"I can't believe they're dead," Methos said some hours later when he had finally started to calm down.

Caspian listened to Methos talk as he poured several strong drinks together into one potentially lethal concoction which he then tried to persuade Methos to drink, but Methos wasn't in the mood.

"Drink it," Caspian told him, "It'll make you feel better."

"No," Methos said, so quietly he almost couldn't be heard, "No thanks," he said as he rubbed his hands over his face, "I don't think I can drink anything right now."

"You shouldn't be surprised," Caspian told him, "You knew it was going to come to this, we'd had it planned for years."

Methos bit down on the tip of his thumbnail and started crying again, to the point that he couldn't talk because he was so upset. Caspian put the glass down and held onto his brother, offering little comfort other than his very presence.

"You knew it had to be done," Caspian told him.

"But you weren't there, you didn't see the look on Silas's face when I told him," Methos said

"Well I hate to say I told you so," Caspian said, "But that's why we had to kill them. Kronos was never going to let you go and Silas was too loyal to leave Kronos, he would never go against Kronos's orders."

"I know," Methos cried, "I know…"

Fate always seemed to play a cruel trick on him, in one way or another. In the beginning, he and Caspian couldn't stand each other, there was never a love or respect between the two men, and yet they could never get rid of each other. Kronos knew that there was no bond between them and therefore stuck the two together for many years. He forced Methos to spend the nights in Caspian's tent with him, knowing the two didn't get along and resented being stuck with one another.

Kronos found Methos and saw a great opportunity, even in the beginning Kronos could tell that Methos was just what he needed. Caspian on the other hand, had always been an entirely different story. With Caspian, Kronos saw an insane man who terrorized the living and ate everything: living, dead, bugs, people, it made no difference to him. For many years Caspian was regarded as a 'pet' of sorts, and treated little better than a dog, and through it all, he took his treatment without a single protest.

"He's out of his mind, there's no arguing that," Kronos had told Methos plenty of times, "But he's also even more of an idiot than Silas is."

"You really think so, Kronos?" Methos asked in response.

"He would've died long ago if it weren't for us, he hasn't the brain to think of anything for himself, he doesn't know how to think, he can only do."

That was what Kronos thought but that was where Kronos underestimated Caspian. A while after Methos and Caspian starting getting confined to the same tent at night, Methos made a startling revelation. Caspian was not as dumb as Kronos thought he was, he wasn't even as crazy as Kronos thought he was. Oh, he ate people, among other things, but it wasn't because he enjoyed it, it wasn't because he was insane…it was because that was what Kronos expected of him, so that's what Kronos got. But once Kronos was out of sight, Methos saw a different side of Caspian, a side that was very frightening because he was intelligent and very calculative. He let Kronos think he was a psychotic because a psychotic would never have the brains to overthrow Kronos's authority, so Kronos let his guard down not only with Methos, but with Caspian as well.

As horrible as Kronos was and as horrible as he had always been, all the things he had done, all the things he was capable of, Methos learned early on that nothing Kronos could do could compare with the real Caspian if he ever decided to show his true self to his brothers. Fortunately, during their reign, he did not, Caspian was perfectly content with letting Kronos think he was on top of everything and that his other brothers were dumber than he was and weren't capable of much at all, especially without him in charge.

It was Caspian, not Kronos, who Methos had feared most of his life. He knew there was no telling what Caspian might do to any of them if he were to 'snap'. He had hoped when he left the Horsemen behind, they would remain as only buried memories in his mind. But Caspian had proven himself far more dangerous than Methos had previously thought, because he did what Kronos could never do, he had found Methos. It didn't matter where in the world Methos went, Caspian always found him, and he was always there, waiting for Methos. Even now Methos had lived in constant fear of this man, wondering what he would do, especially now that Kronos was out of the picture once and for all.

As far as Methos had been able to determine, there were three sides to Caspian, three at least that he knew of: there was the psychotic side which was only an act, then there was the side of him that could actually be halfway normal, who could go through life not drawing much attention to himself, though if that were only an act as well, he didn't know…and then, there was the third side, which Methos had only seen bits and pieces of over the years, and prayed he'd never see the full extent of the third side. He had known all his life that evil was real, evil was a living, breathing thing, and evil was buried somewhere deep within Caspian, buried, but not forgotten, and it could show itself at any given time and there was no telling what would bring it out. Now, Kronos had just about killed off half the world's population with his own ideas, Methos prayed he never found out what Caspian could be fully capable of doing.

Even now Methos was terrified of his brother, especially since he knew what they both had known, that Caspian was the only person he had left, the only person he could trust, the only one he could ever turn to.

"Silas said you were dead," Methos said to him.

"You knew he would," Caspian replied.

"But how? He said he saw both of you go into the river and then there was a quickening."

"Not exactly," Caspian said, "Kronos wasn't the only one who knew how to set a bomb, and you know there were plenty of explosives left in that base saved over from the war, and most of them still in perfect working order."

Now the pieces were starting to fall into place. "You knew it'd go out by the bridge and then explode?"

"I saw to that before Silas and I ever left, there was only so much time to get MacLeod over to the bridge and get him down into the water…Silas thought it was a quickening, that way I'm as good as dead, but they don't need a body to show for it."

"You knew Silas would say you were dead and you knew MacLeod would go on to the base…you had it all planned," Methos said.

"Of course I did," Caspian replied, "You think I was in that nuthouse for two years because of the excellent recreation?"

Caspian had returned to playing a lunatic long enough for the authorities to find out about him and lock him up. He'd killed several people just for the shock value and then left an anonymous tip with the police about what they could find in his home. It was a psychotic act by an oddly enough very sane person in an attempt to convince the world, his brothers included, of just how crazy he was supposed to be. When he'd been arrested, Methos was left to himself for two years to memorize everything he was supposed to do.

And now it was all over, Kronos was dead, Silas was dead, MacLeod made Cassandra spare his life but there was no doubt in Methos' mind that if they crossed paths again, the highlander would try to kill him, or at the least banish the older Immortal from his life forever, and then there was Cassandra who would never be at peace until she was dead, and he didn't want to kill her. All he had left was Caspian, the only brother he had left, and the one he had always feared the most.

"What have I done?" he asked himself quietly, "What have I done?"

Caspian woke up in the night and realized the other side of the bed was empty. He turned over and saw the covers were pushed back and the pillows had been flattened down, but Methos wasn't there. He looked over the edge of the bed and saw the body of his brother lying on the floor. Despite the recent situation, Caspian thought it was Methos' idea of being funny and reached over the edge and grabbed him. "Get back up here."

Methos just pulled Caspian's hand off of his shoulder and knocked it away.

"What's the matter?" Caspian asked him.

Methos said nothing and only crawled away from the bed and laid down further away from him. But Caspian didn't give up that easily, so he just rolled out of the bed and hit the floor beside Methos.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong or are we going to do this all night?" he asked Methos, who kept his face as close to buried in the carpet as he could.

Now that there was only about three inches between the two brothers, Caspian was able to notice the slight tremors running through Methos's body as he kept his hand clamped over his mouth in a vain attempt to silence the small sobs caught in his throat. Methos felt Caspian's arm snake around his waist but didn't resist; Caspian rolled him over to face him and wrapped his arms around Methos so he couldn't get away, and also to restrain him so he couldn't hurt himself. Both of them stayed on the floor for the rest of the night.

Methos awoke the next morning but he didn't get out of bed. If anything, he just tried to go back to sleep and even when it didn't work, he tried anyway. Caspian didn't disturb him; he figured after everything Methos had been put through for several years, he deserved that much at least. About 11, Methos finally pulled his head out from under the pillows, and he didn't get out of bed but he started to talk.

"I didn't want to kill them."

"I know," Caspian told him.

"As much as I hated Kronos and as much as towards the end of his life I kept thinking that I did want to kill him, I never actually wanted it to come to this."

"I know. But it had to be done if you were ever going to get your life back, and you know it," Caspian said.

"A life away from Kronos," Methos said, "But what about you?"

"What about me?"

"How long is it going to be before the two of us are fighting to the death because I need a life apart from you as well?" Methos asked.

Caspian looked a bit surprised, "Do you really think I'd ever treat you like Kronos did?"

"I know you're capable of it, and far worse," Methos said, "That's what scares me…it's almost like I killed the wrong person."

"Well you've had plenty of chances to kill me over the years and you never did," Caspian replied, "What should tell you something."

"It does, it tells me it's a wonder how I ever got the title of Death," Methos said.

Caspian disregarded the comment and mussed up Methos' hair before asking him if he wanted lunch.

"I'm not hungry," Methos answered.

"You've got to eat," Caspian said, "No point in making yourself any sicker over this than you already have. Besides, God knows you can't afford to starve, isn't a spare pound anywhere on you," and he poked Methos' boney body to emphasize.

"Guess you'll be going hungry then," Methos commented.

Caspian's hand came within a fraction of an inch of Methos' face after he said that. But Caspian caught himself at the last possible second, and said only for explanation, "That's what MacLeod said on the bridge. Tell me something, Methos, what did you ever see in that thing?"

"I don't know," Methos mournfully responded, "I wonder sometimes myself. When he took that dark quickening, I left a dying woman to go help him, he tried to kill me, more than once…and he killed Sean Burns, one of the only Immortals who stood a chance of holding onto his sanity and helping others keep theirs…why did I bother? Why? Why? Why?"

That word was starting to become a mantra for Methos. Caspian grabbed his brother and shook him violently to make him snap out of it.

"I just don't know what I'm going to do anymore," Methos said, "My life as I've known it for years is now officially over. Kronos and Silas are dead, MacLeod and Cassandra would be only too happy to see me dead, you're the only thing I've got left…hmmmm, so it's true what they say about hell being on earth."

The following week passed with every day being about the same, Methos stayed in bed all day and night except for when he was drinking. He hardly ate anything, would only take a couple bites and then push his food away, and it seemed he wouldn't leave his room even if the hotel were on fire. Caspian had put up with his brother's abnormal behavior for as long as he could, then one morning he'd had enough of Methos doing an impersonation of a corpse.

It was already going on noon and Methos was still asleep. He'd drank heavily last night and still reeked of booze and sweat…all that and no woman to show for it, that had been one thought going through Caspian's mind at the time. He pulled the sheets back and undressed Methos, then hauled his unconscious brother up into his arms and carried him into the bathroom before dumping him in a bathtub full of ice water.

Methos sprang to life the second he landed in the tub. It was at that exact second that he felt every pore in his body snap wide shut. He shot up in the tub screaming and tried to get out, but Caspian just shoved him back into the water. Methos hit his back against the marble tub and screamed in pain in addition to just a response to the freezing water. Caspian put his hand on top of Methos' head and grabbed some of his hair for good measure and shoved him under the water. Methos struggled with his brother to break loose, to surface, to get out of there by any means, but no such luck. Amidst his panic and shock, he timed how long he was under the water, 10 seconds and Caspian pulled him up.

Methos loudly sucked in as much air as he could and locked his arms around Caspian so if his brother tried to shove him under the water again, it would be both of them going down for it. Caspian curled one arm around Methos' upper back and with the other hand, grabbed the bar of soap and scrubbed over the middle of Methos' back. Methos was still trying to get any air in him that he could actually feel within his body, but the shock of the cold water seemed to make that a near impossibility. Caspian adjusted his hold on Methos and soaped up the hair on top of his head before pushing him down into the water again.

Once again, Methos struggled and tried to resurface but apparently he wasn't to do so until Caspian decided it. When Caspian pulled him up again, Methos tried to knock Caspian away and escape, but his brother knew him too well and anticipated the move and all it got Methos was shoved against the side of the tub again. Caspian wasn't waiting for Methos to try it again; he took off his jacket and his shirt and didn't just merely step over the side of the tub, he jumped in and landed alongside his brother and grabbed him, and the two wrestled around for the next half hour, each trying to drown the other, and if that wasn't the original intention, it did a good impression of being it. Once the ice had finally melted, Caspian drained the tub and turned on the hot tap for the shower.

"Well, Lazarus," he said as he got out and dried himself off, "How's it feel to come back to life?"

"Like frostbite," Methos answered.

"You're an Immortal," Caspian told him, "You can't get frostbite."

"Yes I can, my fingers just don't fall off," he replied.

Caspian watched Methos for a few minutes and when he was sure Methos wasn't going to try and make for the door, he left the bathroom to call the front desk and request a cleaning woman to come in and change the sheets on the bed. And he added, if anybody heard anything unusual, not to be alarmed, that he was just giving his visiting, unruly 3-year-old son a bath. When he hung up with the front desk, he returned to the bathroom and found Methos hadn't moved from where he was, sitting by the edge of the tub.

"Are you alright?"

"I was just thinking," Methos said, "I could've sworn I once saw a Red Skelton movie like this." He looked at Caspian and tried to restrain a laugh, but it came through as he said, "You'd be just perfect as the walrus."

"Unless I missed something in medical school, I don't recall subzero temperatures being a direct cause for brain damage," Caspian said as he went over to the tub and turned Methos so he faced the hot water, "Get in there."

The water just about scalded him and he crossed his arms over his chest like a woman trying to cover her breasts as he said to himself, "This seems familiar too." He let the burning hot water pour down on him and he gladly welcomed the heat. It seemed that he was always cold; which was one reason why he usually wore about three layers of clothes, all of them a size too large. Ever since this whole mess had started about killing off Kronos and Silas, his whole body had felt cold, like his body temperature had dropped suddenly and never picked up. Now he thought, he was finally starting to feel normal again. God he hoped so.

Caspian was right of course, Methos thought to himself that night as he tried to sleep, Kronos never would have let him go. He spent 2000 years searching the globe for Methos because he couldn't stand their fourth brother abandoning them that long ago. There was no telling how long Kronos would have kept on, or even if he ever would've given up. Methos cursed the stubbornness of his late brother. If Kronos hadn't been so…possessive seemed like an understatement when trying to describe Kronos, but it would have to do…if he had been able to accept that Methos needed a life apart from him, that spending every minute of every day with Kronos had been sucking the life out of him like a bug stuck in a jar, maybe things wouldn't have had to come to this. But he didn't and they did and that was the end of it. Now Methos had to figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

The next morning Methos opened his eyes and saw the sun coming in through the curtains, though he couldn't really remember ever having gone to sleep in the night. He felt tired, but he also felt restless, but the former outweighed the latter and he fell back against the pillows again and went back to sleep. Half an hour later, Caspian was in the process of waking up when Methos, who in his sleep had burrowed under the sheets and pillows, was wriggling around trying to surface like a mole, and finally poked his head out from under the pillows. "Caspian?"

Caspian yawned and stretched his whole body out like a cat, and despite being 29 forever, several things popped and cracked from within his body. "What is it?"

"I think we need to get out of here," Methos said.

"Why?"

"I don't mean the room, I mean Bordeaux, maybe the whole country, maybe the whole continent, I don't know," Methos told him, "All I do know is I don't think I can stand to be in this place another minute. There're too many memories here, in this town…memories I want to forget, do you understand?"

Caspian said nothing and merely nodded as an answer. "We'll figure out where to go from here," he said.

Methos was relieved to hear that. He hadn't told Caspian, though he supposed his brother could figure it out for himself…he hadn't felt quite right since the night of the quickenings. Part of Kronos and part of Silas were in him, and, Methos shuddered at the mere thought, perhaps a piece of MacLeod as well. He really didn't know, amazingly enough, in 5000 years he'd never encountered another double quickening…well, except for those alongside his brothers, but they didn't count. They had all lived with one another for 2000 years, after that much time, you inherited part of the others one way or another. He could feel Kronos and Silas inside of him, and it felt like they were trying to fight their way out. That's how he had felt for the entire week, that was why he never ate, and why he drank so much, and why he slept all the time. He was willing to do anything that would take his mind off of them, maybe help him start to forget.

He could still feel the two of them today, except now they weren't as strong as they had been before. Maybe his brothers had finally accepted their demise and were starting to settle down. He sincerely hoped so, his life was complicated enough when he only had to fight with himself.

The two brothers dressed and got their things packed up; Methos curled up on the bed near the top and rested, tried to sleep, as Caspian made some calls to find out what flights were leaving soon. He didn't really rest much, instead he ran through his mind all the things that had been eating at him for the last few days. What about MacLeod? What about Cassandra? She wasn't too hard to figure out, he had gone 3000 years without seeing her, another 3000 would suit him fine, but MacLeod? Oh well, he thought with a sigh, it wouldn't be the first time he had to prematurely kiss off on one life and walk into another without a plan.

While Caspian stayed on the phone, Methos remembered something. He opened the drawer to the nightstand and took out some brochures and looked them over.

Finally Caspian hung up and said, "Not good, the only flights heading out of here today are going over to Paris."

"That doesn't matter," Methos told him, "There's a cruise ship heading out tonight and going to New York, we'll see if we can't catch that."

"Methos, you hate the water," Caspian reminded him.

"I know, but I'm figuring on a ship anyway, at least we'd have a room together," Methos said, "That's one advantage over flying. And I think it'd be good to get away from France for a while…and Seacouver."

"I agree," Caspian told him.

That night the two brothers, each with a suitcase in hand, were hurrying past the crowds who had come to see the ship off and scuttled up the gangway past everybody throwing confetti and screaming and cheering.

"Must be somebody important on this boat," Methos commented to his brother.

"No," Caspian replied as he got an overall look at the people, "Just about a hundred nobodies stuck with a family."

Once the ship had pulled out of the dock and the noise from shore had died down, the two brothers were shown to their cabin where they decided to avoid all the ruckus outside and just keep to themselves for the remainder of the voyage.

Methos felt a bunch of confetti in his hair and tried to shake it out, "You'd think it was New Year's Eve the way they're acting."

"They've got plenty of reason to celebrate," Caspian said as he sat down and watched his brother pace, "They just don't know it. They'll never know how close they came to a mass genocide."

"They're better off not knowing," Methos said, "I just wish we were so lucky…Caspian?"

"What?"

"What month is this?"

"February."

"My God, New Year's Eve feels like it was an eternity ago," Methos said, "Everything feels like it was so long ago."

The night passed and eventually the two brothers went to bed. Methos was awake but he didn't move and he didn't talk; he just laid there and stared up at the ceiling, as if he were looking at something. After watching this for half an hour, Caspian finally asked him, "What's wrong?"

"I was just thinking," Methos said, "…I hope they understand, why we had to do this."

"It'll get easier," Caspian told him, "Not right away but it will, you'll see."

"I hope so," Methos said.

"Things will get better once we're out of Bordeaux and…" At the mention of that word, Methos turned on his side, facing away from Caspian.

"Now what's wrong?" Caspian asked.

Methos didn't say anything at first, and then he said, quietly, "Caspian."

"Yes?"

"Caspian," Methos said again, louder, as if he hadn't heard his brother respond.

"What?"

"Did you ever read The Man without a Country?" Methos asked.

"Yeah, so what?" Caspian asked, not getting where Methos was going with this.

Methos slowly turned his head back to look at Caspian and said, "Well then do me a favor, will you? Don't ever mention Bordeaux to me again."

It was an unusual request, but it was also one that Caspian understood very well. He grabbed Methos and pulled his body back towards him, so he would be forced to confront the presence of his brother, to know that he was not alone, and he answered, "Alright Methos, I won't, I swear."

"Thank you," Methos quietly replied, feeling for the first time that the nightmare was finally over.