Disclaimer and Notes: see part 1.
Falling to Pieces - Part Two
by Raine Wynd
“Hey, how’d your dinner go?” Dan asked as Nick entered the apartment. “Julie let me loose on the patrons this afternoon.”
“Pretty good; Amanda found a new Vietnamese restaurant that does a good job. Speaking of jobs, what do you think of bartending?”
“Hell on the feet,” Dan commented. He glanced down at the hiking boots he’d worn. “I need to get better shoes if I’m going to be standing all day. Other than that, you were right: I think I did better than I thought I would.”
“Tomorrow, we’ll hit the stores, find something that will work better,” Nick told him. “Right now, I’d like to give you a few things.”
“Can it wait? I just got in myself, and I need a shower. I feel like I smell of too much smoke and beer right now.”
“Sure,” Nick said easily. “Meet you back here in the living room?”
Dan nodded and made his way to the guest bedroom.
Twenty minutes later, showered and changed, Dan went into the living room. Nick sat on the couch reading a book, and there was a small wooden box with a combination lock on the coffee table. Hearing Dan approach, Nick glanced up and marked his place in the book with a bookmark before setting it down. “Feel better?”
“Much,” Dan sighed as he took a seat on the other end of the couch. “So what’s up with the box?”
In reply, Nick opened the box and pulled out a set of keys on a key ring. Flipping through them, he said, “In order, this is the key to the front door of the bar and the key to the back door. That’s the back door that leads up the stairs, not the back door for the bar. If you use the back door, be warned: it’s a fire door, and it’s heavy. Like I told you when I gave you the elevator key card and the apartment key earlier, tell me or Amanda if you lose any of these.”
Dan nodded. “Anything else?”
“Don’t try to take on an Immortal by yourself.”
Annoyed by the warning, Dan responded with a bit more force than he’d anticipated. “I can take care of myself. Did you forget I was in combat zones and managed to survive?”
Nick chuckled dryly. “Trust me on this. Hand-to-hand combat might just get you killed faster. You aren’t armed with a gun or a knife, and getting a permit for either one in this country is a right fine bitch. Even with the permits I had, I spent a year believing that all I needed was a gun and nearly got killed for it several times.”
Dan looked at Nick and read deadly seriousness in his eyes. “How’d you get permits to carry weapons? Aren’t you still an American citizen? Did you know Amanda that entire year?”
“Yeah. Remember Bert Meyers?”
Dan’s eyes widened. “Shit, you didn’t take him up on that whole security firm thing, did you? That boy’s crazy, has been since we were in third grade.”
Nick laughed. “Yeah, well, after he got out of covert ops, he did what he said he’d do and set up a security firm. Always was after me, telling me I could make more money bounty hunting and being a security consultant than as a cop.” Nick shrugged. “After I quit the force, I needed money, and he had the best deal going, as far as I could tell. Only problem was, everything he assigned me ended up involving Amanda somehow.”
Nick paused. “She kept trying to protect me, too, in her own way. Telling me something was Immortal business and I should stay away.”
Dan chuckled. “Knowing you, that went over like a lead balloon.”
Nick nodded. “She drove me crazy – wouldn’t tell me the whole truth until I pushed. Still doesn’t, sometimes. Meeting her…” Nick sighed. “I never would have known about Immortals if it weren’t for her. She was just a thief, just another day on the job, but she showed me that the world wasn’t as black and white as I thought.”
“Oh? How?” Dan leaned forward with interest.
“There was a cop who was stealing jewelry and cash, and then planting the ‘evidence’ on the thieves to make it look like he was ‘solving’ cases. Amanda helped expose him. My partner took a bullet for her, and then Amanda got shot, too. For a moment, I thought I’d lost both of them. Then Amanda got up, and Claudia didn’t.”
“Oh, man, I’m sorry. That sucks.”
Nick shook his head. “Not as much as what happened next. The captain offered me a promotion if I kept my mouth shut about the crooked cop.”
“What the fuck? Was he crazy?” Dan exclaimed angrily. “You didn’t take it, of course.”
Nick looked startled by Dan’s faith in him. “God, I should’ve tried to get in touch with you then. I needed to hear that.”
“Well, of course you didn’t take it,” Dan said firmly. “You’re not an idiot, your captain was. You don’t trade your partner’s death for a promotion. It’s like pinning the Purple Heart on the guy that survived because his buddy covered him.”
The look on Nick’s face was priceless. Swallowing hard, Nick said, “Yeah, that’s the way I felt about it. We’re standing a few feet away from Claudia’s grave when Captain offers me this deal. Captain asked me to shake hands on it; I passed him my badge, told him I quit, and walked away.”
“You should have called me, talked to me.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t really in the mood to talk to anyone. I think if I’d tracked you down, I might have picked a fight with you just because I could. Maybe made things a hell of lot worse between us.”
Dan sighed. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. So what did you do?”
“Found the nearest bar and started drinking,” Nick admitted. “Amanda found me there, angry at the world, confused, and trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do next beyond drink myself to death.”
“Well, I’m glad did; she saved you.”
“Any sense of obligation I have about that,” Nick replied dryly, “went out the window the day she asked me to help her steal.”
“Did you?” Dan asked. “Or is the better question, do you still help her?”
“Depends on what it is,” Nick answered. “I’m telling you this, Dan, because I trust you, because you’re my brother, and because you’ll be living here. Most of the time, I try to stay on the good side of the law. But there will be point at which I will have to go underground, change my identity, find a new way to make a living.”
“And if that happens in my lifetime, you want me to know that you might be living outside of the law, and I shouldn’t be surprised. Got it. I suppose if you get used to the idea you might have to murder someone just to stay alive, there’s a lot of things you have to do just to keep the cops from knowing you killed anyone.”
“Exactly.”
Dan digested this for a moment. Okay, nice to know that the Amanda I was thinking of is same Amanda, he thought. Also nice to know that Nick hasn’t changed that much from when he was a cop. There is one thing I do need to know, though. “Have you killed anyone?”
Quietly, Nick replied, “Yes. After a while, you stop counting just how many, because you know every one of them anyway. You see them in dreams; you know what they knew. Taking a Quickening — which is what we call what happens when you cut off another Immortal’s head – is like a drug for me. It makes me horny and high and I crave more. I’ve been told that if I wasn’t so grounded in having been a good cop, I’d probably be a headhunter. I had to learn the hard way the value of not charging in like a white knight, looking for justice – and you remember how I used to be about trying to solve cases so the bad guys went to jail.”
“Yeah, you were like a pit bull. Even when it was me you were arresting, you wouldn’t let go.” Dan studied his brother. Nick didn’t sound happy about that situation, and from what Dan had seen of Immortal headhunters, Dan couldn’t blame him. “So what you’re staying is, if you come home covered in blood, I should be happy you’re alive, not dead, and I might have to help you move a body?”
Nick let out a relieved breath. “Yes. Would you?”
“Just let me know where to stick the shovel. And tell me alcohol helps with that high, because brotherly love only goes so far and then you’re on your own, buddy.”
Nick stared at him, as if he couldn’t quite believe Dan. Reluctantly, he chuckled. “Trust me, brother, I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole, even when a Quickening is in my blood. I love women. Mind, I might ask you to go find Amanda for me if it gets bad enough, but that’s about it. But…you’re serious about that shovel.”
“I thought about what you said when I could stop to think today. You don’t need a bartender; you need someone who can take over for you if you need to disappear for a week or a decade. Someone who could keep the bar as it is.
“Now, I don’t know how much Amanda’s invested in this. Hard to say – she acts more like you’re in charge of operations than she is, but I suspect she’d be gone in a heartbeat if she felt she needed to go.”
Nick chuckled dryly. “She already has a few times.”
“Well, if she’s as old as you say she is, then running away would definitely be the better part of valor if it’s kept her alive this long.” Dan shrugged. “Hell, I’d probably be inclined to run if I could. At least you’ll be alive to figure out a better defense the next time. Now, back to the bar staff. You have Henri, who’s a decent assistant manager, from what I can see, but he doesn’t have the investment. If someone offered him a better job elsewhere, he’d probably take it.”
At Nick’s look of surprise, Dan explained, “The Air Force did teach me a few things, little brother. I didn’t just come here hoping to find you; I was hoping that maybe here, away from the States, I could make sense of what I’ve done the last twenty years. I know how to lead a team, move sensitive information quickly through a combat zone, and translate in Russian, French, and Arabic, but in the real world, what does that get me? Oh, sure, I could find a job somewhere, probably end up translating for the rest of my life, but here…here, I have family. And there’s nothing I’d defend more than family. I’m sure I’ll have more questions over time — like what the hell you keep on the third floor of this building.”
“Private, fully equipped gym and sparring space for Amanda and me. The elevator key also opens that level.” Nick looked sheepish. “Sorry, I meant to tell you about that earlier.”
Dan waved off the apology. “The way we’ve been living the last few weeks, I don’t know how the hell you find time to even use a gym. Two more questions, because I’m tired: one, if you can only die permanently by a beheading, where the hell do you keep your sword, and two, what the hell is my work schedule? Julie didn’t know, said she thought she was training me the rest of the week.”
Amused, Nick answered, “Tell me what days you want off, keeping in mind that you’ll need to work either a Friday or a Saturday, and I’d prefer you worked at least an eight-hour shift, and we’ll work out a schedule.”
“Monday and Thursday,” Dan decided. “That way, you and I can share a day off. Wait, are women allowed up here?”
“Not unless Amanda and I have met them. Sorry, but we had a woman try to seduce me and then take my head. Later, Amanda told me that if she’d known Karina was in the house, she would have told me to forget it.”
Dan winced. “Nearest hotel?”
“Two blocks up is the Grand Hotel. Suite #15 is registered to you. I, uh, took the liberty of renting the suite under your name through the end of the week.”
“You were prepared to put me there in case I didn’t want to know about the rest of your life, weren’t you?” Dan’s eyes narrowed as a thought hit him. “Or did you have it set up so you could use it?”
“No.” Nick met his eyes. “I used your name because it was easier to put your name down on the register, since there was a chance you might use it, and I didn’t want to have to deal with arranging a hotel room for you late at night.” He grinned. “For some reason, if you book a hotel at that hour of the evening, they seem to think you just want it for sex.”
Dan rolled his eyes. “I can see that. But…I still don’t get it. Why the hell did you reserve a room for me? I assume you paid for it, right?”
“I booked you a room because if you didn’t want to know about Immortality, it was going to be easier on me for you to live somewhere other than this apartment.”
Shocked, Dan asked incredulously, “You were that prepared to lie to me?”
Nick didn’t flinch. “If I had to. I haven’t known you for ten years; knew who you were for all the years before that, but all that told me was that you’re someone I might not trust with my life.”
“Fuck. And just on the strength of me wanting to know, on how I’ve been the last few weeks you’re trusting me with…God, it is your life, isn’t it? Amanda’s too.”
Nick nodded.
Dan swallowed hard. “Why? I mean, yeah, I wanted to know, but…I know you. You’re capable of carrying on like everything’s normal when it’s not.”
Nick met Dan’s gaze. “I can’t protect you if you’re not around, and I have enough enemies who’d use you to get to me, even if you didn’t know I was Immortal.”
“So if I hadn’t wanted to know, you would have put me in a hotel where you knew where all the exits were.”
“Exactly.”
“So why let me stay here? Why not just go ahead and put me in that hotel anyway? It’s not like anything would change.”
“This building is Holy Ground; you’re safer here and I don’t have to worry so much about you.” Nick grinned. “Besides, I like having you around. Kinda reminds me of how we used to hang out together.” Sobering, he went on, “I need this place to be the one place I can stop pretending I have a normal life, where if someone I trust is around, I don’t have to hide where my sword is or who I am. And to answer an earlier question, yes, I paid for the hotel suite in my name because that, too, was easier, since you don’t have the funds I do. I don’t steal my own brother’s identity.” Nick flashed a smile. “More fun to steal hearts.”
“Like you did that woman the other night? God, Nick, you practically had her creaming her panties with that dance, and you just walked away.” It wasn’t entirely surprising that Nick had done so; what startled him had been watching Nick appear utterly fascinated by the woman, and then abruptly leave.
Nick shrugged. “If she hadn’t been dancing me with me to make her boyfriend jealous, I might have found her more attractive.”
“Is that what happened? I was too busy watching Amanda dance with her friend.” Dan fanned himself. “Man, two chicks dancing like that—was that hot or what?”
Nick didn’t reply, but the look on his face acknowledged Dan’s sentiment. “As for the sword….” Nick reached under the coffee table and produced a wicked looking blade. “This is my broadsword. It’s always with me, somewhere. If I’m headed out, it’s usually in my coat, so if you grab my coat, be warned, there’s likely a blade or two in it. A friend of mine made the sword in 1604.”
“I never thought I’d ever see you without a gun strapped to your body. You were so gung-ho on carrying one. Remember how I used to tease you about being a cop twenty-four-seven?”
Nick chuckled dryly. “Yeah, I remember. I have a gun too, but it’s backup now, not a primary weapon.”
“Wait. If Immortals fight with swords, isn’t using a gun cheating?”
Nick looked at him. “Not against an Immortal who’d use any trick in the book to take your head,” he said coldly.
“Fuck, if that’s the case, I’d use whatever I knew, too. May I hold your sword?” At Nick’s nod, Dan carefully took possession of the sword. He knew something about swords, from his own interest in weapons in general, and noticed immediately how well balanced the sword was, despite the overall length. The hilt was adorned with a ruby-eyed wolf done in the style of a family crest. It was definitely not a sword Dan wanted to come up against in a fight, and heavier than Dan had expected despite its balance. Carefully, Dan handed it back to his brother. “Damn, that’s a beautiful sword.”
Nick looked at the blade a moment before he rose to his feet. Pointing the sword at the ground, he said quietly, “Yes, it is. And there are days when I wish it was just something I hung up on a wall for display to admire for its beauty.”
Dan looked up at his brother, hearing pain and regret in Nick’s voice. Some part of Dan shuddered at the thought that Nick had killed someone. “Can you ever get out of the fight? I mean, does everyone who’s Immortal have to fight?”
“Oh, sure, you don’t have to fight,” Nick answered easily with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “You can walk away. You can run. You can try to negotiate for something you think the other Immortal might want.”
“Your body or your head?” Dan asked, hoping even as he said it that Nick hadn’t done so.
“Or information on another Immortal,” Nick replied. “It’s not always worth the trade.”
In that instant, Dan knew his brother had done things he wasn’t proud of, things that Dan might only find out if they’d been recorded in Nick’s Chronicle. “You sound like you know from experience,” Dan commented.
Nick nodded. “Mostly, people come looking for information from me. They seem to think I know everyone…and to a certain degree, I do make a point of knowing who passes through my bar. I don’t keep track of them beyond that.” He flashed a quick grin. “Despite what some might think. Some months, it doesn’t even feel like the Game is going on. Then some headhunter walks into the bar, or I run into an Immortal I don’t know when I’m out in the city, and I’m reminded again that the only way to get out of the Game – permanently – is to die. You can spend your life on holy ground, live in some remote place where no one can find you, and hope that the Gathering somehow passes you by. I’ve met too many Immortals who think that living on holy ground just means you don’t know how to fight, that you’re an easy target.”
“And you’re not, not if I know you as well as I think I do.”
Nick grinned fiercely. “You’d be right. Good night, Dan.” Then he walked into his bedroom, still carrying the sword.
Suddenly very tired, Dan moved slowly towards his room. His head was spinning from the information he’d been given, and yet…nothing he’d been told or shown rang false.
His last thought before falling asleep was: I hope to God I never have to explain the Watchers to Nick. First thing tomorrow, I’m getting my PDA fixed and I’m figuring out how the hell to get my email, because I have a hell of a lot of questions, and I hope reading my email answers at least some of them.
*****
The following two weeks flew by in a blur of training, getting used to serving customers, finding out that the laundry room was on the third floor next to the gym, doing laundry, going shopping for work-appropriate clothes (i.e., t-shirts and jeans he wouldn’t mind getting liquor spilled on, plus more comfortable, slip-resistant shoes), and trying to find the time to answer two nagging questions: who the hell Raoul Norte was, and why the hell the Watchers hadn’t told Dan his brother was Immortal. He did manage to buy a new charger for his PDA at least.
He caught an unexpected break when Julie, the senior bartender who’d been training him, figured out that not only did they not need him on Saturday, but that he wouldn’t be back to work until Tuesday as they had enough staff to cover the weekend. Apparently, they had a bartender who only worked one weekend a month, which explained why Dan was needed to cover the gaps the rest of the month.
Either way, Dan was glad for the chance to catch up on sleep. He now understood why Nick opened the club, waited for the second shift to arrive, then took a nap and ate a late dinner before returning to close the club at five a.m. He also understood why, before he’d started working the bar, he’d rarely seen Amanda; she was a night owl who preferred the later shifts.
It was nearly two p.m. when Dan awoke. Stretching groggily, he shuffled to the bathroom to shower, wondering as he did if he’d get used to working late nights, and if he’d ever find out who Raoul was. He was beginning to think Raoul didn’t exist.
Wonder how I can get Nick to tell me about other Immortals? Other than telling me they exist and to stay away from them, he’s left the subject alone. I might be dreaming he said anything except for the fact Nick doesn’t bother to hide his sword any more when he’s home.
After showering, he put on underwear and a pair of jeans; then poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot Nick had left on for him, and decided to figure out Nick’s Internet access. Dan knew Nick had a laptop; he’d seen him use it in the living room on a few occasions, but he never left it out, always taking it back with him to his room.
Dan entered the master bedroom. Like the guest bedroom, it had been done in dark woods and rich sea tones. A king-size platform bed, neatly made, seemed to fit perfectly in the large space, which also had a small seating area large enough for two chairs and a small table. There was no sight of the laptop.
Dan then tried the closet; to his surprise, it was locked. Then again, Dan thought, Nick’s pretty paranoid about security. Then he looked back at the platform bed, seeing drawers underneath the bed, none of which were locked.
He was just about to try the drawers when the phone on the nightstand rang. Without thinking, Dan answered it.
“Hello?”
“Is Raoul there?” a woman’s voice asked in English.
Who the hell would be calling Raoul at this number? Unless Nick is…Dan’s mind seized and couldn’t finish the thought. “I’m sorry,” Dan said automatically in the same language, “he’s not here at the moment. Can I take a message?”
“Oh, you must be his brother. We didn’t wake you last night, did we?”
Fuck. No. Not again. “Uh, no. I don’t think I heard anyone last night.”
The woman giggled. “Oh, cool. I was —” she laughed nervously again “—afraid we were so loud. Would you let Raoul know Kellie called? I’m at the Grand Hotel if he’d like to see me again.”
Numbly, Dan agreed. He replaced the receiver in its cradle with care, not trusting himself to toss it across the room. Then he made himself walk out to his room, put on a T-shirt, socks, boots, and a jacket, take his keys, and get out of the building via the back stairs. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone just yet. He walked for several hours, trying to come to terms with what he’d heard.
My brother is an Immortal. I knew that already; he’d told me himself. He’s never said he wouldn’t use another name to hide. So why the hell does finding out he’s been using one to sleep with some tourist hit me like a ton of bricks?
Because the name he’s using is the name of the Immortal I was sent to Watch. Fuck.
Eventually, he found a public phone in a café well away from the bar and, after checking the number in his PDA, placed a call using his phone card.
“Hi, Emily. It’s Dan. I found…” Dan took a deep breath and finished his words. “I found Raoul Norte. We have a problem. Can you get me in touch with Amanda’s Watcher?”
“I’m sorry, Dan, but she doesn’t have one.”
“What do you mean, she fucking doesn’t have one? She’s only one of the oldest ones on the planet. Of all the ones we Watch, don’t you think she—”
“Yes, but she doesn’t let us. She knows about us, thanks to Joe Dawson and Duncan MacLeod.”
“Who the hell are —” Dan started to say, then remembered his Watcher history. “Shit. I am so screwed.” Great, just great. I’m only living in the same building as a woman who counts as a friend one of the biggest name Watchers on the planet.
“What’s wrong?” Emily asked in concern.
“Just bear with me. Can you confirm that Amanda’s been running a nightclub called Sanctuary?”
“Yes. It’s the only club in the entire city that’s also Holy Ground. Dawson was able to confirm that for us.”
“Do you know who lives in the building?” I’m going to kill somebody if they figured out I’m living in the same building as Amanda. Hell, I’m mad they are only telling me this now.
“No. There are several apartments, but no one’s been able to identify the tenants. Amanda doesn’t hire Watchers as staff.”
That means that the information on Amanda’s a few years old at best, Dan realized. “Did Dawson say anything about a Nick Wolfe hanging around her?”
“Yes, they’re partners in Sanctuary. Did you not read the email I sent you?”
“I haven’t been able to access my email for a few weeks now, Emily. I thought I told you that.”
“Oh. Right. Your brother’s Internet access isn’t a secure connection. Sorry, I’ll put in a request for secure access over a public terminal for you. It’ll take a week, but let’s hope we get lucky and get it sooner.” He groaned at that news; he had a bad feeling his email had answers he needed now. He heard her type some keys. “Hold on a moment, let me look that name up for you.”
Dan waited impatiently as he heard Emily type in the name into the Watcher database. Damn it, if only I had Internet access on my fucking PDA, I could have avoided this route. I didn’t think it was going to be a problem, damn it. Fuck.
“Ah, yes. Here he is. Nick Wolfe, former detective on the Torago Police Department. First death was 17 May 1999; death was by gunshot fired by Amanda, although death would have been imminent anyway due to poison. Poison was given by Evan Peyton, an Immortal who knew Amanda. Nick’s first teacher was, hmm, now that’s interesting: it was Connor MacLeod, who almost never takes students. I’d love to hear that story sometime. Nick is currently business partner to Amanda, although they were lovers at one point,” Emily recited briskly. Every word felt like another nail in Dan’s coffin. “I take it he’s added another alias to his list?”
“Another one? What, does he collect names like some people collect baseball cards?”
“Last year, it was Paolo DeMitri. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s just tossing names at us to see if we pick up on it.” She sounded amused. “He doesn’t like having a Watcher, although Miri Dalal seemed to get along really well with him and Amanda. She said they weren’t happy she left Paris to go back to Thailand. That was three years ago, and we haven’t been able to keep a Watcher on them since. If you’re working there already, they might be more accepting of you. Do you think you could give it a shot?”
Dan stared at the receiver in his hand a long moment. They don’t know where I’m staying. Why the hell can I make the connections and they can’t? Surely any Watcher who knows where Sanctuary is could look on a freaking map and see the address I gave as my current location is one and the same. “What, you want me to Watch both of them?”
“Yes. They tend to stay together for the most part, so it’ll be easier.”
“Wait a minute. I thought we weren’t supposed to let the Immortals we watch know we exist. It sounds like Miri did. Isn’t that a violation of protocol?”
“Not in this case. They already know we exist, and they’ve shown that, aside from making us work a little harder to record their lives, they don’t hurt us.”
“And if I say no?” Dan asked carefully.
“Then you’d be reassigned. Mind, we’d prefer you didn’t. We don’t have all the resources we’d like on every known Immortal, and Amanda and Nick Wolfe are two of our biggest gaps in coverage. Between them and their club, they see more Immortals in a week than most of us see in a lifetime.”
Relief poured through him. I don’t have to leave the Watchers unless I want to. “So the organization doesn’t seem to mind that Nick plays this game?”
Emily chuckled dryly. “He doesn’t give us much choice, otherwise. Have you been to the club yet?”
“Yeah, I have. That’s how I found Raoul. Pretty cool place.” The irony of his situation, the oblivious and officious way Emily sounded, appealed to Dan’s dark humor, and he was hard-pressed to keep from laughing hysterically. Carefully, Dan asked, “Does his Chronicle mention any family?”
“No. Damnable thing, too: we’re missing that part of his history. Well, to be honest, we’re missing everything before Amanda’s Watcher picked up on her encountering him as a cop. We didn’t know he’d even died until Connor MacLeod helped rescue him in New York. It would really help us if you could fill in the gaps. Oh, and looks like the IT department’s on the ball today. Got a pen?”
He grabbed his PDA and opened up the memo application. “All right, I’m ready.”
She gave him the URL, his username and password, then added, “It’ll prompt you from there. Remember to clear the cookies of any computer you’re using when you log off.”
“Thanks for the information, Emily,” Dan told her. “I’ll call you.” He hung up, feeling battered, and shut off his PDA before tucking it in his pocket. For a good thirty seconds, he was sorely tempted to hit the wall beside the phone, get the frustration out. He felt boxed in by obligations – obligations to his oath, obligations to his brother, obligations to his own sense of what was right. Deep breaths, Dan, he told himself as he did exactly that and stared sightlessly at the floor of the café.
The first thing he needed to do was read his email, he decided. The second thing was figure out what he was going to do after he’d read it.
He stopped off at the counter and inquired about Internet access, only to find out that the nearest public cybercafé was up the street three blocks. It didn’t take long to get there, nor get connected.
He began catching up on his email. As he’d expected, there were the usual emails about personnel changes, reminders to file travel expenses in a timely fashion, and system-wide announcements about Immortals to be on the lookout for, including Immortals to avoid if at all possible. He read everything, consumed by guilt and a slowly growing fury at himself.
There was no reason I shouldn’t have asked Emily for this kind of access sooner. God, I’m forty years old. I know better than to assume anything, but…did being in the Air Force for so long make me used to thinking if I didn’t know something, it wasn’t something I needed to know? Why the hell did I procrastinate?
Because if you waited, then maybe you could pretend Nick was the only one with a secret big enough to kill him, a voice inside his head countered.
Not liking that voice, Dan concentrated grimly on his reading.
Buried in the older emails was the one he was looking for.
He read the list of known Immortals in the city with a sense of disgust and abject failure. If he had gotten email access sooner, he would have known about Nick and Amanda long before now…but he’d been far more interested in spending time with his brother. If he was completely honest, Dan knew he’d been slacking off. Emily wasn’t like the Middle Eastern Field Supervisor he’d gotten used to reporting to; Emily didn’t seem to have the same sense of urgency over reporting information as Dan’s former supervisor had, and he’d let the excuses build.
As penance for ignoring his Watcher duty, he forced himself to look up the Chronicles of everyone he recognized, to glance over the brief biographies, until he’d thoroughly convinced himself that he’d either served, danced, had a conversation with, or bumped into at least half the list in the past week alone.
Emily wasn’t kidding when she said Sanctuary was a huge gap of information coverage, Dan thought. Sanctuary’s operating hours mean that there’s only a small window of time when it isn’t accessible for an Immortal. I haven’t even gotten through half the list, and it’s as if nearly every Immortal who’s anybody has been to the club, with enough notations that indicate Miri Dalal personally witnessed a good number of them herself.
How the hell can I do this? I can’t Watch my own brother, can I? There’s nothing in my email, nothing in the Chronicles, nothing in the fucking procedure manual that covers this. There’s a policy on marrying an Immortal, there’s a policy on Watching a significant other, hell, there’s even a policy about no adoptions of children, but there’s nothing on siblings. It’s like if it ever happened, no one said a damn word about it.
Maybe that’s my answer, Dan thought. If the Watchers can’t connect that I’m living over the club, and I never listed Nick as my next of kin, then maybe there’s a way I can do this.
Feeling better about his situation, Dan glanced at the clock. With a start, he realized how long he’d been gone, knew Nick would be worried if he didn’t show up for dinner, and he quickly cleared the Internet cache on the browser and logged off the computer before settling his usage fees and heading back to the apartment. He got as far as the street before he ran into Amanda.
“There you are!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Your brother had this funny notion that, since you hadn’t said where you were going like you normally do when you leave the building, something awful might have happened to you.” She seemed relieved to find him unharmed.
Shit. I didn’t even consider Nick would worry if I just took off. He forced a smile to his lips and hugged her easily. “Just needed some air,” he told her. “Looks like I need to get a cell phone if he’s going to worry so much about his big brother.”
She laughed lightly and took Dan’s arm. “He worries about everyone,” she confided. “It’s very sweet. I kept trying to tell him you’re a big boy, but…” She shrugged easily.
“Does he worry about you, too?” Dan wondered.
Amanda chuckled. “Too much, sometimes. He forgets I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
Dan rolled his eyes sympathetically. “He’s always been into that whole ‘protect and serve’ thing. Even when we were kids, he wanted to be a cop.”
“I wondered about that,” Amanda remarked. “He won’t go back now and be one.”
“Probably because someone’s corrupted him,” Dan said teasingly.
Amanda’s eyes widened. “Must be you,” she parried. “I haven’t done anything.”
Dan laughed. “In the last hour, maybe. He was telling me about how he helped you retrieve something of yours from a museum?”
“Well, it was mine,” she said simply. “I wanted it back so it could be mine again.” She smiled. “Come, let’s go home so your darling brother can stop worrying.”
A short time later, Amanda steered him up the back stairs to Nick’s apartment. “Wait here,” she commanded just outside the door. “Nick’s expecting trouble.”
To the door, she called, “Nick. We’re back.”
The door opened cautiously, and Nick stepped out, sword in hand. He glanced over at Amanda and Dan, and sighed in relief. “You found him.”
Seeing his brother made Dan freeze. He wasn’t ready to face Nick yet, but he forced himself to act naturally, to follow Amanda inside the apartment and pretend nothing was amiss.
“None worse for the wear,” Amanda said lightly. “You worry too much, my dear.” She kissed Nick on his cheek and smiled at both of them. “Now if you don’t need me, I will go back to charming our lovely patrons.”
Nick sighed in relief. “I’ll see you down there in a little bit,” he told Amanda. “Thanks for finding him.”
“My pleasure.” To Dan’s surprise, she kissed his cheek and patted his butt as she made her way out the door. Just before she exited, she looked at Dan. “Next time, try not to worry us so much? I’m glad I found you safe.”
Surprised, Dan looked at her. He hadn’t counted on Amanda’s concern, hadn’t calculated what else he was risking by being a Watcher. It wasn’t just about his relationship with his brother anymore; it was about his friendship with Amanda as well. Swallowing the surge of emotion the knowledge produced, he managed, “I’ll try not to.”
She flashed a brilliant smile and then was gone.
Nick sheathed his sword and looked at Dan. “You okay?”
Dan let out a breath. “Yeah. Amanda just startled me.”
Nick chuckled. “She does do that to people. So, what did you want for dinner?”
****
“There’s something I’ve been wondering,” Dan said after dinner. He’d spent the meal thinking it over, trying to find the words to approach his brother.
Nick looked at him from across the breakfast bar as he washed the few dishes that wouldn’t go in the dishwasher. “And?”
“If you told all of the senior staff about Immortals, and you swore them to secrecy, how many more mortals know about Immortals? Aren’t you worried that someone might decide you’re all freaks that shouldn’t exist?”
“Someone already has,” Nick told him. “They were a rogue group of Watchers. Supposedly the Watchers are a group of mortals who record, observe, and never interfere in the lives of Immortals, but—” Nick snorted cynically “— they’re just as human as anyone else. Hard to be an objective observer when it’s someone you’ve gotten to know.” He put the pan he’d just washed into the dish drainer. “Even harder not to want to help when you know information that could save your friend’s life. Personally, I don’t think my life needs to be recorded for posterity, but they keep insisting.” Nick flashed his brother a grin and drained the sink. “So I make them work for it.”
“So they assign someone to record your life and you know about it? Isn’t that kind of weird?”
Nick rinsed his hands off and wiped them on a dish towel with exaggerated slowness. When he finally looked at Dan, his expression gave little away. “Yeah, it is weird,” he admitted quietly. “About as weird as my estranged brother showing up when I haven’t talked to him in ten years. Makes me wonder if he came on his own or if someone sent him.”
Dan met his brother’s eyes. For a moment, he’d forgotten that Nick had been a detective, had always been quick at making leaps of logic. For a moment, Dan hesitated and considered what kind of trouble he’d be in if he gave his brother a half-truth instead of the whole truth. For a moment, Dan wanted to pretend he hadn’t already decided to tell Nick everything. “I really did ask your old landlord where to find you,” Dan said finally. He knew what he needed to say next. It didn’t make saying the words any easier, and he shook his head as he let out a derisive chuckle. “Never in a million fucking years did it occur to me to ask Headquarters.”
Nick stared at him, eyes narrowed with suspicion. “I did say that trouble was right behind you when you walked in that night, didn't I?” he remarked tonelessly. “How long have you been Watching me?”
“Damn it, Nick,” Dan exploded, hating the way Nick was pulling
inside himself before his eyes, hating that he’d put that same old
look of distrust he’d gotten used to seeing right back on his younger
brother’s face after three weeks of not seeing it. “I didn’t
figure out I was Watching you until this morning. As far as I was concerned,
I came to
“You didn’t know about me?” Nick asked warily.
“Not as a Watcher, no. I heard about Amanda and some of the more famous Immortals, but you remember how I could never remember people’s names and faces.”
Nick’s tense stance relaxed marginally. “Yeah. You were always getting yourself in trouble for calling your girlfriend Maureen by some other name.”
“Yeah, well, they used to email me a list of Immortals to look out for when I was traveling between locations, and I’d have to figure out ways to look people up on my PDA without being obvious.”
“Is that why you were so intent on buying a charger for it the other day?” Nick asked.
Dan nodded. “Yeah. Once you told me that you were an Immortal, I couldn’t see asking you if I could use the Internet here in the apartment.” He smiled ruefully. “I could just see you figuring out I was a Watcher in about ten seconds flat if that happened, and I wasn’t ready for that. Not until I knew how much they — we— knew about you.”
Nick considered this information briefly. “You said you didn’t know you were Watching me. How come?”
“They just gave me a name of an Immortal they said needed Watching, and it was Raoul Norte.”
A ghost of a smile flitted across Nick’s lips. “So they did finally catch that one. I was beginning to wonder.”
“Yeah, they did, and they know you’re tossing names at them, too,” Dan warned him. “Hell, I didn’t even know you were Raoul. I mean, seriously, why the fuck did you choose that name? You don’t even look Hispanic.”
“I liked the way it sounded,” Nick told him.
Dan eyed his brother dubiously. “That name makes me think you’ve been watching way too many Zorro films.”
“So says the man who introduced me to the character,” Nick shot back, sounding more annoyed than angry. “So how did you figure out I’m Raoul?”
“I didn’t,” Dan said honestly. “I still wouldn’t know if it weren’t for that chick you slept with last night calling here looking for Raoul. I just knew Raoul Norte was supposed to be working here, but no one would tell me who the hell he was, and told me if he was Immortal, not to care. Hell, Headquarters doesn’t even know we’re brothers; they have nothing on you before you decided to try and arrest Amanda. Right now, I’m pretty sure they haven’t even figured out that the address I gave them as my current residence is the same as Sanctuary.”
Nick stared at him. “I thought they were smarter than that,” he said cautiously. “Dawson didn’t strike me as being stupid, and Miri wasn’t dumb, either.”
Dan nodded. “I thought so, too, but…I guess what my old supervisor said was right after all: Headquarters doesn’t have a clue what the field does, that they’re too busy trying to keep track of it all to figure out what really works. He said if I ever got posted to Paris, God better help me, or I’d better just stay away.” Dan snorted. “I didn’t understand what he meant until now.”
Nick moved away from the sink to pace. “How did the Watchers find you?” he asked quietly.
“My platoon sergeant thought it might help if I knew there was more in the world than the military. He was from a family of Watchers; they’d been doing it for generations. I’d caught him taking pictures of a female soldier, and I was about to report him for it. Turned out the female he was shooting photos of was Immortal.” Dan half-shrugged. “Till then, I wasn’t sure what the hell I was doing in the military other than a whole lot of nothing important — at least, I thought it was; sorting mail was the least interesting thing I ever wanted to do. He made sure I qualified for courier duty so I could get out of the mailroom, go places, handle important things, and then, after I agreed to go into the Watchers, he made sure I got the assignments where there’d be an Immortal to Watch. I…” Dan took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, his eyes on his brother, who’d stopped pacing and now stood with his arms crossed a few feet away. “I owe them the last nine years of my life. Without them, I’m not sure I’d still be here. God, Nick, I’ve been trying to figure out if I can even keep on being a Watcher. Until I found out you were Immortal, it was just…” He spread his hands helplessly. “It was just a job I thought needed doing. My sergeant was right: I needed to feel important about something, needed to have some secret that was mine. You remember, Nick, how I was always trying to see what I could get away with when we were in high school?”
Nick let go of the breath he’d been holding. “Yeah. No one could ever prove you were causing trouble, and they didn’t believe I would, so you got away with a lot.”
Dan nodded. “I got through basic and AIT, and I waited a while until I figured out how to play the angles. Except my sergeant was smarter than I’d given him credit for being, and…well, he made me an offer. It was either become a Watcher or get dishonorably discharged. I guess he was just that sure I’d say yes; it wasn’t until later that I realized he couldn’t have made the discharge stick. When I confronted him about it, he just asked me if I felt if what I was doing in the Watchers was a bad thing. At the time, I couldn’t say it was. He told me if I didn’t want to be a Watcher anymore, I could walk away, no harm, no foul.” Dan snorted. “Of course, by then, I was already deep enough into it that I couldn’t see walking away. I was convinced it would bother me to know there was a whole world I was missing out on.
“The Immortals I Watched weren’t…they weren’t family. Fuck, how can I explain this? I was excited to know I was privy to their lives, but it always felt like I was watching some character on a TV show.”
Nick chuckled dryly at the thought, but from the way Nick stood, Dan could see his brother was losing the rest of his anger. “How many of us did you Watch?” Nick asked.
“I was responsible for the Chronicles of six Immortals. Two of the Immortals didn’t last much longer than it took to get the phone call to Watch them; Iraq was hell on young Immortals.” Dan chuckled humorlessly. “Along with that, I was expected to report back on any known Immortals I came across in my travels. They made me memorize the names and faces of at least fifty Immortals they thought I might encounter. Only problem is I remember half of what they made me memorize – the name but not the face, or the story but not the face. Like I said, I had to start carrying a PDA everywhere.”
Nick considered this information. Dan could see the wheels turning in his brother’s mind, and knew that he couldn’t have kept this secret from him for long. “Did you want to continue being a Watcher?”
“I don’t know if I can,” Dan answered honestly, exhaling. “It’s not just you I’d be Watching; they want me to Watch you and Amanda. You, you’re my brother, and Amanda’s like no woman I’ve ever known. I want to keep her as a friend. If I Watched both of you, I wouldn’t have any objectivity whatsoever.”
Nick shrugged. “Neither did Miri, and neither does Joe Dawson.”
Dan glared at him. “Joe Dawson is the only Watcher on the planet right now who could probably get away with breaking every rule in the book and they’d still let him be a Watcher. I’m not Dawson.”
“No,” Nick conceded, smiling for the first time, “but you are my brother, the one who used to love figuring out how to break every rule in the book and get away with it.”
Dan considered this reminder for a moment. “I thought about not telling you I was a Watcher,” he admitted finally. “Thought about just splitting the difference. They know you’re Immortal, but they don’t seem to know about me.”
“So what’s the harm in keeping it that way?”
Dan looked at his brother. “They do eventually connect the dots, little brother. When they do, they tend to make huge, nasty assumptions. They tried to execute Dawson for revealing the Watchers to Duncan MacLeod; they thought that Dawson was responsible for the rise in Watcher and Immortal deaths, and then they tried to kill MacLeod as well. Nobody talks about it much anymore, but when I went back and looked up what information they had on you, Dawson’s name came up. So I looked his file up, too.” Dan chuckled ruefully. “Now I understand why they were so insistent about us being more discreet about the tattoo. There was an Immortal – not MacLeod – who was tracking and then killing Watchers in an attempt to find Methos, the oldest Immortal.” Dan shook his head. “The whole story just reads like one big SNAFU.”
Nick whistled softly. “That doesn’t reassure me that the Watchers have anyone’s best intentions at heart. I worry about what would happen if some government got a hold of your database, your records,” Nick said quietly. “Having the Watchers around spying on my life already makes me feel like I’m a lab rat.” He shrugged awkwardly. “On the other hand, Miri did a good job of never making me feel like she was there to spy on me. I knew she was reporting back what she saw in the bar, but she got to the point where she was just there, a regular patron who’d stay four, sometimes six, hours in the bar, chatting with the customers, giving the bartenders grief, breaking hearts, and claiming to be researching for some grand novel she was going to write.” He grinned faintly. “She got a lot of mileage out of that last one.”
Dan considered Nick’s words. “Maybe if I tell them what’s going on, they’ll be able to tell me if I can keep Watching you. I already told them that you’re Raoul Norte.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Nick asked worriedly.
“No,” Dan answered candidly. “But think about it, Nick. It’s not a state secret in Sanctuary that we’re brothers. All it would take would be for someone to overhear in the bar that you’re my brother, tell somebody else, and then it goes through the grapevine – on one side or the other. You and Amanda do a pretty good job of not hiring Watchers as staff, but you don’t kick them out as patrons. And the Immortal grapevine is nothing short of amazing, from what I’ve seen. The only thing keeping the fact that we’re brothers a secret right now is that you pay the staff to keep their mouths shut, but now that I’m working there – I can just see someone saying, ‘Hey, Dan, do you know where your brother is?’”
Nick chuckled ruefully. “Yeah. Sanctuary’s practically Gossip Central.” He sighed. “So what are you going to do?”
“Nothing tonight,” Dan decided after a glance at his watch. “Tomorrow’s soon enough to call Emily, my regional supervisor, set up a meeting, and see what she has to say.”
“And if you don’t like what she has to say?”
Dan grinned. “Come on, little brother, when haven’t I had a plan?”
Nick chuckled. “Never, and except for when I had to arrest you, you’ve managed somehow. I swear, Dan, if you were a cat, you’d be four lives short.”
“So I’ll try not to lose my head over this one,” Dan assured him. “I did do some research. I’m not going into this meeting totally blind.”
“Is there anything more you can do before you talk to Emily?”
Dan shook his head. “If I do any more research, I’m just going to have more questions than answers, I think. Plus, I’m not sure if talking to anyone else is going to make that much of a difference. Protocol says if I have questions, I’m supposed to talk to my regional supervisor anyway.”
Nick didn’t look all that reassured, and Dan knew he was going to worry until the matter was settled. Still, he seemed willing to let it rest for the moment. “So, if all you can do is wait, what do you want to do with the rest of the evening?”
Dan checked his watch, considered his options. He knew there was always watching TV or a DVD, playing a game of chess or basketball against Nick, or heading down to the club to dance, possibly pick up someone for the evening. Suddenly, the walls seemed too close and the idea of hanging out where he knew Immortals would definitely be or at least being in the same building as an Immortal other than his brother felt too much like a reminder of his situation. “Nothing against Sanctuary,” Dan said slowly, “but I think I’d like a change of scenery if we head out. Shall we find the newest club around St.-Germain-des-Prés and see if we fit in?”
Nick smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”
Morning came all too quickly after a long evening of dancing and drinking. The smell of coffee tempted Dan out of bed and long habit had him showered and dressed before the rest of his brain caught up with the fact he was now awake. He stepped out to the kitchen to find Nick seated at the breakfast bar, sipping coffee and reading the news on his laptop.
“Morning,” Nick greeted him. “There’s some ibuprofen in the drawer underneath the coffeemaker and a ham and cheese croissant in the fridge if you’re interested.”
Dan poured coffee into a mug he grabbed from the cabinet over the coffeemaker, added half-and-half from a carton he pulled from the fridge, then downed the cup. He then pulled open the drawer and found the promised bottle. He was not surprised to find it had expired six months previously; but since his head was still pounding from his hangover, he shrugged, opened the bottle, shook out two pills into the palm of his hand and swallowed them. He then poured himself a second cup of coffee, added more half-and-half, pulled the croissant out of the fridge, ate it cold in two huge bites, and then turned to his brother. “Refresh my memory of last night,” he said. “Did we walk into a gay bar?”
Nick chuckled. “Yes. You made quite an impression with your dancing.”
“And I managed not to get picked up by anyone how?”
Nick’s grin grew wider. “You kept telling people you were in love with Amanda.”
Dan closed his eyes, mortified. “God, I can’t believe I said that. You haven’t told her this yet, have you?”
“No, but I thought about it,” Nick told him, amused. “She’d be flattered.”
“I’m not in love with her,” Dan denied. “I just find her attractive, that’s all.”
Nick laughed. “Brother, if you didn’t find Amanda attractive, I’d be checking your pulse and making sure some alien hadn’t replaced you. Besides, it’s the kind of excuse that, knowing you, was the best one you could think of at the time. You’ve said worse. I’ve seen how you act around Amanda, and that dinner we had a while ago when she tried to see how interested you were in her told me everything I need to know. ”
Dan sighed, relieved. “I don’t poach my brother’s girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Partner. Friend with benefits? Hell, whatever the hell Amanda is to you. It just…watching the two of you from the outside, it just feels like something with a ton of history and I’d be an idiot to be trying to fuck that up.” He sipped coffee and took the bar stool at the end of the bar, facing Nick. “I just can’t believe I used her as an excuse.”
Nick laughed again. “Why not? It’s certainly one of my favorites.” He shut down the laptop and looked at Dan. More gently, he added, “I wasn’t going to let anything happen to you last night. Yeah, you drank more than you normally do, but when we left the gay bar and hit the club next door to it, you told the women who approached us that you were too drunk to be good for anything. I had to tell them that yes, you were drunk and the only thing keeping you upright was all that military training.” Nick smiled. “Their phone numbers are on the pad next to the phone if you want to meet up with them later.”
Dan looked at him skeptically. “You didn’t used to be so willing to pick up just any woman,” he accused him. “What the hell happened? You trying to fill up a phone book or something?”
“No,” Nick retorted. “But you find a nice woman who’s willing to date a bar owner and take on my baggage, and see just how often you get laid. Come on, Dan, I know your head is pounding, and you’re an asshole when you’re hung over, but you’re the one who used to place bets on which girls would go with me and which would go with you. I figured you might be interested in meeting Amber and Mary.”
Dan sighed and leaned his head on the palm of his right hand. “Sorry. Just…remembered you don’t have the same worries about one night stands that the rest of us do.”
Nick smiled gently. “Maybe not, but at least you don’t have to explain why there’s a sword and a pistol in your coat, or find creative ways to not let the woman touch your jacket.” He paused. “Did you want me to go with you when you meet with Emily?”
Dan shook his head. “I don’t know. Depends on where we end up meeting. I’m not sure they’d like knowing you were there, since it’s one thing to know you know about us, and quite another to have you observing us.”
“What, the Watchers don’t like being watched?” Nick teased, but there was an underlying grimness in his tone. “I’d rather not leave you alone to face the wolves.”
Dan cracked a smile. “What, you implying that I, as a Wolfe, can’t face a bunch of wolves?” he shot back.
Nick looked at him, annoyed. “No. What did the Air Force teach you about backup?”
“Oh, like you wouldn’t just plunge in without it if you thought it was important enough? What the hell were you thinking, Nick, when you went chasing after Korda? Didn’t the fact that Amanda had a Watcher hand you her sword mean anything to you?”
“Only that she needed someone to avenge her.” Nick sighed. “And no, I wasn’t thinking. If I’d asked more questions, I might have gotten Dawson to admit he owed her a favor or three, and that there were Immortals who were capable of taking on Korda and getting revenge if Amanda was truly dead. All I cared about was the woman who turned my world upside down was gone, and I didn’t know what I’d do without her. Still don’t, sometimes.” He looked at Dan. “That made it into my Chronicle?”
“Yeah. Dawson reported it. It’s actually in Amanda’s and cross-referenced into yours. You managed to miss notice until then, apparently, other than Amanda’s Watcher found it interesting that she’d taken notice of you.” Dan swallowed hard, suddenly uncomfortable. It felt odd, somehow, to admit to someone who was not a Watcher what he knew about Immortals, and even odder to know that not only was it an Immortal he was admitting this to, but his brother. Still, it didn’t feel wrong, and he found himself wondering when it would. “There are a lot of holes in your Chronicle. Miri couldn’t get you to talk much about that first year with Amanda, but she managed to fill in a lot while she was Watching you.”
Nick said nothing for a long moment. “I’m not sure how I feel about that,” he said finally. “I do know that you should probably call Emily now if you’re going to tell her anything.”
Dan sighed. His brother was right: there was no time like the present. “Mind if I use the house phone?”
Nick shook his head. “Might as well.” He grinned faintly. “Not like you have to hide it anymore.”
Dan nodded grimly before picking up his cup and draining the rest of his coffee. He then reached for the phone on the breakfast bar and dialed the number he’d memorized. Ignoring the sudden flutter of nerves in his stomach and the dull pounding of his hangover, he said in French, “Hello, Emily? It’s Dan. Can we meet somewhere and talk about Watching Nick Wolfe and Amanda?”
“Certainly,” Emily said. “Come to the office at the Westport Building, suite 1200.” She gave him directions. “I’ll be there all afternoon.”
“I’ll see you shortly,” Dan agreed, and hung up. He looked at his brother. “If something happens to me—”
“Don’t worry,” Nick promised coldly. “I won’t do anything rash, but I won’t let the Watchers forget, either, and I have friends who’d agree with me.”
Suddenly, Dan remembered his brother’s history. Taught by Connor MacLeod, who is Duncan’s elder cousin, which means that Nick and the MacLeods are friends, and the MacLeods count Joe Dawson as a friend. Fuck. If the Watchers kill me, they are doomed.
With that less-than-pleasant thought in mind, Dan headed out. He didn’t dare look to see if his brother was tailing him, but something told him that Nick was. Dan didn’t check until he’d passed through the doors of the office building. Not seeing Nick behind him, Dan headed up the elevator to the twelfth floor.
*****
The offices were surprisingly modern; the office door simply said, “Guild and Stern, Inc.” There was little to indicate it was anything other than a small corporation; the lobby area held the usual assortment of generic business and news magazines, and the receptionist was equally forgettable and efficient.
Dan was led down the right hallway, past several closed doors where he caught glimpses of people working through the panes of glass that was on either side of the office doors. Emily sat behind a standard-issue manager’s desk in the last office in the hallway. She had a nearly floor-to-ceiling view of the Seine on the side of her office opposite the door and an Impressionist painting hanging on the wall opposite her desk. Her desk was scrupulously neat, almost obsessively so. Her laptop computer was plugged into a docking station and she wore a headset as she talked in a language Dan didn’t recognize. When she saw Dan, she waved him to sit down and quickly concluded her conversation. Slipping off her headset, she pushed a button on her phone and turned to face him.
“You sounded upset on the phone,” she said, concerned. “Is there a problem?”
“I don’t know if I can keep doing this,” Dan told her. “Nick Wolfe is my brother.”
She looked stunned. “Nick Wolfe has no siblings.”
“That’s because he and I had an argument, and he stopped speaking to me. I was never on any of his life insurance anyway—we always left stuff to our parents, until they passed away. Come on, Emily, check the address I’ve been living at since I got here. You couldn’t verify if anyone was living up above Sanctuary? Well, I can tell you. It’s me, my brother, and Amanda.”
Emily’s face reflected disbelief. She stared at him for a long minute before she turned to her screen and began clicking and typing. She looked up his file, copied the address, then pulled the address into a database of locations known to be patronized by Immortals. When the database query confirmed Dan’s words, Emily turned from the screen and studied Dan warily. “How is Nick related to you?”
“He’s my younger brother. Mom and Dad adopted him because they didn’t think they could have any more kids, and Mom was the one who found him wrapped in a blanket on her doorstep. Mom always said it was the weirdest thing: she heard someone pounding on the door, and when she went to answer it, there was Nick. She fought to keep him; Child Welfare wanted to place him elsewhere, but Mom wouldn’t stand for it. Said God put him on her doorstep for a reason.” Telling the story eased some of the tension in Dan.
“Have you told him you’re a Watcher?”
“He’s a former police detective,” Dan said dryly. “If I hadn’t told him, he’d have eventually figured it out. He’s a paranoid son of a bitch who likes his privacy, and with good reason.”
“That’s a violation of your Oath,” Emily declared sternly. “This will go in your record.” She began typing.
“What the fuck? You’re the one who said he knows about us anyway!” Dan exploded. “What, I was supposed to ignore that he’s my brother and keep a secret that’s not really a secret? He was beginning to wonder if we hadn’t picked up on his new alias yet!”
Emily paused in her typing. “Other Watchers have handled similar situations with discretion.”
“Discretion?! Fuck discretion!” Dan slammed his hand down on the desk, making Emily jump. “His last Watcher walked right up to him and said, ‘Hi, I’m your new Watcher, got a fucking problem with that?’ What kind of discretion is that?”
“Miri was disciplined for that.”
“Oh, how? With a warning in her file? What kind of discipline is that?”
“It served its purpose.”
“Didn’t stop her from talking to either Nick or Amanda,” Dan shot back. “Go read her notes in their Chronicles, the reports she filed on other Immortals. She talked to Immortals. Never hid who she was, either.”
Emily looked at him. “Miri was removed from Watching them because she got too close,” she said testily.
“All right, so she got too close. What the hell does that mean? She was their friend? So where the fuck does that put me? When’s the last time you had a Watcher successfully Watch his own brother? Or spouse? Name one.”
Emily started to pull up the Watcher database search on her computer.
“Without looking it up,” Dan said angrily, reaching over and hitting the escape key on Emily’s keyboard.
“I can’t. I don’t have a thousand years’ worth of history memorized.”
“Then explain to me how the hell you expect me to hide the truth from my brother.”
Emily scowled at him. “You are being unreasonably difficult. A simple denial of your brother’s suspicions would have sufficed.”
“Have you read my brother’s Chronicle?” Dan asked, incredulous. He couldn’t believe Emily was so convinced Nick would have accepted a lie. “Joe Dawson tried to lie to him, and Nick didn’t buy it. Amanda tried to lie to him, to make him believe he hadn’t seen her rise from the dead, and he didn’t believe her either. Nick’s always demanded the truth.”
“What would you have me do, then?” Emily snapped impatiently. “If we were discussing anyone other than Nick Wolfe, you would have a more severe violation of your Oath on your record. If he didn’t know about us, we would have no problem allowing you to continue to Watch him. As it is, I must decide what to do with you and your conflict of interest.”
“Do with me?” Dan repeated. “Nick already knows about the Watchers. How the hell can I have a violation of my Oath on record if he already knows about us?”
Emily took a deep breath and let it go. “All right,” she conceded, deleting what she’d started to type. “You have a point. In other situations, you would be fired, possibly terminated.”
“By firing squad if necessary?” Dan asked dryly and watched Emily’s face blanch as his words struck home. “Come on, Emily. You aren’t that heartless…or stupid. You kill me, my brother finds out, and there won’t be an organization left standing. We’re talking about a guy who calls both Highlanders friend, according to his Chronicle. If what I read is only half true, then we’re very lucky Duncan MacLeod didn’t torch this place when he had the chance.”
She held his gaze a long moment, then closed her eyes as she exhaled. “I remember that day,” she said softly, opening her eyes. “And no, I’m not stupid. There are some others who would be, who’d see your words now as a threat to the organization. My mother would be one of them. I am not my mother’s daughter.” She sighed again. “Let me see what I can do.”
Deftly, she brought up the Watcher policy manual on her computer and began reading quickly through the section on family associations in the Watchers. In grim silence, Dan read over her shoulder as she tried to find anything related to his situation. In desperation, she pulled up personnel files, old Chronicles, even an old policy manual from a decade before, skimming them all with the kind of speed Dan had only seen demonstrated on a TV show. Emily paused only over one citation, but even that wasn’t quite what they sought.
After twenty minutes of what was clearly becoming fruitless searching, Dan pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. “Until you can figure out what the fuck the Watcher policy is on family — and why the hell you were able to find the statement where it’s okay for the mortal spouse to Watch the Immortal partner, but not any other family member — I think I’m just going to go home. You know where to find me if you want to talk to me. Don’t expect me to send any reports in; I quit.”
Alarmed, Emily stood. “Don’t go making hasty decisions, Dan. I’m sure there’s a way we can work this out. I haven’t even looked at everything in detail. I need more time to review this, to check with one of the senior Watchers who’s been here for a lot longer than me. I’m sure I can find something.”
Dan studied her a moment, seeing in her the same fierce dedication he’d seen in other Watchers who’d grown up believing in the organization. “I’m sure you could,” he told her. “You’ll forgive me, I’m sure, if I tell you that after all I’ve seen, I think I’m better off on the other side. At least then, no one’s going to accuse me of breaking any oaths or dividing my loyalties.” He pulled out his PDA and the leather-bound Chronicle he’d started on Raoul Norte and put them on the desk. “See you around Paris, Emily.”
Ignoring Emily’s calls for him to wait, to not rush away, he strode quickly through the office. He didn’t look back as he walked out the door. A weight seemed to have been lifted off of him, and he felt freer than he’d ever felt before. There was a clear path to his life now, and he didn’t need to go hunting for a new secret to keep. He had enough to last a lifetime.
Nick was waiting for him in the sidewalk café across the street, appearing as if he was doing nothing more than relaxing, drinking coffee and watching the world go by. As soon as he saw Dan, the relaxed posture vanished and he rose to his feet. He looked at Dan questioningly, clearly worried.
“They’ll find someone else to Watch you,” Dan told him. “They always do.”
“And you? Who will you Watch?” Nick asked, concerned.
Dan grinned. “No one, other than the ladies who come to the bar, of course. Well, and Amanda, on the probability she'll try to steal my credit cards. And maybe if you still have Amber and Mary’s number, we could see who’s more interested in me than you.”
Nick regarded him skeptically. “Just like that, you walk away from everything?”
“Oh, they might call me, try to recruit me back,” Dan admitted, sure of it. “But until they figure out what’s acceptable and what’s not, I don’t want anything to do with them.”
“Why? You spent, what, nine years with them?”
“Nine years of thinking I had a share in the best secret in the world, yeah.” Dan glanced back at the building, then met his brother’s eyes. “But all that doesn’t matter when I don’t need anyone deciding suddenly that because I’m your brother and friends with Amanda, all my reports are suspect. They did that to Joe Dawson with Duncan MacLeod, and tried to kill both of them for it.”
Nick’s face grew angry at Dan’s words. “That explains something Amanda told me,” he muttered. “She said Dawson had to be careful what he told anyone.” He looked at Dan. “You’d find a way to do the same, if that’s what you wanted to do, but you wouldn’t quit just over that.”
Dan nodded grimly. “They don’t have a policy on Watching one’s sibling, as far as Emily and I could find, and from what we did find…I suspect the policy on that is a big fat ‘Hell no.’ All they know to do is Watch, write Chronicles, and store them away like squirrels in the face of a possible apocalypse. I’m not sure they see what happens out in the field, how close you have to become to report on the finer details of an Immortal’s life. I don’t need to work for an organization that says hell no to adopting kids for fear of them being Immortal, but then says it’s perfectly OK to be the Watcher of your Immortal wife. I don’t want to work for an organization that still says it’s policy to kill a Watcher who befriends his Immortal assignment.” At Dan’s words, Nick shook his head in disgust. “Besides, it’s not like you haven’t walked away from everything when someone didn’t give you an answer you wanted.”
Reluctantly, Nick chuckled. “Come on,” he told Dan. “Let’s get out of here before they change their minds about letting you walk out that door.”
“Sounds like a plan to me. Lead on, little brother.”
It wasn’t over yet, Dan knew, not by a long shot. For now, though, Dan had a clear conscience. More importantly, he had his brother back in his life, a job he was looking forward to doing, and a chance to do something more than just follow orders and find creative ways to stave off his boredom. Somehow, he had a feeling he was not going to be bored living in Sanctuary, working alongside his brother and Amanda.
For a moment, he wondered if Amanda was going to get him into trouble.
Then he smiled. Of course she was; from what he’d read of her Chronicle, very few of her friends could claim she’d never gotten them into trouble.
He was looking forward to it.
— finis 11.02.06 — Comments welcome!