call that our brother had been killed when he should have been well protected."

"Tim didn't have any family," Caine said, his eyes hard.

"We're not related by genetics, no," Adam said. "But I'm an Immortal and Richie's an Immortal and Tim used to be an Immortal, and we had the same teacher, so that makes us brothers by my standards. And I want my brother's body so we can have a funeral for him."

"Even if you are Immortal, how do I know you aren't the one who killed him? He's never talked about you."

"If I was the one who killed him, why would I want his body, much less be stupid enough to lose it and walk into a police station to get it back?" Adam asked. "And why would he tell you about us? You didn't even know he was Immortal unless you somehow guessed, since I know he didn't tell you."

"You're still not getting that body without authorization," Caine said, although some of the fight seemed to have gone out of him. Maybe he'd stopped believing they were the killers. "Besides, it's part of an active investigation."

"Tim was Challenged by another Immortal and couldn't get out of it," Adam said. "That means no laws were broken, just like no laws will be broken when we get our revenge. But if you want authorization, I've got authorization." He opened the messenger bag slung over his shoulder and pulled out a stack of paper. "Here, proof of everything." He pulled out a CD in a case and handed that over too. "Oh, and a video of the Challenge. It got emailed to a few members of the family to goad us into attacking, and make absolutely certain we knew who killed him."

Caine yelled out the door for somebody, and handed the CD to them, Richie assumed so it could be watched and validated or whatever. Then he started sorting through the stack of paper Adam had put on the table. They'd just grabbed everything from Tim's safety deposit box in Miami, knowing that somewhere in there was what they needed (along with everything else which might possibly be relevant at some point), and not wanting to sort through it all to make sure they only grabbed what was relevant.

They all kept similar document drops. After all, permanent death might be exceedingly rare in their family, but it did still happen, and it was better to be prepared than not. After all, they had no true official claim on each other outside of the documents- they weren't technically related, and in the view of mortals probably looked like distant acquaintances at best, since their long lifespans made it more reasonable to go years or decades or centuries without seeing each other. And it wasn't like Immortals never went without a funeral- most of the time it was harder to find an example of an Immortal who'd had a funeral that had been attended by Immortals than one who'd been tossed in the river without ceremony. But when they could, the family preferred to have a funeral with burial or cremation or whatever wouldn't stand out too much- the method wasn't important, it was the ceremony that was important, and part of that ceremony was having the body if it was the slightest bit possible. Official documents just made it possible to legally take the body and not have to steal it from the morgue- much less hassle, usually. So really, Tim's document drop had documents authorizing all of the members of their family to do everything that could be authorized with a set of documents. The stack of paper was not exactly small. At least it was organized, because it would have been a nightmare to deal with otherwise.

Eventually everything was sorted out, and Adam and Richie flew out with Tim's body to the site where the Line War would take place- which was in the middle of nowhere, because quickening had a slight tendency to be destructive, especially when there were so many in such short succession and at least a few were guaranteed to be old and powerful.

The family trickled in over the next couple of days, coming as quickly as they could around their work schedules and the amount of time they needed to travel. More than one of them brought their friends or family with them. Rodney, Radek, and Jack all came together with Jack's team and Rodney's, prompting rumors that those top secret projects they worked on were the same one. The last to show up was Eye Patch, having been the one to tell the Scumbags' leader they were declaring a Line War and where to come.

The funeral was in the evening, a simple cremation- or perhaps not so simple, considering Eye Patch's methods of cremation- and afterwards they all shared the stories they knew about Tim before going to sleep in the tents they'd brought or in a few cases built. The next morning- dawn hadn't even hit yet, although it wasn't far away- they were rudely awakened by the excessively loud sounds and Buzzes of more Immortals coming into their camp. If the Scumbags were hoping to surprise them by coming so early, they succeeded, but not for long; by the time they exited their tents, the Immortals were all wide awake, armed, and ready to fight their War.

"Oh, you want to start this early?" Eye Patch asked the Scumbags. "That's fine with us. Choose your first- are there any volunteers to go first from our side?- and they can fight while breakfast gets cooked for everybody else." The Scumbags seemed a bit taken aback at this, like they thought that they'd either protest the early hour- not likely; most of them had been through at least one sneak attack in the middle of the night, and all of them had been woken up at odd times of the night or morning by Eye Patch when he'd been teaching them- or drop everything in favor of the War. But while they might be pissed off enough to fight a War over it, they didn't see any reason to give the Scumbags all of their attention. They'd end up dead in the end, the War didn't need watching to make sure it went the way it should go.

Somebody volunteered, promising to draw the fight out a lot- they probably wanted to get their turn over and done with so they could just watch for the rest of the War- and the rest of them gathered around their various fires and camp stoves to make themselves breakfast. The leader of the Scumbags chose one of them to fight in the first Challenge, and then the Scumbags tried to join them for their meal. But they weren't feeling particularly charitable to the Immortals who'd caused the death of one of their students, and then woke them up earlier than most of them wanted to be awake, and they closed ranks against the Scumbags, who couldn't start a fight- or at least not a physical fight, and they easily ignored their attempts to start a verbal fight- because they were at War and the rules about Line Wars were more rigid than the rules about the Game in general, and if anyone broke them it would turn into a free-for-all. Eye Patch's Line was pissed off already, and outnumbered the Scumbags by a good amount. Even if they kept to themselves enough that the Scumbags didn't know about their ability, some of the Scumbags were starting to look scared; if they wanted to win the War, they'd have to win more than one Challenge each. And their Line probably looked even larger to the Scumbags, who didn't know that a large number of the people there that day were mortals; who brought spectators to a War? They did, apparently.

The sun was up and their breakfast was over with when they saw the telltale lightning of a quickening released. "Hey, what are we doing with the bodies?" their guy- the winner, of course- asked as he returned to the camp.

"Just drag them off to the side," Eye Patch told him. "We'll have to have them legally disposed of after this, and there are some laws about what you're allowed to do with a body." He clapped his hands together to gain everybody's attention. "Okay, everybody, let's go to the field where we're having all of the Challenges so we can make this go faster. Who's next?"

"Are you the leader of your Line?" the leader of the Scumbags asked. Eye Patch nodded. "I'll fight you."

"Sure, if you want," Eye Patch said. "Let's do that later on, though. Next contestants, come on down."

A volunteer from their side went onto the field, and after studying her with a sneer the leader of the Scumbags chose somebody from his side- who, presumably, he thought could beat her. They exchanged names and began the Challenge- which lasted maybe one minute before their Champion beheaded the Scumbags' Champion, not even making much of an effort.

Richie settled in by the rest of the students and other non-participants- mortal members of the family and friends. For the first time he was meeting people he'd talked to online, or that he'd only heard stories about: Jack and his team, Rodney and Jeannie, Edward, Dade, and the friends of his family. It might not be the most cheerful of reasons to meet them, but he was still happy to meet them.

"Jack," he said in greeting to Jack.

"Richie."

"So there's a rumor going around that your project is the same one that Radek and Rodney are working on," Richie said casually, flopping down on the ground next to Jack and his team. "Care to comment?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Fine, you caught us, we work on the same project. But I don't see them a lot. Different locations and all that."

"I can't believe you didn't tell us," Edward chimed in. "You knew we were worried about them."

"Yeah, well, they really were out of contact for the most part," Jack said. "For all I knew they might have been dead."

"It wasn't exactly a walk in the park," Rodney grumbled. "Still isn't, even if it's better now. And I don't think we would have survived without Radek and I."

"Hey, you're not the only ones-" a man with spiky black hair started from next to Rodney.

"No, no I'm not, but your death-defying heroics could have been done by anybody, and there are maybe three other people in the world who could have done what Radek and I have, and outside of Sam Carter none of them are at the SGC."

"So, no chance of learning what you do on this project of yours?" Richie asked without much hope.

"Classified!" Rodney sung.

"We might be more open to recruiting Immortals soon, but you're still a student. You'd have to wait anyway, until you're allowed," Jack said.

"Hey, you're still a student too!" Richie protested.

"Yeah, well, it's a bit of a fluke. I was in before anybody realized what it was about, and by the time we did it was too late to do anything but go with the flow," Jack said. "Somebody has to watch out for Daniel, here. Besides, I'm older than you are."

"Oh good," Edward said. "I guess I'll be able to join soon." The secret project people except for Jack and Rodney just looked at him, no doubt noticing the cane- a sword cane, of course.

"Um," the blonde woman who must be Sam Carter said inarticulately.

"Oh, for- they're trying to avoid saying that it involves a lot of running and walking and combat even when it shouldn't, and you're not likely to be accepted with your arm and leg," Rodney said, rolling his eyes. "Idiots. If he couldn't manage physical activity with them, he wouldn't still be alive today."

"Even if I'd been allowed to fight any Challenges I wouldn't have had any problems with them," Edward said. "I was fighting long before I became Immortal, and I lost my arm and my leg when I was just a kid. You wouldn't tell Alex he wasn't capable enough even with a missing eye, would you?"

"Actually…" Carter said in an obvious contradiction of what Edward had asked. The Immortals all twitched, and she stopped and looked at them oddly. "Sir?"

"You don't tell Alex he can't do something," Jack told her. "He takes it as a challenge." The last word was tinged with a note of fear that the Immortals in hearing range all agreed with. Alex working on a challenge or a dare was a scary, scary thought, mostly because they had so many examples of him taking random statements as challenges and devoting large amounts of his time to meeting the challenge or completing the dare, even if it was widely believed to be impossible to do so- case in point, sailing around the world in the Bronze Age. And what was worse was that he usually dragged the challenger into it along with him. There was really no good way to tell Alex no- he always seemed to not be able to hear it when you said it to him.

"He isn't going to join the project, is he?" she asked. "Because you know they'll tell him no."

"Not that he wouldn't make a good addition to the project with his knowledge and ability to convince people, but probably not- at least right away," Jack said.

"He's getting his latest Ph.D.," Richie said. "He's not going to interrupt that."

"Oh? I didn't hear that," Rodney said. "What in?"

"Women's studies," Richie said.

"What?" Rodney spluttered. "There's a Ph.D. in that?! That's not even close to being a science. How is that even remotely useful? Although I suppose it is exactly what Alex would choose to get a Ph.D. in."

"Uh, yeah, there's a Ph.D. in that a lot of places," Richie told him. "Though usually it's mostly women who get it- big surprise there. I'm more shocked that these are actually the big plans that he had for this identity- unless he's planning to do something big with that degree."

"But what could you possibly do with that degree, if you even can call it a degree?" Rodney demanded. "But you have a point- knowing Alex he has some huge, horrifying plans that he needs that degree for. Did anybody challenge Alex to do anything?" he called out, getting back a chorus of horrified 'no's.

The conversation wandered from there as they started to pay more attention to the Challenges. Apparently the Scumbags were going in order from their youngest members to their oldest members, so they were getting slightly better as time went on. Of course, their side was continuing to field only volunteers, which had worked perfectly so far. When the Scumbags got down to their last two members, the Scumbag leader, somehow still feeling confident despite his Line being all but wiped out, said to Eye Patch, "Why not make this more interesting? Your second oldest member against mine, and then you against me."

"Adam?" Eye Patch asked.

"I'm game if you are," Adam said, sounding bored. He and Scumbag #2 stepped onto the field.

"Shen Li," Scumbag #2 introduced himself.

"Methos," Adam said.

The Scumbags looked angry. "He's not the second oldest member, he's the oldest member," Scumbag #1 said.

""What, you didn't believe all those rumors about me being the oldest Immortal, did you?" Adam asked mockingly, then had to stop to defend himself against the attack by Shen Li. His parry took off his head. "All yours, Alex," he said after the quickening stopped.

Alex walked onto the field, and so did Scumbag #1, who suddenly seemed to realize that he was the last one of his Line left. But a quick glance at the Line across from him told him that he'd get no mercy, and if he tried to run he'd be cut down like prey. "Timaeus of Athens," he said.

"Xander Harris," Eye Patch said, not a weapon in sight, and waited to be attacked. The fight was over in seconds.