![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivendellroseI'm not sure where this came from, but I rather like the idea.
Title: "Interference"
Fandom: Highlander
Summary, warnings, etc: Trying to work her past the after-effects of the situation with Morgan Walker, Joe convinces Amy to have a chat with his friend 'Benjamin Adams.'
Set post-"Indiscretions," otherwise no warnings I can think of. Having finally seen some of the info from the Watcher Chronicles CD-ROM, I'm now aware that this contradicts aspects of that canon... so I guess this is a bit of an AU, now. I'm trying to bring it in line with at least aspects of that canon, but I want to keep a fair amount of the original ideas. If anyone spots any other canonical issues, please do let me know, and feedback and constructive criticism is happily welcomed! I don't own the characters, and no money is being made by this.
Rating: PG.
“Nice place.”
“It’s good enough. Coffee?”
“Please.” Amy perched on the edge of Benjamin Adams’ couch and watched him pour pre-ground coffee into a filter. Judging by the rest of the apartment (slightly spartan, and typical of a bachelor, with the exception of actually being relatively clean and containing more books than dirty clothes), she’d almost expected him to use instant crystals, but he’d pulled the coffee maker and neatly sealed bag of grounds from a cupboard under his sink.
“I hope you didn’t want decaf…”
“No, caffeine’s fine.”
A pair of mugs, one plain blue and one emblazoned with the Sorbonne University crest and a motto Amy couldn’t quite read, joined the coffee maker on the counter. “Milk or sugar?”
“Both, thank you.”
“Me too. Bad habit, but I like sugar.” He smiled.
“It’s not as though it’ll kill you,” Amy offered, immediately feeling stupid for the joke. How on earth did Joe interact with these people on a regular basis?
“Heh. No, It won’t.” Adams spooned sugar from a canister into both cups, then added milk from the mini-fridge beside the microwave. Whole milk, Amy noticed. “There. Now… Joe said you wanted to talk.”
He set me up, is what he did, Amy thought bitterly. Ever since the incident with Morgan Walker, she’d been significantly less than comfortable in the field, and had refused all active assignments in favor of dull work in research. On an intellectual level, she knew that not all immortals were like Walker - She’d heard Joe’s stories about MacLeod, she’d read the chronicles of innumerable immortals when she was in the Academy, but it all kept coming back, in her mind, to Walker, and his callous disregard for human life. The way he’d used her to get at Joe, and through Joe, to Adams, for nothing better than a two hundred year-old grudge. More than that, she'd let him - he'd worked through her, and he'd succeeded. Apparently, this was Joe’s idea of how to solve the problem. Interference. “I shouldn’t even be here,” she muttered.
Adams leaned against his counter, looking for all the world like just another twenty-something guy straight out of college. “Because of the rules,” he acknowledged. “Your oath. You think Joe is wrong to get involved with us.”
“It goes against everything we’re taught. We… we’re supposed to observe, we’re supposed to be objective, we’re not supposed to get attached or interfere.”
Adams nodded and nibbled at a fingernail for a moment before focusing his atttention on her again. “Have you ever studied anthropology?”
“What?”
“Anthropology. It started out in the nineteenth century in America and England, studying the cultures of the people in lands they colonized. Once it was formalized as a study, there was a very strict idea that the observer ought to be entirely impartial – to avoid getting involved or emotionally attached, to be entirely scientific and objective about every observation, even when studying religion, sexual practices, child-rearing, funerary rites… aspects of culture that touch on the deepest parts of human nature and emotion.”
“So you’re saying Watchers are like anthropologists?”
“In a way,” he agreed. “Studying individual immortals rather than whole bands or tribes, but you have to admit that the analogy is somewhat fitting.” The coffee finished percolating, and Adams filled both cups, then carried them over and set them on the low table in front of the couch. “Careful, it’s quite hot.”
“Okay, I can see that.” Amy accepted the Sorbonne cup with some surprise – she’d expected him to keep that one and give her the plain blue one. “So…?”
He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees as he held the coffee cup between his hands. He reminded Amy of some of her more enthusiastic instructors at the Academy, so excited by his argument that all else faded from his mind. “The point is, around the middle of this last century, a group of theorists turned the whole field around with the idea that you can’t be completely impartial and scientific in anthropology… and later theorists in his vein have gone so far as to point out that it wouldn’t do any good if one could. What’s the point of studying human culture if you don’t capture the feelings as well as the facts?”
“And that’s your feeling on the Watchers, too, I take it.” Amy sipped her coffee, shaking her head and trying to get over the sense that this was a study group session before a test, back in the good old days when messing up meant getting a bad grade, not getting kidnapped. “So all Watchers should be friends with the Immortal they watch?” She snorted. “Yeah, that must’ve been what I did wrong with Walker. I just didn’t understand him, didn’t make friends with him. That’s crazy. They’d kill us, or use us just like--” She pursed her lips.
“Just like Walker used you?” Adams offered gently. “No, that’s not what I’m suggesting. Certainly not someone like Walker or Kalas, and I don’t think every Watcher should try, in any case. It is better for most immortals to remain unaware of the Watchers, for the safety of everyone involved. But a good Watcher, like your father…" Amy winced a bit. Did everyone know about that, now? If Adams noticed her reaction, he didn't show it, and simply continued. "Joe has a knack with people, Amy. It’s a waste of his talents to make him linger in the background, and with an immortal like MacLeod, the system works perfectly. Joe gets inside information on what it is to be an Immortal, on the history of MacLeod’s life and the other immortals MacLeod’s life intersects with, and he doesn’t have to worry about accidentally losing track of his subject, because MacLeod willingly keeps him up to date on what’s happening with him. Rather than just observation, he’s also getting first-hand accounts. He’s getting the history from the one who lived it.”
The light in his eyes amused Amy – this was clearly a man who was passionate about history, and everything else he was talking about. “Then why don’t you have that kind of relationship with your Watcher? If that’s the way it ought to be, why don’t you… provide an example or whatever.”
Adams sipped his coffee. “For a long time, I didn’t have one. I slipped through the cracks, you might say, so it wasn’t an option. As for now… I plan on having it.”
“Good for you, then? I still don’t see what this has to do with me.” Amy shifted a bit awkwardly under the weight of his gaze. He seemed to be sizing her up, testing her. And now he smiled – that was obviously the question he’d been waiting for.
“Let’s just say that Joe pulled a few strings for me. A fair number of the new Tribunal like the way he runs things, so they give him what he wants in a lot of things. If you’re ready to return to active field service, I’m your new subject.”
Amy blinked and stared at him, trying, and failing, to detect some sort of trick or agenda in his bright hazel eyes and open features. “You’re joking.”
“Not a bit. I want nothing but the best, and since Joe’s already taken, well, you seemed the next likely candidate. Joe’s ready to have the paperwork for your transfer sent in to regional headquarters this afternoon, if you agree, and they’ll be pleased to have the situation with my file resolved to that small extent. It’s a bit of an embarassment to them, as it is.”
“Since when is it your choice? And why would the Tribunal be willing to bend rules for you?”
“I’ll explain that if you agree,” he countered, the placid smile he’d worn before turning to a mischeivous grin. “And only if you agree. I warn you ahead of time – I travel a lot, and I’m told by no lesser authorities than Joe Dawson and Duncan MacLeod that I’m an annoying, arrogant, calculating son of a bitch. But since I’m stuck having a Watcher, now, I prefer one I can be on good terms with. Believe me, it’s to the benefit of the organization.”
“I can’t believe I’m listening to this,” Amy marveled. And yet… there was a twisted logic to it. He'd saved her life, for Joe... it wasn't as though she couldn't trust him. And it'd get her out from behind that god-awful desk. “Fine. If you’re serious about this, we’ll try it.”
“Glad to see that rule-bending runs in the Dawson family genes.” Adams held out his hand, and his grip when Amy accepted the shake was firm and confident. “Now… Where shall we begin?”
Amy’s mind was still reeling, but there was no time like the present to get started, she supposed. “Since you’ve been without a Watcher, maybe you should start at the beginning, Mr. Adams.”
“The beginning.” Adams took a sip of his coffee, grinning like an imp. “That would be difficult. Let’s see if I can find a simpler way… Well, let’s start off on the right foot, at least. There’s no need for you to call me Mr. Adams. Just do as your father does - call me Methos.”
~ * ~
Title: "Interference"
Fandom: Highlander
Summary, warnings, etc: Trying to work her past the after-effects of the situation with Morgan Walker, Joe convinces Amy to have a chat with his friend 'Benjamin Adams.'
Set post-"Indiscretions," otherwise no warnings I can think of. Having finally seen some of the info from the Watcher Chronicles CD-ROM, I'm now aware that this contradicts aspects of that canon... so I guess this is a bit of an AU, now. I'm trying to bring it in line with at least aspects of that canon, but I want to keep a fair amount of the original ideas. If anyone spots any other canonical issues, please do let me know, and feedback and constructive criticism is happily welcomed! I don't own the characters, and no money is being made by this.
Rating: PG.
“Nice place.”
“It’s good enough. Coffee?”
“Please.” Amy perched on the edge of Benjamin Adams’ couch and watched him pour pre-ground coffee into a filter. Judging by the rest of the apartment (slightly spartan, and typical of a bachelor, with the exception of actually being relatively clean and containing more books than dirty clothes), she’d almost expected him to use instant crystals, but he’d pulled the coffee maker and neatly sealed bag of grounds from a cupboard under his sink.
“I hope you didn’t want decaf…”
“No, caffeine’s fine.”
A pair of mugs, one plain blue and one emblazoned with the Sorbonne University crest and a motto Amy couldn’t quite read, joined the coffee maker on the counter. “Milk or sugar?”
“Both, thank you.”
“Me too. Bad habit, but I like sugar.” He smiled.
“It’s not as though it’ll kill you,” Amy offered, immediately feeling stupid for the joke. How on earth did Joe interact with these people on a regular basis?
“Heh. No, It won’t.” Adams spooned sugar from a canister into both cups, then added milk from the mini-fridge beside the microwave. Whole milk, Amy noticed. “There. Now… Joe said you wanted to talk.”
He set me up, is what he did, Amy thought bitterly. Ever since the incident with Morgan Walker, she’d been significantly less than comfortable in the field, and had refused all active assignments in favor of dull work in research. On an intellectual level, she knew that not all immortals were like Walker - She’d heard Joe’s stories about MacLeod, she’d read the chronicles of innumerable immortals when she was in the Academy, but it all kept coming back, in her mind, to Walker, and his callous disregard for human life. The way he’d used her to get at Joe, and through Joe, to Adams, for nothing better than a two hundred year-old grudge. More than that, she'd let him - he'd worked through her, and he'd succeeded. Apparently, this was Joe’s idea of how to solve the problem. Interference. “I shouldn’t even be here,” she muttered.
Adams leaned against his counter, looking for all the world like just another twenty-something guy straight out of college. “Because of the rules,” he acknowledged. “Your oath. You think Joe is wrong to get involved with us.”
“It goes against everything we’re taught. We… we’re supposed to observe, we’re supposed to be objective, we’re not supposed to get attached or interfere.”
Adams nodded and nibbled at a fingernail for a moment before focusing his atttention on her again. “Have you ever studied anthropology?”
“What?”
“Anthropology. It started out in the nineteenth century in America and England, studying the cultures of the people in lands they colonized. Once it was formalized as a study, there was a very strict idea that the observer ought to be entirely impartial – to avoid getting involved or emotionally attached, to be entirely scientific and objective about every observation, even when studying religion, sexual practices, child-rearing, funerary rites… aspects of culture that touch on the deepest parts of human nature and emotion.”
“So you’re saying Watchers are like anthropologists?”
“In a way,” he agreed. “Studying individual immortals rather than whole bands or tribes, but you have to admit that the analogy is somewhat fitting.” The coffee finished percolating, and Adams filled both cups, then carried them over and set them on the low table in front of the couch. “Careful, it’s quite hot.”
“Okay, I can see that.” Amy accepted the Sorbonne cup with some surprise – she’d expected him to keep that one and give her the plain blue one. “So…?”
He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees as he held the coffee cup between his hands. He reminded Amy of some of her more enthusiastic instructors at the Academy, so excited by his argument that all else faded from his mind. “The point is, around the middle of this last century, a group of theorists turned the whole field around with the idea that you can’t be completely impartial and scientific in anthropology… and later theorists in his vein have gone so far as to point out that it wouldn’t do any good if one could. What’s the point of studying human culture if you don’t capture the feelings as well as the facts?”
“And that’s your feeling on the Watchers, too, I take it.” Amy sipped her coffee, shaking her head and trying to get over the sense that this was a study group session before a test, back in the good old days when messing up meant getting a bad grade, not getting kidnapped. “So all Watchers should be friends with the Immortal they watch?” She snorted. “Yeah, that must’ve been what I did wrong with Walker. I just didn’t understand him, didn’t make friends with him. That’s crazy. They’d kill us, or use us just like--” She pursed her lips.
“Just like Walker used you?” Adams offered gently. “No, that’s not what I’m suggesting. Certainly not someone like Walker or Kalas, and I don’t think every Watcher should try, in any case. It is better for most immortals to remain unaware of the Watchers, for the safety of everyone involved. But a good Watcher, like your father…" Amy winced a bit. Did everyone know about that, now? If Adams noticed her reaction, he didn't show it, and simply continued. "Joe has a knack with people, Amy. It’s a waste of his talents to make him linger in the background, and with an immortal like MacLeod, the system works perfectly. Joe gets inside information on what it is to be an Immortal, on the history of MacLeod’s life and the other immortals MacLeod’s life intersects with, and he doesn’t have to worry about accidentally losing track of his subject, because MacLeod willingly keeps him up to date on what’s happening with him. Rather than just observation, he’s also getting first-hand accounts. He’s getting the history from the one who lived it.”
The light in his eyes amused Amy – this was clearly a man who was passionate about history, and everything else he was talking about. “Then why don’t you have that kind of relationship with your Watcher? If that’s the way it ought to be, why don’t you… provide an example or whatever.”
Adams sipped his coffee. “For a long time, I didn’t have one. I slipped through the cracks, you might say, so it wasn’t an option. As for now… I plan on having it.”
“Good for you, then? I still don’t see what this has to do with me.” Amy shifted a bit awkwardly under the weight of his gaze. He seemed to be sizing her up, testing her. And now he smiled – that was obviously the question he’d been waiting for.
“Let’s just say that Joe pulled a few strings for me. A fair number of the new Tribunal like the way he runs things, so they give him what he wants in a lot of things. If you’re ready to return to active field service, I’m your new subject.”
Amy blinked and stared at him, trying, and failing, to detect some sort of trick or agenda in his bright hazel eyes and open features. “You’re joking.”
“Not a bit. I want nothing but the best, and since Joe’s already taken, well, you seemed the next likely candidate. Joe’s ready to have the paperwork for your transfer sent in to regional headquarters this afternoon, if you agree, and they’ll be pleased to have the situation with my file resolved to that small extent. It’s a bit of an embarassment to them, as it is.”
“Since when is it your choice? And why would the Tribunal be willing to bend rules for you?”
“I’ll explain that if you agree,” he countered, the placid smile he’d worn before turning to a mischeivous grin. “And only if you agree. I warn you ahead of time – I travel a lot, and I’m told by no lesser authorities than Joe Dawson and Duncan MacLeod that I’m an annoying, arrogant, calculating son of a bitch. But since I’m stuck having a Watcher, now, I prefer one I can be on good terms with. Believe me, it’s to the benefit of the organization.”
“I can’t believe I’m listening to this,” Amy marveled. And yet… there was a twisted logic to it. He'd saved her life, for Joe... it wasn't as though she couldn't trust him. And it'd get her out from behind that god-awful desk. “Fine. If you’re serious about this, we’ll try it.”
“Glad to see that rule-bending runs in the Dawson family genes.” Adams held out his hand, and his grip when Amy accepted the shake was firm and confident. “Now… Where shall we begin?”
Amy’s mind was still reeling, but there was no time like the present to get started, she supposed. “Since you’ve been without a Watcher, maybe you should start at the beginning, Mr. Adams.”
“The beginning.” Adams took a sip of his coffee, grinning like an imp. “That would be difficult. Let’s see if I can find a simpler way… Well, let’s start off on the right foot, at least. There’s no need for you to call me Mr. Adams. Just do as your father does - call me Methos.”
~ * ~
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-04-10 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-10 11:57 pm (UTC)I got a bit more written on it, but I'm feeling like it's too much like the Valentine's fic I wrote, so I've got it on hiatus for a while. I might be able to do something with it eventually, but for the moment, I'd rather work on new ideas.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 12:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 12:47 am (UTC)*g*
no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 01:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 01:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 02:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 11:51 am (UTC)...And thanks for reading "Shades" I'm having great fun writing it. This is the first time I've really written anything since high school, and that was gosh almost 30 years ago!
Claudia is fun, and crazy, you haven't seen crazy yet! `-^
no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 06:35 pm (UTC)