Date:         Fri, 17 Nov 1995 15:31:43 -0600
Reply-To:     Julia Kosatka <JKosatka@UH.EDU>
Sender:       Highlander TV show stories <HLFIC-L@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
From:         Julia Kosatka <JKosatka@UH.EDU>
Subject:      Into the Light, 4/6 (REPOST) ADULT

       His face had gone positively radiant.  "Duncan's *alive*?"  he'd
asked, astonished.  "I haven't seen him in so long that I'd assumed he'd
been taken.  So few of us old ones are left now."  He'd shaken his head at
that, amused.  "He'd think that was funny, me calling him an old one, but
though he's young compared to me, even he'd be one now.  I'm glad to know
that he's survived.  I always thought he would.  Please, will you remember
me to him when next you speak?"
       She'd eyed him, knowing her first instinct had been right.  He was
on the right side.  "I'll do better than that, if you like.  I'll take you
to him.  I have nowhere else to go now, anyway."
       He had frowned then. "You're too trusting.  What if I were after
his head?"
       She'd shaken her head.  "I would know it.  Besides, you'll give me
your weapons before we see him, just in case you're better at fooling me
than I think you are."
       She had been right to bring him.  They needed each other, these
two.  She needed them too.  Duncan opened the door to the bedroom and
stood aside to let her enter.  She'd gotten used to the peculiar mix of
hedonism and asceticism the room represented, but Methos hadn't seen it
before.  He stood for a moment taking in the stark barrenness of the room
and the huge, sybaritic bed, then whistled softly.
       Duncan set his candle down on the mantle over the fireplace, and
knelt to build a fire, taking logs from the stack next to the hearth,
kindling from a box, and arranging it carefully on the firedogs.  Guinan
slid into the bed and pulled the comforter up around herself.  "We don't
need that, Duncan.  Come to bed!"
       "We'll need it before the night's out, and besides,"  he grinned,
"the light does wonderful things for you."
       He was probably right about needing it later, it was a chilly night
for this early in the fall.  She held out a hand to Methos.
       "You come then, keep me warm."
       He slid in next to her, his body as cold as her own, and they moved
close so their body heat began to warm the hollow in which they lay.
After a little while the fire in the hearth took hold and began to burn
brightly, and Duncan turned toward them, his body a dusky silhouette
between them and the blaze.  She wished she had an imager to capture that
sight forever, but she would have to settle for a memory instead.
       "Join us?"  Methos asked.
       Duncan nodded, and moved to the bed, easing beneath the covers and
into their nest.  He lay on his stomach, propped on his elbows, carefully
not touching them.  For a moment Guinan worried, but he seemed to sense it
and spoke to set her at ease.
       "Give me a minute, I'm cold and I don't want to chill you."
       Guinan snickered.  "Fat chance."  She rolled over, snugging her
body tightly up against his, and discovered he was right.  He was cold.
She soothed a hand up and down his back, taking the chill off.
       Methos snagged a towel from beside the bed and began to dry
Duncan's hair.  Duncan started to take the towel to do it himself, then he
stopped, and just relaxed, letting his head fall forward with a sigh.
When Methos stopped, he looked up, his eyes oddly shadowed.
       "Do you have any idea how long it's been since anyone did that for
me?"
       Methos shook his head, eyebrows lifted in query.
       "I was a boy... probably eight or so.  My mother used to do that."
       Methos looked surprised.  "You bathed?"
       Duncan laughed, and he couldn't stop for a moment or two.  When he
finally could speak, his voice was rich with humor.  "God, you certainly
pegged that one!  No, we didn't bathe.  But we occasionally couldn't avoid
getting wet."
       "How old were you before you had your first real bath?"
       "You mean with hot water, in a tub?  Not in a loch or burn?"
       "In a tub, with hot water,"  Methos confirmed.
       Duncan looked thoughtful.  "God, I must've been at least
twenty-five or thirty, maybe older.  I honestly don't remember.  After
this long, the early years start to..."
       "Blur?"  Methos asked with a grin.
       "Blur,"  Duncan agreed, grinning back.
       Guinan knew an inside joke when she heard one.  She didn't have to
read minds to guess the context, either.  "I take it you two have had this
conversation before."
       "The day we met,"  Methos said, looking a bit faraway.
       "In Paris.  It wasn't long after I met you, Guinan."  Duncan added.
       Methos perked up at that.  "How *did* you two meet, anyway?  I
mean, what were you doing on Earth, Guinan?  You told me your people were
destroyed by the Borg."
       "That was much later.  When I met Duncan, I was a student, an
anthropologist of sorts.  I was learning about Earth cultures, and in the
course of researching I happened to run into Joe and Duncan, and got mixed
up in a mess with Tanner Dane."
       Methos looked grim.  "I think I remember that mess.  A lot of good
Watchers, and Immortals died because of him."
       They all were silent a moment, thinking about that, then Duncan
broke the quiet.
       "But thanks to Guinan we don't need to worry about him any more.
Did she tell you what she did?"
       Methos looked at her curiously. "No, what did you do?"
       Guinan shifted uncomfortably, she still felt odd about that.  Not
about killing Dane, he'd deserved that, but about the fact that she still
didn't know how she'd done what she did afterward."
       "I just evened the odds a little, that's all."
       Duncan snorted derisively.  "That's all?  She killed him for me,
and then she took his Quickening so I wouldn't have to."
       Methos jaw dropped.  "She did *what*?"  he asked, looking from one
to the other in stunned surprise.
       "She took his quickening."
       "But she's not one of us!"
       Duncan shrugged.  "I know.  We don't quite know how she did it.
But she did."
       Methos sat up, dragging a hand through his hair.  "Why didn't you
tell me about this before?"
       "Why does it matter?"  Guinan asked.
       "The riddle!"
       "What riddle?"  Duncan asked, sounding a bit exasperated.
       "I heard it from an old immortal when I was still very young
myself, I never gave it much thought, because it didn't make sense.  Let
me see if I can remember it, I learned it so long ago that I barely even
remember what language I spoke at the time, and it's been nearly that long
since I even thought about it."  He deliberated for a moment, then began
to recite.  "`When one not one takes quickening, the game will then be
ended.  When one is three the new day dawns, we change beyond all knowing.
When three are four, the prize refused, our end is our beginning.'"
       Guinan mulled the words over in her mind, and finally shrugged.  "I
never was good at riddles."
       "And the meter's terrible," Duncan added, grimacing.
       Methos caught her hand.  "Don't you see, though?  You're the `one
not one.' You're not an Immortal, yet you took a quickening."
       She sighed, hating to burst his bubble. "I suspect that had more to
do with my species' mental talents than with any ancient riddle, Methos.
For some reason, my kind is able to handle the energy in a far less
wasteful fashion than you are.  Maybe we're on the right frequency or
something."
       Methos frowned.  "I suppose.  It just seems so oddly premonitory."
       "What does the riddle mean, anyway?"
       He shrugged, lying back.  "I haven't the faintest idea.  Arkel
didn't know either.  He just passed it along, telling me it was important.
His mentor had told it to him, saying it `held the second key', but he
died the true death before telling Arkel what that meant."
       "Second key to what?"  Duncan asked, intrigued.
       "Who knows?  It's lost to us now.  Whatever it meant will have to
keep its own council."
       "The prize refused,"  Duncan said, thoughtfully.  "Interesting
wording.  Can the Prize be refused?"
       "In a way, haven't we refused it already?  By leaving Earth, we've
effectively taken ourselves out of the Game."
       "Except when it follows us."  Duncan's tone was grim.  Guinan
suspected he was thinking of Dane.
       "There is that,"  Methos sighed.  He stared at the ceiling for a
moment, then started to smile a little, that oddly quirky smile that made
Guinan wonder what he was thinking.
       "What?"  she asked, prodding him in the ribs.
       "I was just thinking that it's so typical..."
       "What is?"
       "Here I am naked in bed with you two, and what am I doing?  Lying
here talking about moldy old myths!"
       Guinan nodded, and traced the laugh-lines around his mouth with a
fingertip.  "I have an idea how to shut you up."
       He laughed.  "I'll bet you do."
       She leaned over and kissed him while he was laughing, enjoying the
feel of his smile.  She wondered what it would be like to leave her
Othersense engaged while making love with these two.  Overwhelming, she
suspected.  It might blow every nerve in her body... and it might just be
worth it.  Tentatively she relaxed the nearly-unconscious control she held
over those faculties, and was immediately flooded with their Presence.
Energy seemed to dance through her body, passing from one of them to the
other and back again.  It was a strangely familiar feeling, yet she knew
it couldn't possibly be familiar.  Duncan shifted against her, his hand
curving over her hip, fingers dipping down to fan out over her belly.
       "What did you do?"  he asked.  "That feels... ah... very unusual"
       She lifted her mouth from Methos'.  "You can feel it too?"
       Duncan nodded.  So did Methos.
       "Well, now isn't that interesting?"  she asked, intrigued.  "What
does it feel like to you?"
       Duncan thought a moment, and laughed a little oddly.  "You may
think I'm nuts."
       "I won't.  What?"
       "It feels a lot like a quickening... only much softer, less
intense."
       "Exactly what I was thinking."  Methos agreed.
       That was what had seemed familiar!  It *was* a very similar
feeling!  Having only experienced a quickening once, the memory hadn't
surfaced immediately.  Guinan looked from one to the other.
       "This is weird.  Why should opening up my Othersense make either of
you feel anything different?  It should only affect me."
       "What's othersense?"  Duncan asked.
       She sighed.  "It's kind of hard to explain.  Its kind of a catchall
term for the psychic abilities my kind has.  Mine are very minimal, not
much to brag about.  I can tell when someone's lying to me, I can tell
that you two aren't quite what you appear to be.  I have very sketchy
precognitive abilities.  I usually keep my othersense closed off when I'm
around either of you, because your presence is so strong that it's
distracting."
       "Why did you open it now?"  Methos asked, curious.  "Did you sense
that something's wrong?"
       She felt her skin warm as she shook her head. "Um, no.  I was just
um... curious what it would do feel like in these... ah... circumstances."
       Duncan chuckled his breath warm against her ear.  "Little witch,"
he said.  "You're full of surprises, aren't you?  Whatever you did, I like
it.  It's very interesting."
       "One might say arousing,"  Methos added, reaching out to cup her
face in his palm.  Sparks seemed to merge into her skin from his to
dissolve with a scintillating rush of pleasure.  She felt like a glass of
champagne, full of bursting bubbles.
       "Wow..."  she said weakly.
       Duncan's lips grazed the back of her neck, and the acuteness of the
sensation was nearly orgasmic.  She moaned, unable to form a word, and
Methos covered her mouth with his, stealing her breath and giving her
passion in return.  If their earlier lovemaking had been pleasurable, what
words could she use to describe this?  There were none intense enough.
This complete convergence of self and other-self.  It was hard to tell
where she left off and they began; they became each other.  Each touch of
skin-to-skin seemed to sink inside, to go past the surface into unexplored
depths.  It was excruciatingly ecstatic, and dizzyingly confusing at the
same time.
       Vaguely she sensed a shifting, as they moved in tandem to a more
accommodating position.  She felt a body yield to the insistence of
someone's flesh, absorbing it into themselves.  Who was she, who were
they?  She couldn't tell any more.  She felt entered, and at the same time
it was she who was entering.  She felt the harsh excitement of waiting
even as the fuller pleasure of not-waiting flooded her.  She was lips,
hands, bellies, thighs, teeth, tongues and mingled breath.  She dissolved
into them and they into her.
       Someone climaxed, a dark, secret pulse of liquid emptying out of
and into her.  Someone else took that place, and both of them were her.
The familiar pleasure of her own culmination braided itself into the
unfamiliar ecstasy of a man's peak, and the pleasure was tripled as it
echoed between them; flashing and sparking and searing itself through each
of them with the power of a lightning-strike.  There was a moment of
complete unity, then finally they were dividing once more, falling away
through a vast darkness.  She felt tears come as the sense of separation
overwhelmed her, and she wrapped herself around whoever it was in front of
her, and slid into the welcome haven of sleep.


                           ***

       Something was different.  She woke feeling aware, and utterly
certain.  Something was different.  She sorted out the external
sensations.  She was wrapped around her lovers in an awkward tangle of
arms and legs and torsos that was surprisingly comfortable.  She opened an
eye and saw Duncan bare inches from her nose, his eyes closed in the
deceptive innocence of sleep.  Last she remembered, he'd been behind her.
The warm length against her back must be Methos, then, spooned into the
curve of her buttocks.  Duncan's hips were still between her thighs, a
moist meshing of quiet flesh.  It was hard to think with them so close,
and she felt peculiarly sensitive and over-warm.
       Cautiously, she nudged Methos with a gentle elbow.  He stirred, and
rolled away enough that she could disengage from Duncan.  She froze as he
almost woke, then relaxed as he slipped back into sleep.  She managed to
work her way out from under the covers.  The air was cool, but not cold,
thanks to the heat radiating from the glowing embers of the fire Duncan
had kindled some unknown time earlier.  She stood and went over to the
hearth, laying more kindling and wood, and blowing gently on the embers
until the fire caught again.  She stared into it, and was overwhelmed
again by that knowledge.  Something was different.
       She sat down in front of the fireplace, centered herself, and went
deep, searching out the change.  What had it done to her, that possibly
ill- advised experiment in psychic sex?  Just thinking about what she'd
experienced sent a tiny quake through her abdomen, and she had to force
herself to stop remembering it.  She wondered if she really had burned out
her Othersense.  Everything seemed so dulled, muted... but was that just
an apparency because they were no longer three-become-one?
       Methos' riddle suddenly flashed through her mind.  `When one is
three the new day dawns, we change beyond all knowing.' Had they changed?
She had.  Something was different, something in her body, but it was a
strangely familiar difference.  Whatever it was, she'd experienced it
before.  She sifted through the sensations her body gave her, looking for
the source, but irritatingly the next line of Methos' riddle kept
insinuating itself into her thoughts and distracting her.  `When three are
four, the prize refused, our end is our beginning.' Stupid.
       One not one; Methos thought that was her.  One is three-- they'd
done that, too.  She sat with her hands folded across her stomach, rocking
slightly as she concentrated, narrowing it down to... three are four, the
prize refused, our end is our beginning.  Damn riddle.  She felt something
like a soap- bubble breaking inside her, and gasped in sudden recognition
of the delicate sensation.  Life.  That was life.  After having
experienced that once, she would never again mistake it for anything else.
       "Damn it all!"  she swore, jumping to her feet.  "Damn, damn,
damn!"
       There was a sudden thrashing from the bed as Duncan and Methos both
woke and attempted to disentangle themselves from the covers enough to
meet whatever threatened.  She waited until both of them had managed to
work their way out and to their feet.
       "Guinan!  What's wrong?"  Duncan managed, looking rather silly as
he stood there in a defensive stance, stark naked and wild-eyed.  Methos
was staring around, clearly searching for the source of her distress,
looking just as idiotic as Duncan.  She didn't let herself be amused, and
observed them both with a jaundiced look.
       "All right.  Which one of you lied to me?
       They both stared at her, bewildered.
       "What?"
       She folded her arms across her chest and glared at them.  "One or
the other of you lied to me.  I suspect it's you, Methos, because you're
the only new factor in this equation."
       He looked offended.  "I haven't lied to you about anything!  What
the hell are you talking about?"
       She regarded him narrowly.  "`When three are four, the prize
refused, our end is our beginning.' That's what I'm talking about."
       Duncan looked at her, clearly puzzled.  "The riddle?  What has that
got to do with anything?"
       She walked over to where they stood, and took Duncan's hand in her
left, and Methos' hand in her right.  As she'd expected, the sense of
merging was there.  Without the intense closeness of sex it was somewhat
lessened, but it was definitely still there.  Linked, she opened herself
to them, letting them feel what she felt, letting them know what she knew.
Would they be able to feel it?  Would they understand?
       "Oh my God..."  Duncan gasped, letting go of her hand, his palm
flattening on his own abdomen as if he touched her instead.
       That answered that question.  Methos let go as well, and stepped
back, staring at her in disbelief.
       "That's impossible!"
       She sensed no lie from either of them.  They were as surprised as
she was.
       "Guinan, how can it be?  That's not what it feels like, is it?"
Methos asked.
       She nodded.  "Oh, yes it is.  I've been through this enough times
to know.  It's just a spark as yet, smaller than small, but life.  Which
means one or the other of you is *not* sterile."
       Methos stared, and then suddenly he began to smile, shaking his
head in amazement.  "That's it!  My God, I had the answer all this time
and I never knew it!  The prize refused!  Of course!  The game is death,
to refuse it means the beginning of life!  When three is one!  The
quickening energy must be what does it!"
       They both stared at him as if he'd lost his mind, and he laughed.
"I know, I sound like a raving lunatic, but I think I know how this
happened.  Have you ever had a complete fertility work-up, Duncan?"
       Duncan looked away.  "What for?  I know I'm sterile."
       "Yes, but do you know why?"
       He shook his head.  "Well, no.  Not really."
       "I didn't either, but I'd always wondered, and so I had one done.
What they found out makes sense now.  You see, if you're like me, your
sperm carries only half as many chromosomes as that of a normal human
male."
       "So?"
       Guinan understood.  "So, that means it takes *two* males of your
species to supply the necessary number of chromosomes."
       "Our species?"  Duncan questioned sharply.  "We're human!  Born and
raised on earth!"
       "Being born and raised there doesn't make you a homo sapiens
sapiens, Duncan.  It just makes you a native.  What if... what if you were
something else?"
       "Like what?"
       "Like... oh, I don't know.  Some other experiment of the
Preservers.  Something similar enough to crop up in the gene pool now and
then under just the right circumstances, but too different to crossbreed
without another special set of circumstances."
       "Like knowing that it takes three to tango!"  Methos said,
ironically.
       She shook her head.  "No, I think there's more to it than just
that.  That quickening-like energy has something to do with it,"  She
laughed.  "Maybe that's why it's called a quickening!  It's a term used
most commonly to indicate conception.  One of the parties must have to
have the ability to serve as a kind of conduit for it.  Maybe it has to do
with how the fertilization actually occurs.  Normally an ovum will reject
a second penetration, so something must turn off that function."
       Methos nodded.  "I don't claim to understand the mechanics, we'd
probably need a genetic engineer to do that, but it seems like that would
be the only way this could possibly have happened.  I don't understand,
though why this wasn't discovered by accident years ago!  This can't be
the first time two immortals ever took a lover together, either a human or
another immortal."
       Duncan nodded.  "I find that surprising too, but what's even odder
is that Guinan's not... whatever we are.  She's not even from Earth!  What
sense does it make that we'd be able to crossbreed with someone from
halfway across the galaxy, but not someone from our own world?"
       Guinan eyed him speculatively.  "Of all the Preserver-seeded
humanoids in the galaxy, Terrans and El-Aurians are genetically the most
similar, and I'd be willing to be that you're even more similar to us than
you are to Terrans.  But that still begs the question of why you're
sterile with each other.  You'd think that you should be inter-species
fertile, if not intra- species.  Maybe it's as simple as a coding error on
the part of whoever engineered the Preserver's seeding program.
       "Or maybe it wasn't a mistake at all,"  Duncan said grimly.  "Maybe
it was deliberate.  Think about it, if we were able to breed as easily as
humans, we'd have overrun the planet within a matter of generations.  It
couldn't support us.  But then, why do we exist at all?  Are we just a
random mutation, or were we intended to serve some purpose?"
       "I don't know.  I wouldn't think you could be explained as a random
mutation.  Your kind appears too regularly for that.  The odds against
that must be astronomical!  Logic says you must have served some purpose."
       "Perhaps we did once,"  Methos said softly.
       "In between killing each other?"  Duncan asked snidely.
       "No, before we started killing each other."
       "Another myth?"
       "I always thought so.  Now I'm not so sure.  Arkel told me that we
were meant for a higher purpose, but that there were too many of us who
had either lost that knowledge, or never had it to begin with.  He said we
killed each other because we didn't understand what we were."
       "But Arkel didn't bother to tell you exactly what that was?"
       Methos shook his head, looking frustrated.  "I'd known him less
than a year when he was killed, and he was one who felt that knowledge was
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