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Sanctuary/Highlander crossover: "Cold Trail"
Title: Cold Trail
Fandom: Sanctuary/Highlander crossover
Characters/pairing: Helen, Ashley, Methos (also a bit of Dawson and James); gen
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3800
Summary: In Paris in 1995, two very different immortals try to figure each other out. Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sfaflashfic's Secrets challenge, for Amnesty Week. (I actually started writing this for the Games challenge a few weeks ago, but since they're doing Amnesty, I shuffled it to fit the Secrets challenge instead - it works better anyway.)
Notes: Er, you probably need some knowledge of both shows' canon to make any sense out of this. In terms of Highlander chronology, this takes place somewhere between 3x16 and the middle of season four. Also, for anyone who might not know, Methos/Adam on Highlander and James Watson on Sanctuary are both played by Peter Wingfield.
Paris, 1995
Helen had always liked Paris. As with other cities of her acquaintance, she'd greatly enjoyed watching it grow and change over the years. Sometimes she regretted that she'd never had an opportunity to live here for long. Her work had always taken her elsewhere.
However, visiting Paris on business with a bored and hyperactive 10-year-old was not an experience she wished to repeat anytime soon. Especially with the unseasonable weather -- odd, changeable, lots of threatening clouds and lightning storms without rain. Helen had carried an umbrella today, but the weather, in defiance of expectation, turned out bright and lovely.
"No, Ashley. We are not going to explore the catacombs, scuba-dive in the Seine, or investigate the city's alleys for new kinds of Abnormals to take home."
Ashley crossed her arms and pouted. She'd already developed a very practiced pout; Helen dreaded what her teen years were going to be like. "So who's this guy we're meeting?"
"He is a man who may be able to answer some questions."
"Wow," Ashley said. "That's totally not mysterious at all. Is he at least, like, a mercenary or something?"
"He is an historian."
Ashley deflated. "I'm going to die. Of boredom."
"I don't believe that's medically possible."
"You'll see," Ashley predicted darkly.
Helen snorted. "If you behave today, this evening I will take you along on another business trip that I think you'll like better. There's an apothecary I know here who sells hard-to-find raw materials for some of the foods the Abnormals at the Sanctuary need. His shop is full of interesting things. Some of them explode." Ashley's pout dialed down a notch or two; she looked interested. "If you can be a grown-up girl while I talk to Dr. Pierson, then you're certainly grown up enough to help me with that errand as well. What do you think?"
"I guess," Ashley conceded.
"Remember, Ashley, that you are not to mention the Sanctuary network or the existence of --"
"Mom, I'm not five. I know how to act around normals."
Helen could feel her lips quirk in a smile. "Yes, you do."
"So what are you going to ask him about?"
"About us," Helen said quietly, and her hand found her daughter's shoulder.
She'd been following this trail, off and on, for years. The clues were elusive and tantalizing: references in old manuscripts, cryptic stories in newspapers that hinted of Abnormal involvement and yet fit no known pattern. Helen had long wondered about her own immortality, the strange trait that the Source blood had awakened in her. The world's folklore and legends were filled with stories of long-lived beings, yet hard data was remarkably difficult to come by. She knew of no others like her except through rumor and hearsay, impossible to prove.
But the rumors were interesting. Some of Helen's informants said they'd heard secondhand stories of very long-lived Abnormals who were otherwise indistinguishable from normal humans. Others had heard -- again, secondhand and unsubstantiated -- of a secret organization that seemed to be collecting information on such Abnormals, and yet no one seemed to know who they were or what they might be doing with the information. Helen wondered if another Sanctuary network could possibly exist, secret even from their own. Perhaps Gregory was not the first person to attempt such a thing, nor the first person to succeed.
Finally the trail had led her here, to Dr. Pierson at the Sorbonne. For years, it had seemed that Dr. Pierson's name kept coming up by chance in many of her own searches: he would have been the most recent person to examine a rare document that she was also interested in, or a co-author on some paper or other that related to her search. Really, it was the sort of thing that might happen in any field when two researchers pursued, for a while, a similar line of inquiry. His was certainly not the only familiar name that happened to recur. But after a while, she'd decided to see what he knew.
She emailed him on a whim, not expecting to hear back -- just a quick message to his university account, letting him know that she'd enjoyed his recent paper on recurring folkloric themes of immortality and their historical underpinnings, mentioning that she was going to be in Paris next week on business and she'd like to meet him if he was available. To her surprise, the reply had been almost immediate and in the affirmative.
Helen and Ashley soon left the morning tourist crowds behind. The small café that Pierson had suggested was located on a side street where she had not been before. The collection of tables on the sidewalk were all occupied, most with couples or small groups. Only one man sat alone, with a cup of coffee and a newspaper in front of him.
Helen caught his eye and smiled.
The man at the table rose swiftly, offered her a small courtly bow, and held out his hand. "Adam Pierson."
"Helen Magnus."
"Charmed." Pierson had a firm grip, and a handshake that was neither too long nor too short. He hardly looked old enough to have a doctorate; he was the very picture of a British grad student, with a mess of dark hair and a floppy sweater draped about his lanky form. She could not help being struck by his resemblance to James, both in appearance and manner. Perhaps a distant branch of the family ... she would have to mention it to James when she next spoke to him.
"And this is my daughter, Ashley." Helen gave her a small nudge. Ashley scuttled forward a step or two, and stuck out a hand with an air of intense martyrdom.
"Well, hello, Ashley." Pierson shook her hand with the same gravity and care as if he'd just been introduced to an adult, and Ashley perked up a bit. Then he snagged her an unused chair from the neighboring table, as there was only one other at the table he'd chosen.
"Have you eaten yet?" Pierson asked. "I took the liberty of ordering -- ah." A waiter appeared silently at Helen's elbow to place before her a brioche and a cup of café au lait. "Though I didn't realize the young lady would be joining us -- would she like something as well?"
Helen caught the waiter's eye and switched to French. "A tea for myself, please -- Indar, if you have it. And for my daughter, a hot chocolate and a pain au chocolat." She was probably going to regret giving Ashley so much sugar at this time of the morning, but it would keep her busy and (temporarily) quiet, which was the important thing. Not wishing to appear rude, she waited until the server had turned away to set the cup of coffee to one side.
"Well, perhaps I should have asked first." Pierson's smile was shy and a bit rueful. "You don't drink coffee?"
"I'm a British girl through and through, I'm afraid." She nodded at his cup. "I see you've gone native yourself."
Pierson shrugged. "Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more."
"If you are in Rome, live in the Roman way," Helen translated for Ashley's benefit. "St. Ambrose. Most people misquote that."
"I did pay attention in some of my classes," Pierson said with a laugh.
The waiter brought Helen's pot of tea and Ashley's pastry and drink. "Is the Classical world your area of study?" Helen asked, passing Ashley a napkin.
Pierson shrugged. "Theoretically I'm a folklorist, but to be honest, I haven't just one specialty. Can't settle on anything at all, really. My graduate work was all over the map, quite literally in some cases. There's simply so much to learn. I don't know how anyone can specialize." He smiled that boyish smile again, which she was starting to distrust on general principles. "Jack of all trades, master of none -- that's me."
Thought Helen had no intention of mentioning it, she already knew quite a bit about Adam M. Pierson -- what there was to know, at any rate. His past was simple and bland, almost suspiciously so. Born in 1962, no siblings, parents also dead. Public records showed him to have been a bright student but not conspicuously so. No major medical issues aside from the usual childhood illnesses and a bout of appendicitis at university. He'd studied history before emigrating and then done his graduate work at small universities abroad before ending up in a minor research post at the Sorbonne for the last decade or so. His income was just enough to live comfortably, neither enough to raise eyebrows nor to land him in debt.
In short, it was so thoroughly average a past and present that Helen was instantly suspicious of it. She'd had plenty of opportunities to create fake histories for people when the situation called for it, including herself. If she were going to invent an identity, it would be precisely such a thing -- bland, ordinary, yet allowing a great deal of space for the hiding of secrets.
She caught herself wondering if certain aspects of Pierson's identity, particularly his research of late, might have been calculated to draw her out. Perhaps bringing Ashley had been unwise -- she flicked a glance sideways at the girl. Ashley was kicking the legs of her chair and drinking her hot chocolate, ignoring the adult conversation. She'd already had plenty of self-defense lessons and even proved capable in a few field situations, but Helen hoped they wouldn't have more practice today.
"And what is it that you do for a living, Dr. Magnus?" Pierson asked.
"I'm a teratologist, actually," Helen said, sipping her tea. It was brewed to perfection, the tea leaves properly steeped and not scalded as one was regrettably likely to find in American restaurants.
Pierson leaned forward in his chair. "Really? How fascinating."
Helen laughed. "That's not the reaction I generally receive. I'm more likely to hear 'What is that?' followed by 'Oh, dear.'"
"What can I say," Pierson said, smiling. "I'm fascinated by the unusual, by the rare and interesting. It's why I'm in my line of work in the first place, in fact."
It was an excellent opening for what she wanted to talk about. Suspiciously so. She decided to play along with it, though. "And do you often, in your work, discover things which are rare and interesting?"
Pierson's Cheshire-cat smile settled into a kind of calm complacency. "All of history is rare and interesting from the right perspective, Dr. Magnus."
"True," Helen agreed. "One intriguing thing I've found in my own research is just how often myth and folklore conceal grains of truth -- which was why your paper intrigued me so much. There are many stories of fantastic monsters that are in fact derived from unusual birth defects or, at times, hitherto unknown species. The horns of narwhals were mistaken by sailors for those of unicorns, for example." Unicorns of course having gone extinct in Europe by that time ... but she knew better than to mention it.
"As Troy was long thought to be nothing but legend," Pierson said, "until the historic city was discovered in the nineteenth century. A lot of classicists looked rather silly then."
Helen had attended some of those excavations -- another topic to avoid. "The more that one studies the world, the more one learns to believe in impossible things."
Pierson laughed softly. "But some things are perhaps a little too impossible. I certainly hope you didn't take my paper as an attempt to postulate that all myths are literally true. You don't seem the credulous type -- the sort who goes running after Bigfoot and UFOs."
Helen carefully dissected her brioche. Like the tea, it was excellent. "I don't consider myself particularly credulous in the way you mean, but I also believe in keeping an open mind. More things in heaven and earth, and all of that. To close one's mind to the possibilities of the universe is the true death, Dr. Pierson; the death of the body is just an afterthought."
"Spoken like an ancient," Pierson said, hiding his expression behind his coffee cup.
Helen touched the tip of her tongue to her lips, unable to believe the precipice she was balanced upon. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained; and she could always claim that she was merely trying to shock him. "What would you say, Dr. Pierson, if I were to tell you that I am over a hundred years old?"
Ashley looked up, startled. This was one of the things Helen had long cautioned her to never reveal to strangers under any circumstances.
Pierson's eyebrows rose. He leaned forward and studied her for a long moment, searching her face as if looking for something he couldn't find. At last he said, "Well, I suppose I'd say you were having a joke at my expense."
Helen could not keep a slight, sardonic smile from touching her mouth. "Because I don't look over a hundred?"
Pierson sat back in his seat, folded his hands and looked at her with a tiny smile playing around his lips. "I thought a well-bred lady never reveals her age."
They were both silent, briefly, as the waiter brought more hot water for her tea. Then he said more seriously, "Indeed, you don't look it."
"The ability to live forever would hardly be worth having if one aged normally, would it?"
"Like Tithonus," Pierson mused. "Eternal life without eternal youth. A curse rather than a ... blessing."
His mouth twisted on the last word with an odd irony, and for some reason it made her think of the times when she'd hated her longevity, hated it as passionately as she was, at other times, grateful for it. For all that it had brought her -- a long, long lifetime of boundless opportunities -- it had also meant watching so many people she loved age and die.
Pierson was much too young to understand that, of course; he couldn't have known what emotions he'd stirred up in her. He was only in his early thirties, after all. Or so he appeared -- but then, she didn't look all that much older.
"Anyway," Pierson said, "surely you don't expect me to believe you, unless you're actually mad. You don't appear mad."
Helen shrugged, still not sure whether to be disappointed or whether he was still feeling her out, as she was with him. "It's an interesting thought problem, though, isn't it? For me as a scientist and a doctor, the possibility is compelling. We already know that it's possible to induce artificial immortality in cells in the lab. Actually, some animals are effectively immortal already -- jellyfish, for example. The idea that such a random mutation might crop up in human beings ..."
"Perhaps I'm fortunate that I'm merely a folklorist, and all my work is theoretical." Pierson reached across the table for the cream, and as he did so, his sleeve brushed Helen's freshly reheated teapot. She saw it happening and snatched for the pot, but too late. The contents splashed across her wrist and arm, spilling off the table into her lap.
"Mom! Are you all right?"
Pierson was half out of his chair, all apologies. "I am so sorry. How terribly clumsy of me. Sometimes I'm the stereotypical absent-minded professor ..." He dabbed at the reddened skin with his napkin, as she tried to fend off both his apologies and his help.
"Please, I am a medical doctor. I am perfectly capable of dressing my own injury." She tilted her saucer to rest the cool china against her wrist. The pain was fading, but it had left an angry red mark behind.
"I'm so very sorry," Pierson said again. "Is it burned badly? Would you like some ice? I can have the waiter call for a --"
"Please don't," Helen sighed. "See, there's no damage really." She showed him the reddened skin.
"Ow, Mom," Ashley said, inspecting the burn.
"It's not terribly painful." She looked down at her wet skirt. "This, however, is going to be far more uncomfortable -- and embarrassing. I hope you don't mind if this marks the end of our conversation, Dr. Pierson. I should go back to my hotel and change."
"Well, I appreciate you letting me buy you breakfast, anyway," Pierson said. "And I do apologize for being clumsy. I'd like to make it up to you. Will you and your daughter be in Paris long?"
"We're leaving in the morning," Helen said, deciding on the spot to make it so. "But thank you for breakfast. I'll definitely call you if I'm in town again; perhaps we can talk more about our common areas of interest."
Pierson tilted his head to the side. He was so like James. "I'll look forward to it."
As she rose, Helen felt as if she should make one last try. She'd felt, for just a little while, that she was so close, and she hated to abandon this as another dead end. "May I ask you a rather direct question, Dr. Pierson?"
"It doesn't seem to have stopped you before," he said mildly.
"In all your research, have you ever come upon a verifiable historical source for a human who lived significantly longer than a normal mortal lifespan?"
Pierson smiled, looking briefly wistful, almost sad. "I wish I could say yes," he said. "I truly do, believe me. But, sadly, I'm afraid I can't help you find your Fountain of Youth. All I've ever uncovered are myths and folktales, no more true than stories of the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot."
******
"She's not Immortal?"
Methos shook his head. "Absolutely not. I would have felt it, Joe. I didn't feel a thing. And I spilled a pot of hot tea on her --" At Dawson's frown, he rolled his eyes. "What, would you prefer that I stab her? In any case, she doesn't seem to heal any faster than a normal human. She had a child with her, too, that she claimed was her daughter -- not definitive evidence, I know, but another strike against it."
The two Watchers were leaning on the railing of the Pont Louis-Philippe, the placid Seine rippling below. Dawson rested his chin in his hand. "So who is she, then, and why is she asking questions about Immortals?"
"No idea. The funny thing is that it's all the wrong questions. I don't know what she heard or where she heard it, but it was clearly an odd muddle of lies and truth. She's definitely curious, though, and determined." Methos grinned. "I'd started wondering how long I was going to have to keep leaving her bread crumbs before she finally arranged a meeting with me. I was starting to think that I'd have to break down and contact her."
"You have a weird sense of humor," Dawson told his friend.
Methos smiled and tapped his fingers on the railing. "I did what I could to throw her off the trail."
"No, you didn't. Knowing you, all you've done is make her even more curious."
"Really, Joe, have some faith. Anyway, I'm curious about her, too. There's a whole lot more to her than meets the eye. If there's something out there, a secret organization similar to the Watchers, I think we ought to learn about it, don't you?" His eyes sparkled. "I wouldn't mind more conversations with her."
Dawson decided not to touch that one. "Think we should have the Watcher network keep an eye on her for a while?"
"I think it would be a good idea."
******
"Well?" James's voice said in her ear. "Did you learn anything?"
Helen leaned on the windowsill, looking down at the bustling Paris street beneath her hotel room. Behind her, the television blared a French game show, but Helen, with a mother's fine-tuned ear, automatically listened for sounds of her daughter, and found the familiar, repetitive click-click-click as Ashley played her favorite game -- breaking down and reassembling a Glock, trying to beat her best time. With the firing pin removed, the gun was neither illegal nor dangerous, and it kept her happy.
"Not really. He claims to know nothing. Though he definitely plays his cards close to the vest, I don't get the impression that he's aware of the existence of Abnormals."
"Which doesn't mean he might not be one himself," James pointed out. "What's he like?"
"He reminds me of you, actually," Helen said with a laugh. "You haven't by any chance some younger relatives running around France?"
James's chuckle was warm and deep. "Certainly not any close ones. That I know about, anyway."
Affection for James surged in her. It was good to hear his voice, to know that there was one person out there, at least, who knew the bittersweet pain of watching the world change while you did not. The conversation with Pierson had left her unsettled -- a little too aware of her own age, and the impermanence of the relationships she'd formed along the way. It was too early to tell if her longevity would be passed down to Ashley, but Helen thought the odds were very good that it had not -- which meant that someday she would have to face every parent's greatest nightmare: outliving their children.
This, she understood now, was one of the reasons why she'd flown to Paris to meet Adam Pierson. It would be nice to know that she wasn't alone, that there were other people out there who understood what it was like to be her. She couldn't forget that moment when she'd briefly sensed that kinship in Pierson, but now she wondered if she'd just been deluding herself, seeing what she wanted to see. Still, there were plenty of mysteries to be explored. Which reminded her ...
"When I have a chance, James, I'm going to fax you something." Helen reached for the small pad of paper and pen by the telephone, and did a quick sketch just to be sure she had the symbol committed to memory. "He had a tattoo on his wrist, a symbol I've seen in a few of the old manuscripts I've been looking at. I don't know what it means, but I think it's too much of a coincidence. I'd like to get some of our researchers working on it."
"Did you ask him about it?"
"Of course not. If there is some kind of organization like the Sanctuary network, do you think he'd tell me about it? The most I could hope for would be an interesting lie, and then he'd be even more on guard. No." She smiled briefly. "The immortality angle might have been a dead end, but it's possible that we've found something even more interesting. I think it would be a good idea for us to keep an eye on Adam Pierson for a while. Just to be careful."
~
Fandom: Sanctuary/Highlander crossover
Characters/pairing: Helen, Ashley, Methos (also a bit of Dawson and James); gen
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3800
Summary: In Paris in 1995, two very different immortals try to figure each other out. Written for
sfaflashfic's Secrets challenge, for Amnesty Week. (I actually started writing this for the Games challenge a few weeks ago, but since they're doing Amnesty, I shuffled it to fit the Secrets challenge instead - it works better anyway.)Notes: Er, you probably need some knowledge of both shows' canon to make any sense out of this. In terms of Highlander chronology, this takes place somewhere between 3x16 and the middle of season four. Also, for anyone who might not know, Methos/Adam on Highlander and James Watson on Sanctuary are both played by Peter Wingfield.
Paris, 1995
Helen had always liked Paris. As with other cities of her acquaintance, she'd greatly enjoyed watching it grow and change over the years. Sometimes she regretted that she'd never had an opportunity to live here for long. Her work had always taken her elsewhere.
However, visiting Paris on business with a bored and hyperactive 10-year-old was not an experience she wished to repeat anytime soon. Especially with the unseasonable weather -- odd, changeable, lots of threatening clouds and lightning storms without rain. Helen had carried an umbrella today, but the weather, in defiance of expectation, turned out bright and lovely.
"No, Ashley. We are not going to explore the catacombs, scuba-dive in the Seine, or investigate the city's alleys for new kinds of Abnormals to take home."
Ashley crossed her arms and pouted. She'd already developed a very practiced pout; Helen dreaded what her teen years were going to be like. "So who's this guy we're meeting?"
"He is a man who may be able to answer some questions."
"Wow," Ashley said. "That's totally not mysterious at all. Is he at least, like, a mercenary or something?"
"He is an historian."
Ashley deflated. "I'm going to die. Of boredom."
"I don't believe that's medically possible."
"You'll see," Ashley predicted darkly.
Helen snorted. "If you behave today, this evening I will take you along on another business trip that I think you'll like better. There's an apothecary I know here who sells hard-to-find raw materials for some of the foods the Abnormals at the Sanctuary need. His shop is full of interesting things. Some of them explode." Ashley's pout dialed down a notch or two; she looked interested. "If you can be a grown-up girl while I talk to Dr. Pierson, then you're certainly grown up enough to help me with that errand as well. What do you think?"
"I guess," Ashley conceded.
"Remember, Ashley, that you are not to mention the Sanctuary network or the existence of --"
"Mom, I'm not five. I know how to act around normals."
Helen could feel her lips quirk in a smile. "Yes, you do."
"So what are you going to ask him about?"
"About us," Helen said quietly, and her hand found her daughter's shoulder.
She'd been following this trail, off and on, for years. The clues were elusive and tantalizing: references in old manuscripts, cryptic stories in newspapers that hinted of Abnormal involvement and yet fit no known pattern. Helen had long wondered about her own immortality, the strange trait that the Source blood had awakened in her. The world's folklore and legends were filled with stories of long-lived beings, yet hard data was remarkably difficult to come by. She knew of no others like her except through rumor and hearsay, impossible to prove.
But the rumors were interesting. Some of Helen's informants said they'd heard secondhand stories of very long-lived Abnormals who were otherwise indistinguishable from normal humans. Others had heard -- again, secondhand and unsubstantiated -- of a secret organization that seemed to be collecting information on such Abnormals, and yet no one seemed to know who they were or what they might be doing with the information. Helen wondered if another Sanctuary network could possibly exist, secret even from their own. Perhaps Gregory was not the first person to attempt such a thing, nor the first person to succeed.
Finally the trail had led her here, to Dr. Pierson at the Sorbonne. For years, it had seemed that Dr. Pierson's name kept coming up by chance in many of her own searches: he would have been the most recent person to examine a rare document that she was also interested in, or a co-author on some paper or other that related to her search. Really, it was the sort of thing that might happen in any field when two researchers pursued, for a while, a similar line of inquiry. His was certainly not the only familiar name that happened to recur. But after a while, she'd decided to see what he knew.
She emailed him on a whim, not expecting to hear back -- just a quick message to his university account, letting him know that she'd enjoyed his recent paper on recurring folkloric themes of immortality and their historical underpinnings, mentioning that she was going to be in Paris next week on business and she'd like to meet him if he was available. To her surprise, the reply had been almost immediate and in the affirmative.
Helen and Ashley soon left the morning tourist crowds behind. The small café that Pierson had suggested was located on a side street where she had not been before. The collection of tables on the sidewalk were all occupied, most with couples or small groups. Only one man sat alone, with a cup of coffee and a newspaper in front of him.
Helen caught his eye and smiled.
The man at the table rose swiftly, offered her a small courtly bow, and held out his hand. "Adam Pierson."
"Helen Magnus."
"Charmed." Pierson had a firm grip, and a handshake that was neither too long nor too short. He hardly looked old enough to have a doctorate; he was the very picture of a British grad student, with a mess of dark hair and a floppy sweater draped about his lanky form. She could not help being struck by his resemblance to James, both in appearance and manner. Perhaps a distant branch of the family ... she would have to mention it to James when she next spoke to him.
"And this is my daughter, Ashley." Helen gave her a small nudge. Ashley scuttled forward a step or two, and stuck out a hand with an air of intense martyrdom.
"Well, hello, Ashley." Pierson shook her hand with the same gravity and care as if he'd just been introduced to an adult, and Ashley perked up a bit. Then he snagged her an unused chair from the neighboring table, as there was only one other at the table he'd chosen.
"Have you eaten yet?" Pierson asked. "I took the liberty of ordering -- ah." A waiter appeared silently at Helen's elbow to place before her a brioche and a cup of café au lait. "Though I didn't realize the young lady would be joining us -- would she like something as well?"
Helen caught the waiter's eye and switched to French. "A tea for myself, please -- Indar, if you have it. And for my daughter, a hot chocolate and a pain au chocolat." She was probably going to regret giving Ashley so much sugar at this time of the morning, but it would keep her busy and (temporarily) quiet, which was the important thing. Not wishing to appear rude, she waited until the server had turned away to set the cup of coffee to one side.
"Well, perhaps I should have asked first." Pierson's smile was shy and a bit rueful. "You don't drink coffee?"
"I'm a British girl through and through, I'm afraid." She nodded at his cup. "I see you've gone native yourself."
Pierson shrugged. "Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more."
"If you are in Rome, live in the Roman way," Helen translated for Ashley's benefit. "St. Ambrose. Most people misquote that."
"I did pay attention in some of my classes," Pierson said with a laugh.
The waiter brought Helen's pot of tea and Ashley's pastry and drink. "Is the Classical world your area of study?" Helen asked, passing Ashley a napkin.
Pierson shrugged. "Theoretically I'm a folklorist, but to be honest, I haven't just one specialty. Can't settle on anything at all, really. My graduate work was all over the map, quite literally in some cases. There's simply so much to learn. I don't know how anyone can specialize." He smiled that boyish smile again, which she was starting to distrust on general principles. "Jack of all trades, master of none -- that's me."
Thought Helen had no intention of mentioning it, she already knew quite a bit about Adam M. Pierson -- what there was to know, at any rate. His past was simple and bland, almost suspiciously so. Born in 1962, no siblings, parents also dead. Public records showed him to have been a bright student but not conspicuously so. No major medical issues aside from the usual childhood illnesses and a bout of appendicitis at university. He'd studied history before emigrating and then done his graduate work at small universities abroad before ending up in a minor research post at the Sorbonne for the last decade or so. His income was just enough to live comfortably, neither enough to raise eyebrows nor to land him in debt.
In short, it was so thoroughly average a past and present that Helen was instantly suspicious of it. She'd had plenty of opportunities to create fake histories for people when the situation called for it, including herself. If she were going to invent an identity, it would be precisely such a thing -- bland, ordinary, yet allowing a great deal of space for the hiding of secrets.
She caught herself wondering if certain aspects of Pierson's identity, particularly his research of late, might have been calculated to draw her out. Perhaps bringing Ashley had been unwise -- she flicked a glance sideways at the girl. Ashley was kicking the legs of her chair and drinking her hot chocolate, ignoring the adult conversation. She'd already had plenty of self-defense lessons and even proved capable in a few field situations, but Helen hoped they wouldn't have more practice today.
"And what is it that you do for a living, Dr. Magnus?" Pierson asked.
"I'm a teratologist, actually," Helen said, sipping her tea. It was brewed to perfection, the tea leaves properly steeped and not scalded as one was regrettably likely to find in American restaurants.
Pierson leaned forward in his chair. "Really? How fascinating."
Helen laughed. "That's not the reaction I generally receive. I'm more likely to hear 'What is that?' followed by 'Oh, dear.'"
"What can I say," Pierson said, smiling. "I'm fascinated by the unusual, by the rare and interesting. It's why I'm in my line of work in the first place, in fact."
It was an excellent opening for what she wanted to talk about. Suspiciously so. She decided to play along with it, though. "And do you often, in your work, discover things which are rare and interesting?"
Pierson's Cheshire-cat smile settled into a kind of calm complacency. "All of history is rare and interesting from the right perspective, Dr. Magnus."
"True," Helen agreed. "One intriguing thing I've found in my own research is just how often myth and folklore conceal grains of truth -- which was why your paper intrigued me so much. There are many stories of fantastic monsters that are in fact derived from unusual birth defects or, at times, hitherto unknown species. The horns of narwhals were mistaken by sailors for those of unicorns, for example." Unicorns of course having gone extinct in Europe by that time ... but she knew better than to mention it.
"As Troy was long thought to be nothing but legend," Pierson said, "until the historic city was discovered in the nineteenth century. A lot of classicists looked rather silly then."
Helen had attended some of those excavations -- another topic to avoid. "The more that one studies the world, the more one learns to believe in impossible things."
Pierson laughed softly. "But some things are perhaps a little too impossible. I certainly hope you didn't take my paper as an attempt to postulate that all myths are literally true. You don't seem the credulous type -- the sort who goes running after Bigfoot and UFOs."
Helen carefully dissected her brioche. Like the tea, it was excellent. "I don't consider myself particularly credulous in the way you mean, but I also believe in keeping an open mind. More things in heaven and earth, and all of that. To close one's mind to the possibilities of the universe is the true death, Dr. Pierson; the death of the body is just an afterthought."
"Spoken like an ancient," Pierson said, hiding his expression behind his coffee cup.
Helen touched the tip of her tongue to her lips, unable to believe the precipice she was balanced upon. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained; and she could always claim that she was merely trying to shock him. "What would you say, Dr. Pierson, if I were to tell you that I am over a hundred years old?"
Ashley looked up, startled. This was one of the things Helen had long cautioned her to never reveal to strangers under any circumstances.
Pierson's eyebrows rose. He leaned forward and studied her for a long moment, searching her face as if looking for something he couldn't find. At last he said, "Well, I suppose I'd say you were having a joke at my expense."
Helen could not keep a slight, sardonic smile from touching her mouth. "Because I don't look over a hundred?"
Pierson sat back in his seat, folded his hands and looked at her with a tiny smile playing around his lips. "I thought a well-bred lady never reveals her age."
They were both silent, briefly, as the waiter brought more hot water for her tea. Then he said more seriously, "Indeed, you don't look it."
"The ability to live forever would hardly be worth having if one aged normally, would it?"
"Like Tithonus," Pierson mused. "Eternal life without eternal youth. A curse rather than a ... blessing."
His mouth twisted on the last word with an odd irony, and for some reason it made her think of the times when she'd hated her longevity, hated it as passionately as she was, at other times, grateful for it. For all that it had brought her -- a long, long lifetime of boundless opportunities -- it had also meant watching so many people she loved age and die.
Pierson was much too young to understand that, of course; he couldn't have known what emotions he'd stirred up in her. He was only in his early thirties, after all. Or so he appeared -- but then, she didn't look all that much older.
"Anyway," Pierson said, "surely you don't expect me to believe you, unless you're actually mad. You don't appear mad."
Helen shrugged, still not sure whether to be disappointed or whether he was still feeling her out, as she was with him. "It's an interesting thought problem, though, isn't it? For me as a scientist and a doctor, the possibility is compelling. We already know that it's possible to induce artificial immortality in cells in the lab. Actually, some animals are effectively immortal already -- jellyfish, for example. The idea that such a random mutation might crop up in human beings ..."
"Perhaps I'm fortunate that I'm merely a folklorist, and all my work is theoretical." Pierson reached across the table for the cream, and as he did so, his sleeve brushed Helen's freshly reheated teapot. She saw it happening and snatched for the pot, but too late. The contents splashed across her wrist and arm, spilling off the table into her lap.
"Mom! Are you all right?"
Pierson was half out of his chair, all apologies. "I am so sorry. How terribly clumsy of me. Sometimes I'm the stereotypical absent-minded professor ..." He dabbed at the reddened skin with his napkin, as she tried to fend off both his apologies and his help.
"Please, I am a medical doctor. I am perfectly capable of dressing my own injury." She tilted her saucer to rest the cool china against her wrist. The pain was fading, but it had left an angry red mark behind.
"I'm so very sorry," Pierson said again. "Is it burned badly? Would you like some ice? I can have the waiter call for a --"
"Please don't," Helen sighed. "See, there's no damage really." She showed him the reddened skin.
"Ow, Mom," Ashley said, inspecting the burn.
"It's not terribly painful." She looked down at her wet skirt. "This, however, is going to be far more uncomfortable -- and embarrassing. I hope you don't mind if this marks the end of our conversation, Dr. Pierson. I should go back to my hotel and change."
"Well, I appreciate you letting me buy you breakfast, anyway," Pierson said. "And I do apologize for being clumsy. I'd like to make it up to you. Will you and your daughter be in Paris long?"
"We're leaving in the morning," Helen said, deciding on the spot to make it so. "But thank you for breakfast. I'll definitely call you if I'm in town again; perhaps we can talk more about our common areas of interest."
Pierson tilted his head to the side. He was so like James. "I'll look forward to it."
As she rose, Helen felt as if she should make one last try. She'd felt, for just a little while, that she was so close, and she hated to abandon this as another dead end. "May I ask you a rather direct question, Dr. Pierson?"
"It doesn't seem to have stopped you before," he said mildly.
"In all your research, have you ever come upon a verifiable historical source for a human who lived significantly longer than a normal mortal lifespan?"
Pierson smiled, looking briefly wistful, almost sad. "I wish I could say yes," he said. "I truly do, believe me. But, sadly, I'm afraid I can't help you find your Fountain of Youth. All I've ever uncovered are myths and folktales, no more true than stories of the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot."
"She's not Immortal?"
Methos shook his head. "Absolutely not. I would have felt it, Joe. I didn't feel a thing. And I spilled a pot of hot tea on her --" At Dawson's frown, he rolled his eyes. "What, would you prefer that I stab her? In any case, she doesn't seem to heal any faster than a normal human. She had a child with her, too, that she claimed was her daughter -- not definitive evidence, I know, but another strike against it."
The two Watchers were leaning on the railing of the Pont Louis-Philippe, the placid Seine rippling below. Dawson rested his chin in his hand. "So who is she, then, and why is she asking questions about Immortals?"
"No idea. The funny thing is that it's all the wrong questions. I don't know what she heard or where she heard it, but it was clearly an odd muddle of lies and truth. She's definitely curious, though, and determined." Methos grinned. "I'd started wondering how long I was going to have to keep leaving her bread crumbs before she finally arranged a meeting with me. I was starting to think that I'd have to break down and contact her."
"You have a weird sense of humor," Dawson told his friend.
Methos smiled and tapped his fingers on the railing. "I did what I could to throw her off the trail."
"No, you didn't. Knowing you, all you've done is make her even more curious."
"Really, Joe, have some faith. Anyway, I'm curious about her, too. There's a whole lot more to her than meets the eye. If there's something out there, a secret organization similar to the Watchers, I think we ought to learn about it, don't you?" His eyes sparkled. "I wouldn't mind more conversations with her."
Dawson decided not to touch that one. "Think we should have the Watcher network keep an eye on her for a while?"
"I think it would be a good idea."
"Well?" James's voice said in her ear. "Did you learn anything?"
Helen leaned on the windowsill, looking down at the bustling Paris street beneath her hotel room. Behind her, the television blared a French game show, but Helen, with a mother's fine-tuned ear, automatically listened for sounds of her daughter, and found the familiar, repetitive click-click-click as Ashley played her favorite game -- breaking down and reassembling a Glock, trying to beat her best time. With the firing pin removed, the gun was neither illegal nor dangerous, and it kept her happy.
"Not really. He claims to know nothing. Though he definitely plays his cards close to the vest, I don't get the impression that he's aware of the existence of Abnormals."
"Which doesn't mean he might not be one himself," James pointed out. "What's he like?"
"He reminds me of you, actually," Helen said with a laugh. "You haven't by any chance some younger relatives running around France?"
James's chuckle was warm and deep. "Certainly not any close ones. That I know about, anyway."
Affection for James surged in her. It was good to hear his voice, to know that there was one person out there, at least, who knew the bittersweet pain of watching the world change while you did not. The conversation with Pierson had left her unsettled -- a little too aware of her own age, and the impermanence of the relationships she'd formed along the way. It was too early to tell if her longevity would be passed down to Ashley, but Helen thought the odds were very good that it had not -- which meant that someday she would have to face every parent's greatest nightmare: outliving their children.
This, she understood now, was one of the reasons why she'd flown to Paris to meet Adam Pierson. It would be nice to know that she wasn't alone, that there were other people out there who understood what it was like to be her. She couldn't forget that moment when she'd briefly sensed that kinship in Pierson, but now she wondered if she'd just been deluding herself, seeing what she wanted to see. Still, there were plenty of mysteries to be explored. Which reminded her ...
"When I have a chance, James, I'm going to fax you something." Helen reached for the small pad of paper and pen by the telephone, and did a quick sketch just to be sure she had the symbol committed to memory. "He had a tattoo on his wrist, a symbol I've seen in a few of the old manuscripts I've been looking at. I don't know what it means, but I think it's too much of a coincidence. I'd like to get some of our researchers working on it."
"Did you ask him about it?"
"Of course not. If there is some kind of organization like the Sanctuary network, do you think he'd tell me about it? The most I could hope for would be an interesting lie, and then he'd be even more on guard. No." She smiled briefly. "The immortality angle might have been a dead end, but it's possible that we've found something even more interesting. I think it would be a good idea for us to keep an eye on Adam Pierson for a while. Just to be careful."
~
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The suspension-of-disbelief thing, yeah ... it's a problem in anything that's supposed to be "our world" but contains elements that are clearly not of our world. Occasionally you'll run into something that actually deals with the impact of psychic powers/aliens/gods/werewolves/whatever in society (the Temeraire books come to mind), but more often they're just supposed to exist "secretly" in the world as we know it, where in reality there would probably have been tangible effects that would have shaped the world differently than the one we know. Or, at the very least, you wonder how the heck people can fail to notice things like alien spaceships doing battle in the sky, or reanimated dinosaurs running around Chicago. *g*
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Obviously the creatures probably just wouldn't be seen as odd, but just regular animals. It's not like nature doesn't have its share of weirdness anyway. Competing sentient species would be more tricky but in my mind the most obvious result would be that they were either accepted as normal with more than one sentient species somehow coexisting, or that they'd end up like others of the genus homo, who were contemporaries to us, but became extinct like the unfortunate Neanderthal (or of course we'd have become extinct). You could make a case that some then went into hiding or something like that, but really, where would you go on earth to escape notice that consistently? It's one thing to say that currently they are helped to hide by the Sanctuary network, but unless they all huddled in Antarctica as precaution they would have had a hard time escaping notice by early humans as they first migrated across earth and tried to settle all the good spots. And I don't see why powerful abnormals would have just conceded to early humans either. I mean, if there was say some roving band of shapeshifters, and the competing camp of regular human hunters tried to take over their territory, they probably would have lost not won.
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