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Adam Pierson was a real son of a bitch, Joe thought. He could forgive the Methos thing, but the third-floor walkup had him ready to wring the guy's neck.
He reached the top of the stairs and leaned on his cane, rubbing his thigh and trying to remember how to breathe. Apartment number four was the first door on the left; the number was painted in purple nail polish on the lintel, opposite a painted dagger dripping glittery red blood.
Students.
Still, it was nice of Adam to call in his new address to the Watchers. Joe had thought he was gone for good, but no--just a little MacLeod vacation. The official story--the *police* story--was that he'd walked in on Kalas killing Don and been chased out of the bookstore, escaping only by purest luck, and after calling the police he'd hightailed it to London and taken a good hard look at his life through the bottom of a whiskey glass.
Hell, maybe that was true. Joe gathered his lungs and his feet beneath him and walked over to knock on the door.
Rustle. Clink. The door opened a crack. "Joe!" Adam cried, and flung it open.
"Adam Pierson," Joe growled. "Or should I say--"
Adam covered Joe's mouth with his hand. "The walls have ears. Come inside."
Joe shook his head at Adam, but crossed the threshold. "I liked your old apartment better," he growled.
"So did I, but the location was terrible, not to mention that unfortunate headhunter infestation." Adam shut and locked the door before bustling over to the window and flinging back the curtains. "Here, look at this view!"
"Pigeons." There was a thin wedge of morning sky between a dozen rooftops choked with pearl-grey birds.
Adam turned and leaned against the sill, smiling, looking like he had not a care in the world. "Charming birds, pigeons. Can live anywhere, eat anything."
Joe leaned on his cane and looked him in the eye. "Ten years," he said.
"Yes?" Adam widened his eyes.
"Is it because you're good or because we're blind?"
Adam ducked his head and shrugged. His messy hair fell onto his face, making him look softer, younger. Tricky bastard. If Joe took a good look, he could see the strength in Adam's shoulders and the muscle in his arms--but it had never occurred to him to look. "It's because I'm good," Adam said.
"You son of a bitch." Joe crossed the room, driving his cane into the floor angrily. "We trusted you--and you used us! How much damage did you do?"
"No more damage than last time," Adam said, meeting Joe's eyes. His smile faded, his eyes hardened, and he looked ancient, like a painting on a Greek vase.
Joe pictured the years--five thousand of them!--like notes on sheet music, or like one of those player piano reels: plug it into the right box and watch Adam morph backwards. Adam Pierson the watcher to Adam Pierson the student to Adams he didn't know and couldn't even picture, warriors and lovers and on and on until you came to an infant on a hillside five thousand years ago.
Living history. Living *legend.* Who cheated at cards and sometimes wore red corduroy pants.
"Dammit, Adam," he sighed. "What am I supposed to do with you?"
Adam shrugged. "I haven't the foggiest. I've never been caught at this before."
"I *should* turn you in, let the Tribunal handle you."
"You mean execute me," Adam said. "You know I can't let that happen."
"They wouldn't--" Wouldn't kill the world's oldest man, except that they might, if they were pissed enough. Joe sagged backwards onto the couch.
"They're a little nutty about security. One might say paranoid," Adam said, joining him on the couch. "Not that I don't appreciate that. I spent some very dangerous years tucked away in the Watcher sanctuary, translating old Chronicles from Egyptian to Latin, secure in the knowledge that a score of trained men were dedicated to keeping my head on my shoulders."
"God dammit, Adam."
"They were good translations. I even did the gold-plated scrolly bits at the chapter heads," Adam said, wiggling his hand in mid-air.
"World's oldest living weasel," he sighed.
"Hey, in 1969 we went to the moon. I refuse to die until I've had a hamburger on Pluto." He tossed his hair back and smirked at Joe.
Joe raised an eyebrow at him. "Not what Mac said."
"What did Mac say? You shouldn't listen to him, Joe, he's got that..." Adam wiggled his hands again. "Hero worship thing. Awe. Wonder. Marvel at my tremendous powers of living."
"He said you offered him your head, so you could fight Kalas together. Don't sound to *me* like he's the one with hero worship," Joe said.
"Piffle," Adam said. "I never did anything of the kind." He hopped up and took a kettle from the bookshelf, dropping it onto a hot plate. There didn't seem to be a kitchen. for that matter, there didn't seem to be a bedroom; two doors led out of the room, but he'd bet his eyeteeth that one went to the bathroom and the other was a closet, and that if you jumped out this window, you slid down a nice shallow roof.
Joe leaned back and craned his neck, checking it out. Oh yeah. Those crowded roofs meant you could jump out here and run north, south, or points below.
Immortals were hunted every day of their lives, awake and asleep, married and bachelor, old and young. Some lived with it, and some... didn't. You could judge their state of panic by how they chose their real estate.
"You think you can pull the wool over *my* eyes? News flash, kid--I've got X-ray vision."
Adam jerked at 'kid' and looked back, smiling wearily, and then not smiling at all. "Ever look Death in the face and spit in his eye?" Adam said.
"Sure." Vietnam. Every day.
"If I was going to die, I was damned well going to choose how." Adam leaned against the desk that held the hot plate, crossing one ankle over the other. "Besides, MacLeod would have cut clean. I'm not a great fan of torture."
He hadn't thought of that. "Guess you've lived through just about everything."
"Yeah, well." Adam shivered and cracked his knuckles. "Anyway. MacLeod took me inside and gave me a cup of tea and by the time I reached the bottom, I'd figured out how to get out of the whole mess. Black, green or herbal?"
"Green," Joe said, and Adam made a small noise. "It's good for you!"
"Now who's got the hero-worship?"
"And who's got the tea?"
"Moroccan, not Japanese. My neck of the woods," Adam said, shaking the tin. He spooned the loose leaves into two filter baskets, then dropped them into two mugs.
"So. You're from--"
"Not telling."
"You can't be Welsh, not really. The Celts didn't get there until 500 BC."
"I could be Welsh. People were all over Europe by a hundred thousand years ago."
"So you *are* Welsh," Joe said.
"Not bloody telling!" Adam said, laughing, as the kettle steamed and he poured them both some tea.
THE END.
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