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Rain had begun to fall over Paris. Not much. Just enough to silver the rooftop and make every footstep uncertain.
Steven Keane circled Duncan slowly, sword held in both hands. His breathing was ragged now. Blood darkened one sleeve where Duncan's katana had found him, but his eyes remained fixed and cold.
Duncan was bleeding too. They had been fighting for ten minutes. It felt like two hundred and fifty years.
Keane attacked. Duncan caught the blade, turned it aside, drove his shoulder into Keane's chest and sent him stumbling backward. Keane slipped on the wet gravel and fell hard. His sword skidded away.
Duncan was on him instantly. The katana stopped against Keane's throat.
For a moment there was only rain.
Keane lifted his chin. "Well?"
Duncan stared down at him.
He had seen this before. Men on their knees, looking up at him and knowing the judgment had already been passed. Men who had begged. Men who hadn't.
Richard Dunbar had looked at him like that. Except Dunbar had been mortal. And there had been a child watching.
Duncan's grip tightened.
Keane smiled without humor. "Go on, MacLeod."
Duncan did not move.
"Prove me right."
Something changed in Duncan's face. Keane saw it.
"So that's it?" Keane said. "You spare me and suddenly everything balances? Dunbar is alive again? His son forgets what he saw?"
Duncan lowered the blade an inch.
Keane's voice hardened. "You want forgiveness without punishment."
"No."
"Then what do you want?"
Duncan looked at him for a long moment. Then he stepped back. His katana dropped to his side.
"I don't know."
Keane got slowly to his feet. His sword lay several yards away. Neither man went for it.
Duncan looked out across the railway yards below them, lights shining through the rain.
"When I found Dunbar," he said, "I thought I knew exactly what I was."
Keane said nothing.
"A Scot. A Highlander. A man avenging his people." Duncan swallowed. "I thought that made anything I did righteous."
"You murdered him."
"Yes."
The word came without defense. Keane seemed almost disappointed by it.
Duncan turned to face him. "I murdered him."
"And the others?"
"Some deserved what came to them."
"That's not what I asked."
Duncan's jaw tightened. "No."
Keane waited.
Duncan looked away. "Some didn't."
Rain ran down his face.
"I told myself they were all part of it. Officers. Soldiers. Englishmen who'd profited from Scotland's blood. I stopped asking whether the man in front of me had done anything. It was enough that he wore the wrong coat, spoke with the wrong accent, knew the wrong people."
Keane's expression shifted, just barely. "And that excuses you?"
"No."
"Then raise your sword."
Duncan looked at him.
Keane walked to his own weapon and retrieved it. "Raise your sword."
The katana stayed at Duncan's side.
Keane settled into a fighting stance. "You want judgment?" he said. "Then let's finish it."
Duncan looked down at the katana in his hand. Then, deliberately, he tossed it away. It struck the roof and slid across the wet stones.
Keane froze. "What are you doing?"
"Finishing it."
Keane stared at him.
Duncan spread his empty hands. "You came here because you believe my life is the price."
"It is."
"Then take it."
Keane's sword rose. Duncan didn't move.
For the first time that night, uncertainty entered Keane's face. "You think I won't?"
"I think you might."
"Then you're a fool."
"Probably."
Keane took a step closer. The point of his sword came to rest against Duncan's chest.
Duncan looked down at it, then back into Keane's eyes. "But if you do it," he said quietly, "don't tell yourself it's justice."
Keane's face hardened. "You don't get to decide what justice is."
"No."
Duncan leaned forward, just enough for the point to pierce his shirt and bite into the skin beneath. A thin line of blood appeared. His eyes never left Keane's.
"And neither did I."
Keane's sword trembled.
"When I killed Dunbar, I told myself it was justice. It wasn't. I hated him, and 'justice' sounded better than 'revenge.'"
Keane said nothing.
"If you take my head tonight because you hate me, Steven, I won't stop you."
Duncan glanced down at the blade between them, then back at him. "But at least call it by its name."
For several seconds, neither Immortal moved.
Then came a voice from the shadows.
"MacLeod."
Amanda. She stood at the rooftop entrance, sword in hand. Methos was beside her.
Duncan closed his eyes. "Amanda, no."
"He has a sword at your heart."
"I noticed."
"This is insane."
"Stay out of it."
Keane glanced toward them.
Methos placed one hand lightly on Amanda's arm. She threw it off. "Don't."
"I'm not stopping you," Methos said.
"Good."
"I'm merely pointing out that if you kill Keane now, MacLeod will probably spend the next century apologizing for it."
Amanda shot him a murderous look. "This isn't funny."
"No," Methos said. And suddenly he wasn't smiling. "None of it is."
Keane looked between the three of them. "How touching."
Methos walked forward a few steps. Keane shifted his sword. Methos stopped.
"I wouldn't," Keane warned.
Methos raised both hands. "No sword."
"Since when?"
"Tuesday."
Nobody laughed.
Methos sighed. "Tough room."
Duncan gave him a look.
Methos's expression became serious again. "You wanted MacLeod alone, Keane. You have him."
Keane looked at Duncan. "Then why are you here?"
"Because I've known men who thought killing someone would make the past behave itself." Something old passed behind Methos's eyes. "Didn't work."
Keane stared at him. "You don't know anything about this."
Methos almost smiled. "You'd be amazed."
Amanda looked at Duncan. There was fear in her face now, real fear, and she had run out of ways to dress it up as sarcasm.
"Duncan," she said softly.
He met her eyes.
"Please."
Duncan's expression nearly broke. But he didn't move.
Keane saw it. Saw Amanda waiting. Saw Methos, suddenly very still. Saw the discarded katana. Saw Duncan MacLeod standing before him without defense.
And perhaps, for the first time, Steven Keane saw something other than the man who had murdered his friend. He saw everything attached to him. Every friendship. Every debt. Every person who would carry this moment away from the rooftop.
Just as Michael Dunbar had carried another moment away from a country estate centuries before.
Keane pulled the sword back. Amanda exhaled. Duncan didn't.
Keane turned away.
Then suddenly he spun and struck.
Amanda shouted. The blade drove through Duncan's stomach and emerged from his back. Duncan gasped.
Keane held him there. Their faces were inches apart.
"I wanted you to be a monster," Keane whispered.
Duncan gripped the blade with both hands. Blood ran between his fingers.
"It would've been easier."
Keane ripped the sword free. Duncan collapsed.
Amanda ran forward, but Methos caught her. "Wait."
Keane stood over Duncan. The Highlander looked up at him, pale and shaking.
Keane raised his sword. Duncan bowed his head.
The blade descended—
—and buried itself in the rooftop beside him.
Keane let go. Duncan stared at the sword.
Keane's voice was almost lost beneath the rain. "That's for Richard."
He turned.
After three steps, Duncan called after him. "Steven."
Keane stopped.
Duncan struggled onto one elbow. "I am sorry."
Keane's shoulders stiffened.
Duncan forced himself to continue. "Not because you came for me. Not because I nearly died tonight." His strength was fading. "For Richard. For his boy. For all of them."
Keane looked over his shoulder. "Sorry doesn't raise the dead."
"No." Duncan's voice was barely audible now. "It doesn't."
Keane considered him. "No more excuses, MacLeod."
Duncan nodded. "No more."
Keane walked away.
Amanda waited until the rooftop door closed behind him. Then she tore free of Methos and dropped beside Duncan.
"You complete, unbelievable bastard."
Duncan managed a faint smile. "Good to see you too."
She hit him. Not hard. Considering the hole through his abdomen, she didn't have to.
Duncan groaned.
"You let him stab you!"
"I had a plan."
"You threw away your sword!"
"It was a flexible plan."
Amanda looked as though she might kill him herself.
Methos crouched beside them. "Don't worry. He'll be dead in about thirty seconds."
Amanda glared at him. "You're not helping."
"I frequently don't."
Duncan's eyes closed.
Amanda caught his face in both hands. "Duncan."
He opened them again.
"Don't you dare."
"Amanda..."
"No. You don't get to make some grand moral gesture and leave me sitting in the rain with Methos."
Methos frowned. "That's unnecessarily cruel."
Duncan laughed once. It hurt.
Amanda's anger vanished. She kissed his forehead.
Then Duncan MacLeod died.
***
When he came back, the rain had stopped.
He woke with a violent breath. Amanda was sitting beside him. Methos stood at the edge of the roof, looking over Paris.
Duncan pushed himself upright. His shirt was ruined. "Keane?"
"Gone," Amanda said.
Duncan looked toward the abandoned sword. Methos followed his gaze. "He left it."
"Why?"
Methos shrugged. "Maybe he's taking up gardening."
Duncan gave him a tired look.
Methos turned. "Or maybe he decided he'd spent enough of his life carrying it."
Duncan stood slowly.
Amanda watched him. "So that's it?"
"No," Duncan said.
She frowned. "No?"
Duncan looked out at the city. "No."
He thought of Scotland. Burned cottages. Bodies hanging from trees. Dunbar falling. A frightened boy running across a bridge because Duncan MacLeod had told him that nowhere, not even his children's future, would ever be safe.
Nothing tonight had made any of it smaller.
Methos came to stand beside him. "For what it's worth," he said, "I think you were an idiot."
Duncan nodded. "For what it's worth, so do I."
"Good. Self-awareness. Very healthy."
Duncan glanced at him. "You could have stopped Keane."
"Yes."
"But you didn't."
"No."
"Why?"
Methos looked out over Paris. "Because you were right about one thing."
Duncan waited.
Methos's smile was small and strangely sad. "Some things nobody else can settle for you."
Amanda approached from behind. She slipped her arm through Duncan's. "But if you ever do anything like that again, I am cutting off your head myself."
Duncan looked at her. "You'd miss me."
"Terribly." She leaned against his shoulder. "Still doing it."
Duncan smiled.
For a while the three Immortals stood together beneath the paling sky.
Then Duncan bent and picked up Keane's abandoned sword. He studied it.
Amanda raised an eyebrow. "Souvenir?"
"No." Duncan turned it once in his hands. "Debt."
***
Several days later, Steven Keane entered the small church just before dawn.
He sensed another Immortal immediately. His hand went toward the empty place where his sword should have been. Then stopped.
Duncan sat alone in the front pew.
Keane remained at the door. "You followed me."
"No."
"Then what are you doing here?"
Duncan stood. Keane tensed. But Duncan carried no katana. Only Keane's sword.
He approached and offered it hilt-first. Keane didn't take it.
"I left that for a reason."
"I know."
"Then keep it."
Duncan shook his head. "It isn't mine."
Keane looked at the weapon. After a moment, he took it.
Duncan turned to leave.
"MacLeod."
Duncan stopped.
Keane looked toward the altar. "Do you think you're forgiven?"
Duncan considered the question. "No."
Keane looked at him.
Duncan continued. "I think forgiveness is something the people I hurt would have to give me."
"They're dead."
"Yes."
"So what does that leave?"
Duncan looked around the empty church. "Trying to deserve something I'll never be able to ask them for."
Keane studied him for a long time. Then he nodded once.
Not forgiveness. Not friendship. Something smaller. Perhaps only recognition.
Duncan started toward the door.
"MacLeod."
He turned again.
Keane rested both hands on the hilt of his sword. "If we meet again—"
Duncan almost smiled. "I'll buy the first drink."
Keane's mouth twitched despite himself. "I was going to say I may still hate you."
"I know."
Duncan opened the church door. Morning light spilled inside. "You can buy the second."
And he walked out into Paris.
Keane remained alone in the church. After a while, he sat down. For the first time in two hundred and fifty years, he did not think about Richard Dunbar's death. He thought instead about what came after vengeance.
And found, to his surprise, that he had no idea.