Prologue

(In the form of Commentary)

I see Methos, FAR in the future, on a lovely spaceship (with WAY too much firepower) with his LONG-time "companion", Duncan MacLeod, by his side (of course). They have survived the horrors of intergalactic war and the collapse of civilization (again) and they are still in the same durable and beautiful ship they left Earth in hundreds of years ago. They were the major stockholders of the best ship manufacturer in the Galaxy. They even built the government's fleet. Their ship is not the largest they built but it is quite large and they do endeavor to keep it hidden from their enemies. They even developed a cloaking device (something none of the other ships they built has) for it. They are accompanied by two Watchers (who politely keep pretty much to themselves) and an AI Android that Methos laughingly named Mort. Mort easily passes for human. I'm casting Nicholas Lea - Krycek from X-Files - in the role. Methos is using the name Adam again, but this time it's Adam Thantos - like "Adam", it's his little joke. (He’s a Closet Piers Anthony Fan… Especially The Incarnations of Immortality Series…)

Methos, Mac and Mort do their business from a smaller ship that "lives" in the shuttle bay of the larger ship. The small ship is called the Pegasus (Mac's doing - Methos got to name the Big Ship) and it is fully equipped, heavily armed and fairly large all on it's own. Thus they are able to keep the Big Ship a secret (No I'm not telling you it's name yet. I'll tell you later when it becomes necessary to the story.)

Things have gotten so bad in the universe that even Methos has decided that something MUST be done.

In the Pegasus, they have carved a nice little niche for themselves in the cruel economy and even earned the respect of the vicious and powerful warrior race that controls Earth and enslaves humanity. A few years back they "bought" a slave from them - a young blonde boy/man who, for some reason, reminded them both of Richie Ryan. So young and so hurt... They nursed him back to health, gifted him with a (VERY expensive) dataport implant and wished him well as he used his newfound freedom to make his own way in the universe. In spite of their kindness and possibly BECAUSE they didn't ask anything in return, he felt nervous around them. Maybe it was all the Black leather... Anyhow, having spent time as a slave in the far reaches of history, Methos understands and gives him enough money, food, etc to last him for a while and they take him to a relatively safe space station so he can hire on somewhere. The funny thing is, he never actually saw the Big Ship. Only the Pegasus, which is, of course, impressive in it's own right.

They wait and make sure the young man finds a good position with a trustworthy captain and then they send him off with luggage, hugs, best wishes and we'll meet agains... As the boy, who has proven to be a talented engineer, departs, Mort gently grabs his arm and smiles sadly. He hugs him and says, “I wish you could have seen me” which doesn't make any sense to the boy, but I'm sure you're all catching on by now...

Part 1

“Kate…”

“Yes, Duncan?” she encouraged, gently, for the fifth time. He didn’t continue. “Duncan! What ever it is that you’re having so much trouble telling me… Just spit it out already! I’m sure it can’t be that bad. I mean, you’ve already killed me. What could top that?”

“I’ve been cheating on you?” he said in a worried tone.

She roller her eyes. “Duncan, we’ve been apart for over 200 years! Of course you’ve been cheating on me. I cheated on you, too,” she smiled wickedly.

Duncan shook his head and closed his eyes and began again. “What I mean is, I am currently cheating on you. Well, not right this minute, and technically, I was involved before we began our reconciliation, so I guess, in a way, you are the one I’m cheating with, but-”

“Woah! Duncan! Hold up! You were involved with someone when we-?”

“Yes,” Duncan confirmed miserably. “But it’s sort of an open relationship. Since we’re both immortal, neither of us are too worried about the occasional mortal involvement, but this is different.”

“So… Does she know about me? Your WIFE?”

Duncan rolled onto his side, facing her. His handsome face was twisted into a grimace. “Well, that’s just it, you see. She’s not a she. His name is Adam, and, well, we both like women, so it’s never been a problem, and yes, he does know about you. I talk with him about everything.”

During all of this, Kate’s face went through a series of expressions ranging from sheer shock to actual, physical pain.

“You love him,” she whispered, certain. “You wouldn’t go to bed with a man if you didn’t love him,” she continued, starting to shake. Things were only just starting to feel like they had during the early days when they had been so in love… At least they were for her.

“Yes,” he assured her, “I do love him. I love you both. When I told him about you, he understood immediately. He knows how important you are to me. How important it is to me for us to work things out.” She looked skeptical. Duncan sat up, smiling, “He’s very wise. I think you’ll like him. If you’re willing to meet him,” he suggested with a hopeful little boy look.

She though about this for a long moment. Then she looked into Duncan’s eyes and asked, “What if I do?”

“What do you mean?” Duncan asked, frowning, afraid to hope.

“Well… You both like women and you haven’t been jealous of each other’s women in the past… And, obviously, you love - Adam, is it?” she paused to ask. At his nod, she continued, “You obviously love Adam very deeply, so he must be something special. What if I fall in love with him, too?”

Duncan grinned. “Would you be willing to try a, well, a-”

“A threesome? Menage-a-trois?” she finished for him, exasperated.

“This doesn’t freak you out at all, does it?” Duncan was trying really hard to absorb all of this.

Kate smiled. “Nope. I was a designer, after all. Besides, I’ve done a little experimenting over the years.” Duncan’s eyes widened. “Don’t even think about it!” she ordered him sternly. “I found out rather quickly that other women just don’t do it for me.” Duncan tried a pout. She rolled her eyes at him. “On the other hand, I found out something else about myself, quite by accident. On day, I walked into the dressing room and found one of my male models in, shall we say, a compromising position, with his boyfriend. I thought I was gonna faint. It was quite possibly the hottest thing I have ever seen. I rented some guy/guy porn after that. I loved it. I also loved the threesomes with 2 guys and one woman… What can I say?” she asked at his shocked and disbelieving expression. “I really like men!” She shrugged and started nibbling sensuously at her lower lip.

He couldn’t resist. He kissed her. That was fun, so they did that for a while. When they finally moved apart, he took a deep breath and said, “There’s something else you should know about Adam.” She shot him a questioning look. “A while back he and I talked about the possibility of finding a woman who we could both commit to in a triune relationship. The problem was finding one who would fit between us. I’m fairly vanilla, even if I am good-”

“And so modest, too!” she mocked, fighting back a grin.

“That too,” he nodded with a grin of his own. “Anyway, Adam isn’t vanilla. He’s a Dom.”

“You’re subbing?” Kate demanded, disbelief pouring off of her.

“NO!” Duncan quickly replied. “That’s what he goes to women for. He says he loves me just the way I am and he doesn’t want me to change like that. The idea was for him to find a female sub who needed both dominance and vanilla sex. Someone we could both pleasure in our different ways. Someone who likes the idea of being his sub, or even slave,” it was obvious Duncan felt uneasy about that concept, “and my lover. So you might want to think twice…”

“You don’t know much about BDSM, do you, husband?”

“Nope,” he grimaced. “Mostly what I’ve read. M-my lover gave me a couple of books to read.”

“Really? Which ones?”

“Uh, one was called ‘The Loving Dominant’.”

She nodded, “That’s an amazing book. I’m surprised you’re still so uneasy about it after reading that one.”

He shrugged again. “The other one was called ‘Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns’.”

“That one has a lot to say about the sub’s point of view. And both of them go into a lot of depth about Power Exchange and Safe, Sane and Consensual. Why are you so worried, Duncan?”

He slowly shook his head as he thought it out. Finally, with a hopeless expression, he told her what he could. “I can’t explain it very well with out telling you Adam’s secrets, and that is something only he can decide about.” She nodded her understanding. “There are things in his past that make me worry, Kate. I’m afraid that his need for domination may lead him back into old habits. Dangerous habits. That’s really all I can say…”

“That’s okay, love. You should know something, though. The relationship you described? It sounds like heaven to me. To have a Master and a lover? To be able to watch the two of you together? To be in the middle? Sounds wonderful! I really need to meet your Adam. It’s entirely possible that I could be the slave he’s looking for. And I know you and I are compatible,” she giggled.

“Let’s go pack!”

“Pack?”

“He lives in England, just now. Don’t worry. We’ll fly first class. I’ll charge it to his card,” Duncan added with a wicked grin of his own.

Part 3

Methos sighed as his thoughts returned to the present. He still missed her; he supposed he always would. Duncan did too, evidenced by the fact that he was always silent and withdrawn 3 days a year – Kate’s birthday, their wedding anniversary, and the anniversary of her death – the final one. Methos had avenged her; her quickening and that of her killer buzzed dully within him. He had cold-cocked Duncan, and chained him up, before going after the man. He couldn’t let Duncan do it; Duncan was so distraught and enraged that he would have lost, and then where would Methos be? No, only he had the experience to handle the fight with the cold distance he had come to personify. Duncan tended to forget that Methos had not forgotten how to fight. ‘Sometimes,’ Methos thought, ‘I swear he thinks I’m his student, a green young immortal with no experience or brains.’

Duncan’s soft voice intruded on his thoughts. “What’s wrong, love?”

“How long has it been, Mac?”

“Since?”

“Since Kate…”

Duncan’s face clouded over. “Two thousand, five hundred, and … seventy-one years,” he replied.

Methos sighed again. “So how come it only feels like a decade?”

Duncan breathed a small laugh. “I don’t know. Maybe-”

He was interrupted as an inexplicable shudder ran though the warship. The lights, ship-wide, dimmed, then brightened, then returned to normal.

“Mortis!” Methos barked. “What’s happening?”

The hologram snapped into view. “I cannot explain it, Captain. My sensors show nothing unusual, and all ship’s systems are operating at peak efficiency.” A low rumble rolled through the ship from bow to stern, and when it ended, everything instantly returned to normal.

After a second, Mortis informed them, “Whatever it was, it seems to be gone now.”

“Good”, replied a relieved Methos. “Raise your cloak, Mortis. We need to move into planetary range.”

“Which planet?” Mortis politely inquired.

“We’ll let you know when we figure it out,” Duncan informed the ship flatly, looking into his lover’s eyes.

This didn’t make sense to Mortis, but he set about making the appropriate arrangements anyway. He would be ready.

A moment later, Marianne came rushing into the room. Duncan and Methos looked at the Watcher in surprise. “You can’t just let this go!” she demanded in frustration. “You have to at least try to rescue her!”

“And where, exactly, should we attempt this ‘rescue’?” Methos was harsh and cold. “Please, if you know where she is, DO tell us. Where is she?”

Duncan grabbed his arm to hold him off. “We’re trying, Marianne,” he told her reassuringly. “We’ll find her and bring her home.”

“Good,” she said softly. “If we can help…”

“What about non-interference?” Methos spat.

“Of course we can’t interfere, if it involves another immortal. But this involves her. She’s not immortal, is she?”

“No,” Duncan replied. “She’s not. She’s just someone we both love. We’ll get her back, don’t doubt it.”

Marianne gave him a glowing smile, and glided quietly from the room. Duncan pulled Methos into his arms, and soothed him with gentle caresses.

“I was supposed to keep her safe, Duncan.”

“There was nothing you could do, Methos. There were too many of them, and they did shoot you. Hard to fight back when you’re dead, even if it is temporary. We will find her. We will bring her home.”

Methos melted into Duncan’s chest, sobbing softly in relief at the sheer determination in his beloved’s voice. Duncan continued to caress his back in soothing circles, until he calmed down. A few moments later, Methos raised his head, and looked into Duncan’s eyes.

“I know where to start.”

Duncan smiled.

Part 4

Over the millennia, Methos had grown outwardly harder, colder, but inwardly, he had developed a capacity for love that dwarfed that of most men, mortal and immortal alike. Only Duncan, who had shared his life, passions and love, compared. Duncan didn’t hide it or control it as well, however. Methos was generally so controlled he appeared unfeeling. Duncan, on the other hand, had remained, outwardly, essentially the same as he had always been. He grew in power and knowledge and wisdom, of course, but he retained that boyish charm and boy scout demeanor. Methos liked to remind him that, barring extraordinary life-changing epiphanies, immortals only became more what they were to begin with. In effect a distillation of personality and purpose. So Duncan was the True Warrior who used charisma and friendly banter to gain loyalty and trust. Methos was far less concerned with making friends than he was with survival. That hadn’t changed noticeably. But the changes to the Universe around them had made him withdraw into a shell of protective armor that only his ship and shipmates ever saw beneath. To the outsider, he seemed hard and cold – implacable. But to his little family, he was warm and wise, loving and gentle.

Most of the time…