Interference, Ch. 4
Jun. 25th, 2005 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivendellroseOnly a week later than I'd expected!
Title: Interference, Chapter 4: "Undertow"
Summary: Amy's memories of her initiation bring up issues in the present that still need to be dealt with.
Warnings: There's a teeny bit of swearing in here, nothing that shouldn't have made it through prime-time censors. See previous chapters of "Interference" here, here, and here.
Disclaimer: The characters and concepts involved herein do not belong to me, but the storyline does. No money is being made of this - if it were, it wouldn't have taken me so long to get it finished. ;)
Author's Note: Many thanks to the irrepressible![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zinjadu for listening to me rant, helping me edit, and providing much-needed moral support in the writing of this chapter. It was intended as a sort of Father's Day gift but, as usual, the writing process got a bit out of control. Hopefully Chapter 5 won't give me so much trouble.
"Interference, Ch. 4: Undertow"
Traffic was horrible that morning, a sure sign that it was a sunny summer weekend - everyone in Seacouver seemed bent on getting somewhere, and Amy was hardly the only one headed for the lake. Just as she was convinced she was finally making progress, she heard a fog-horn. The warning lights on the bridge began to blink, and traffic came to a stop. “Oh, come on!” A ship going through the canal would add at least another five minutes to her commute, and there was nothing to say it’d be better closer to the water. Worse, more likely. Someone behind her began to honk. If that’s possible. It wasn’t Parisian traffic, but Seacouver’s road system had its own brands of annoyance.
Trust immortals to choose the worst possible cities to live in, and to refuse to go for their daily jog before the usual traffic rush. At least Walker had been a morning person - Methos seemed determined to make up for the length of time already behind him by sleeping in late whenever he could.
What must it be like, to have the memories of five thousand years stewing under the surface of your mind? Rising at inconvenient moments, even the memories of a short twenty-four years could seem overwhelming. They appeared out of nowhere, sometimes, linked in ways Amy tried not to dwell on, chained by fear, shame, and pain. One that was always presenting itself was the night her father died - no, her mother's husband, she reminded herself with a twinge of guilt for both men who might be considered for the title. The whole disaster with Morgan Walker was another sore subject that entered her mind often, dragged out now by the linking memory of Joe - never had she been so certain of her own mortality and impending death. The best thing to say for it was that it had entirely pushed out the memory that, for the months previous to that little 'adventure' had been most frequently on her mind.
The bridge finally lowered again, and Amy continued in the procession across the city. If she was late, Methos would just have to wait - she wasn’t risking a speeding ticket to spare his mood. An image popped into her mind for a moment, of herself earnestly informing a patrol officer “I’m sorry, but my Immortal is waiting for me, and he gets restless if I’m late. You don’t want a pissed off five thousand year-old on your hands, do you?” The thought kept her from flipping off a red convertible that cut in front of her, but wasn’t persistent enough to push away the memory she’d been considering a moment before.
The night of her formal initiation into the Watchers had started with the pride of graduation, the relief and joy and celebration, drinking and partying in the grand ballroom at the old chateau headquarters. Through the night, a group of older Watchers led each trainee away from the party one by one. Everyone knew the tattooing that would mark them as a full Watcher would come that night, and rightly assumed that was the purpose of the individual audiences. Amy was called sometime after ten - she remembered helping to tease and blackmail two of her classmates into singing a duet at the rented karaoke machine first, although she could never quite remember what song they'd chosen. As everyone else laughed and cheered the drunken pair on, two of her professors appeared and beckoned her away from the crowd, into a nearby hallway, where they blindfolded her and led her away from the sounds of the party. Down several flights of stairs, into what Amy guessed had been the wine cellar of the old manor, she'd been led blind and helpless, but mostly just amused. She knew these people, had seen them every day for the last four years, had babysat their children a time or two - the ritual and melodrama was probably very effective for newcomers to the order, but for a child of a Watcher, it was nothing. Smoke and mirrors, Amy smirked to herself.
Finally they'd reached the bottom of the stairs, and the blindfold was removed. A single bright light cut into her eyes, and she'd flinched away from it, and the light suddenly went out, leaving only a circle of candles in the very center of the room. "Initiate, you have studied long and hard. Speak now the oath that you swore in light, that you will remember it in darkness."
Amy recognized the voice as one of her instructors, but when she tried to turn, someone behind her firmly redirected her, holding her head facing forward. Fine. She recited the oath slowly, resisting the urge to patter it off with thoughtless ease - no one could get through the Academy training without hearing and repeating the damned thing so often they could say it in their sleep, but that wasn't what they were looking for. This was meant to be as solemn as earlier, at the main ceremony. Beyond the circle of light from the candles, a ring of figures clad and masked completely in black was coming into focus. It was unnerving, being watched by all those shadowy forms.
One figure on each side stepped forward and held her shoulders. "Kneel here," the voice intoned, "in the circle of your brothers and sisters, your mothers and fathers, and all who came before. Under the gaze of those who Watch, join now our kindred."
Now, it occurred to her how ironic that remark was - she was already twice over a child of the Watchers, born to their blood on both sides. At the time, Amy's pride had only prickled a bit at that command, but she lowered herself nonetheless. Did they have to make such a quasi-religious event of the whole thing? A third figure swabbed the underside of her wrist with what smelled like an alcohol pad and made a show of putting into the gun a new, sterilized needle - an interesting nod to modern hygienic concerns in a ritual that, otherwise, had probably changed little since the middle ages, if not earlier. At least they used a gun, not a needle and coal dust or a jar of indigo ink. A part of Amy that was completely detached from preparing herself for the pain wondered how long it had taken the old guard to allow modern technology into the ceremony. Probably a few generations, at least.
The man with the gun knelt in front of her on a cushion (Nice of them to make him comfortable, Amy recalled griping to herself), and motioned for her to hold out her arm.
"Amy Jolene Thomas, repeat after us the laws of the Watchers, by which you will be bound, now, until death releases you from your oath."
Now? Amy blinked at the masked figures as the full weight of what the man had said. If they'd already swabbed her arm... then she was expected to recite through the tattooing?
It was a good thing she knew the first law by heart, as she hardly heard the voice recite it through the confusion and panic that was mounting in her mind. The first sting of the needle caught her mid-word, and she gasped and jerked her arm involuntarily. Immediately, a pair of hands caught her, one holding her hand tightly, the other clasping her elbow and steadying her, keeping her arm immobilized.
"Continue."
Amy glared at the darkness around her and ground out the rest of the law through the buzzing sting of the tattoo needle. For the next hour, she recited back the law code, trying not to wriggle, and likewise trying to stifle the cries of pain that kept bubbling forth around the words, turning them into screams and whimpers, and trying to ignore the blood that had to be wiped away from the tattoo every so often. Hadn't someone told her once that tattooing rarely caused much bleeding? Maybe that was normal for the wrist? Or was it going too deep? She tried not to look at it - the droplets of blood on the emerging tattoo made her feel light-headed and wish she hadn't had quite so much champagne at the party. The next day she would remember that alcohol thinned the blood and was no longer be surprised by the little rivulets she remembered. Nice of them to warn us...
Each time she lost her place in the laws, someone from the circle would repeat it over again, slowly, as though the process would burn the words into her mind. Maybe that was the purpose - by the end, Amy was hardly aware she was parroting back their words through her pain, and when the tattooing was done and her arm bandaged and released, she slumped to the ground, curling over her stinging wrist and hanging her head, trying to hide the panicked, hiccoughing quality her breathing had taken on. The pain, at least, had sobered her - any desire to go back to the party was covered with the need to just curl up and hide from the world for a while.
Someone helped her to her feet, and slung her arm over their shoulder to shepherd her out of the room, as she saw the tattooist removing the old needle with clinical detachment and preparing a new one for the next initiate.
"Come on, Amy. Little bit further - you can sleep upstairs in the chateau tonight."
A pair of arms, from the opposite direct of the voice by her ear, picked her up, and she vaguely recalled someone carrying her up the stairs before she passed out. It wasn't until she awoke the next morning, tucked fully dressed into one of the beds on the second floor of the chateau, that she remembered and recognized that last as the voice of Joe Dawson, her parents' friend, and the man she had strong suspicions was her biological father...
In the present, Amy pulled into a parking space, turned off her car, and pressed her fingers to her forehead. The tattoo on her wrist, hovering in the corner of her eye, had ached for weeks after that night, twinging in a way that at first had convinced her she’d taken nerve damage from it, but at last she’d overheard another pair of initiates talking about the same feelings and been spared the humiliation of having to ask someone. She was used to it now, although it had surprised her all the time when she first got it, and annoyed her by the need for long sleeves or contrived wrist-bands or the like whenever she went out in the field. After checking the athletic watch that mostly hid the circle of the tattoo, Amy got out of the car and headed over to where she and Methos usually met. Sure enough, he was waiting - sprawled on the grass watching the sky with a contentedly thoughtful look on his face.
“Nice of you to show up,” he drawled. “You’re lucky nothing important is happening this morning.”
“What, like a parade?”
“No, like a challenge. You’d have missed the fireworks, and I’d be stuck with one of those ‘unknown termination’ notes in my file.”
Amy rolled her eyes. “Let’s get to work, then. Are you ready?”
“I already jogged. We can go again, or you can get your stories for the day - your choice. I meet MacLeod for sparring every Saturday at two, remember?”
“Oh. Right.” A quick glance at her watch confirmed that it really was getting to be that late. With a quick curse in the direction of the traffic gods, Amy sat on the grass beside him, and pulled out the little digital audio recorder from her pocket, setting it between them. “Umm… I’m sorry, where did we finish last time?”
"Iceland.” He waited as Amy tried to remember what this was leading to. “And before that Ireland. And the monastery? And the boats? Hating water and all that.”
"Oh." Amy looked out across the lake, where a number of sailboats were taking advantage of the early summer winds. "Why do you hate water?"
He shook his head, looking torn between amusement and exasperation. "I told you that last time. If you’re not going to pay attention to this, Thomas, I don’t know why I’m bothering to tell you.”
"Oh. Right. I wasn't not interested," Amy griped defensively. "I just... got distracted. I just have other thoughts in my life that don’t revolve entirely around you. I was thinking about something that came into my mind on the drive here."
"Something to do with singing Irish monks and bad food?"
"Something about memories."
"Ah." Methos slouched back further against the grassy slope they rested on. "I suppose I can understand that. Anything particularly interesting?"
"Not particularly." He raised an eyebrow, at which Amy crossed her arms over her chest and lay back so she wouldn't have to look at him. “It's private."
He laughed. "So are the things I tell you. Now it's your turn to reciprocate, Watcher."
"Don't do that."
"What? Make sense?" A grin covered what Amy suspected was honest curiosity in his eyes.
"No, call me 'Watcher.' You do that whenever I've pissed you off."
"Oh, I don't think you're capable of that just yet. You're too amusing to start annoying me, yet. I find naivete very entertaining." Methos stretched out and rested his head on twined fingers, watching the sky. "I'm waiting. And I won't tell you anything more until you've told me this."
"Fine. I was thinking about my initiation."
"Ahhh."
"See? Nothing interesting." Amy started plucking blades of grass. "You've been through it, haven't you?"
"Yes."
She looked up from her decapitated grass blades. "More than once?"
He smiled, still regarding the clouds and not her. "Now that would be telling. Let's just say I'm familiar with the innermost workings of your organization, and leave it at that."
Amy snorted. "Whatever."
"Cheer up. People will think I'm breaking up with you if you keep scowling like that."
"Oh, shut up." Amy tossed the little clump of grass at him, and it bounced off his forehead. "Have you ever been one of the initiators?"
"Adam Pierson was too new to do that. Besides, I don't think they invite researchers very often. Usually it's the field Watchers who get called for that illustrious duty, and the old hands at that."
"Like Joe."
He rolled over to lean on his elbows and look at her. "Is that what's bothering you? That he might have been there when you were initiated?"
He only sees me when I'm weak. "I'm pretty sure he was. He talked to me, after. At least I'm fairly sure it was his voice. I was pretty out of it."
Methos reached out and tilted her chin up to look at him, watching her with a sharp and searching expression for a moment. He seemed to come to a decision, then, and let his hand drop. "He thinks no less of you for it, you know."
"I didn't think it would be that bad. I thought it'd just... Of course I know tattoos hurt. But I assumed it would just be a quiet, private thing. And it... it was like something buzzing in my bones, shaking my whole arm from the inside out. I didn't think it would hurt that badly."
"The underside of the wrist is a painful place for a tattoo," Methos agreed. "I expect that's why they chose it. And I suppose it didn't help to have all that as a ritual in front of half the Tribune?" Methos offered a vague half-smile. "Just think of going through it, all the while worrying that they'd notice the wounds were healing too fast."
Amy laughed, the image of him glancing nervously at the tattoo from time to time as it progressed, wishing he could control his rate of healing and slow it to human norms. "I hadn't thought of that - it must've been hard."
"Fortunately they bandaged me right up afterward, and no one thought to check it in the morning. I had to renew the damned thing at least six times, though; the ink kept bleeding away too fast."
"And now?"
He raised his arm, underside forward, to show a flat of unmarked skin where the tattoo had once been. "I removed it, after I quit. Immortals don't scar."
"Of course." Amy shook her head. "I suppose that means in another few generations you can go back and join again?"
"Not since the advent of reliable photography and data storage, I'm afraid. Besides, it's too hard. Too much potential for split loyalties."
"MacLeod and Joe?"
He inclined his head in gracious agreement. "I'm afraid your father didn't much like that I sided with MacLeod on a few occasions, and MacLeod was equally unimpressed when the reverse was the case.
"Leaving you between rock and a hard place."
"More like two boulders, with those two." Methos shook his head, but Amy could see he was smiling nonetheless. "That's the problem with strict honor codes - often they come into conflict."
"I see what you mean with MacLeod, but Joe...?"
Methos chuckled. "That's right, you wouldn't know about that. I'm sure you remember the debacle with Joe and the Tribunal. MacLeod broke into the chateau to rescue Joe, and when our white knight got caught he convinced them to hold a trial judged by Joe's peers - which convicted him, of course, and sentenced both of them to death. So MacLeod plans a break-out, and what does Joe do? He refuses to leave - wants to take his punishment and be executed, because that was the judgment of the Tribunal. No pair of fools ever so deserved each other."
"I'd be insulted on his part, but I seem to recall that 'Adam Pierson' burst into the trial to speak in Joe's defense, and didn't you say you were the one who healed his gunshot wound?"
An unrepentant smile answered her. "What can I say? MacLeod is a horrible influence on me."
Amy shook her head at him, then remembered another detail of the trial that had interested her ever since the truth about 'Adam Pierson' came out. "Who really wrote that journal you showed them, anyway?"
"You obviously read the transcript - you tell me."
"I know what the transcript said, and what you told the Tribunal. I want to know the truth."
Methos shrugged. "Take it as you will. You can read it, sometime, and make up your own mind. Anyway, I thought we were talking about your father, not me."
"Joe..." Amy's brows drew together, and she looked at her watch. "I'm going to be late if I don't leave. I have a shift at the bar at two."
"How like the Watchers. Why deal with an external organization's structures when they can handle everything from the inside?" Methos stood and helped Amy to her feet. "Enjoy, then. I might see you later, there, if I feel like going out." He started to walk away, then turned back to her, a surprisingly earnest look in his eyes. "If you're concerned about what happened during your initiation, ask Joe about it. He won't be around forever, and you'll regret it later, if you leave these things unanswered."
Amy bit her lip and watched him leave. She hated when he said things like that, mostly because they were both undeniably true, and nothing she wanted to think about. And then it struck her - after all that fuss about wasting their time, he’d tricked her into spending what little they had left talking about her own past, instead of his. She stared in the direction he’d left in, shaking her head. “Clever, manipulative old bastard,” she muttered.
* * *
"Hey, Joe." Dad. I should have called him Dad. She smiled, hoping it would soften the blow. No matter how hard Amy tried, the word had yet to actually make it past her stubborn lips. Something always held her back, and she could tell that Joe noticed, and it hurt him. Of course it did. It's his own fault, for not telling me when I was younger. Amy pushed away the viciously defensive inner voice. It wasn't Joe's fault he'd been less than eager to ruin her parents' marriage, or to put himself up for her father's ire.
Regret-filled hazel eyes met hers, and in them she read the same accusation her own mind had just voiced. "Hey, Amy." The words were slow, deliberately casual. Yup, it had hurt him. Damn.
"Sorry I'm late." And that I've been a horrible daughter so far... "Adam and I took our jog a little late this morning, and I had to go home to change."
"No problem. It's been a slow day." Joe handed her apron across the bar, and Amy used tying it on as an excuse to look away from him for a minute.
"I had a question. While there aren't any customers in," she added softly, to tell him it was serious business.
"Is this a question that needs a drink?" Joe didn't wait for her to answer before pulling out a pair of glasses, and automatically filling hers with tonic, lime, and a bit of gin. Her favorite. They'd only known each other a few months, but he always remembered the little details she'd revealed about herself in that time.
"It's about my initiation."
Joe looked at her, eyebrows raised, then went right on and poured himself a half-glass of Scotch. "Okay. Shoot."
Amy swished her glass for a moment while trying to think of a graceful way to ask what she wanted to know, then gave up on trying for subtlety. Maybe that was another thing they had in common - they worked best when they just pushed to the truth behind all the bullshit and elegant talk. "You were there, weren't you? When I was confirmed."
"Yeah, I was there." Joe sipped his Scotch and pursed his lips to think. "I told the Tribunes I wanted to be there, as a friend of the family. Your mom didn't know. She'd never been one for all the ritual crap, didn't want to see it."
"And you did? You wanted to see... god, Joe, it was sick. It was like an interrogation! Why would anybody want to see that?"
Joe shook his head. "It's not like that. Didn't your mom and dad go to your highschool graduation?"
Amy blinked. She couldn't recall Joe referring to her dad so easily before, and it was a surprising sting. "Of course. But I wasn't humiliated there. I didn't... I wasn't crying, or struggling like some sort of animal in a trap, screaming..."
"We all go through it, Amy. We all know what it's like." Joe's voice was low and rough, and out of the corner of her eye, Amy saw his hands toying with his glass. "Hurts like a sonofabitch, and they're bastards about it besides. They think it makes sure we'll all remember our oaths and the laws, no matter what kind of pain we go through. Think they can tell who'll be a good field Watcher by how people react."
"Well they're more right on that count than they think, aren't they?" Amy took a deep swig of her drink. "I blew both."
"You didn't blow either. You didn't tell Walker, he used your damned cellphone."
"I'm weak, Joe, give it up. People have died keeping immortals from finding out. I can't handle it. Any of it! And you knew it even back then, didn't you? You helped me get Walker because you knew they'd never place me in the field if you didn't. And wouldn't that have been an embarassment, to the Tribune, to my family, to you..."
"No."
Amy looked up, surprised by how firm his voice sounded, and was completely shocked to see tears forming in his eyes.
"Damn it, Amy, I did it because I wanted you to be happy, and I wanted to do something for you, for a change." Joe looked away, and his jaw clenched for a moment as he thought over his next words. "I could barely talk to you when you were a kid, I missed all the usual dad stuff, missed your graduation 'cause I was out of town on assignment with Mac and too damn embarassed to see your mom or you after your dad died, and then that night in the chateau, I couldn't even help you up the stairs 'cause it takes too damned much work getting myself up them. You bet I wanted to give you something, finally. If an assignment was the best I could do, that was what it'd be. And I went to the damned initiation because I wanted to be there for at least one important moment in your life."
Amy took a deep breath. Methos was right - it was time to say something, or risk waiting too long and losing the option forever. Watching was a hard business, and Joe had already had too many close brushes... the next one might be too close. "You don't have to do anything for me, I just want... I want to get to know you. We wasted too much time... honestly, Methos knows you better than I do, and that's ridiculous. It's my fault as much as anybody's - I pushed you away, after Walker. I wasn't ready." For one more moment Amy grappled with her words, the image of Frank Thomas before her mind's eye. I'm allowed this. Dad wouldn’t want me not to... It was hard to talk around the lump and dryness in her throat, so she picked up her cup, shaking the ice a little to distract herself. A quick sip steadied her. "I’d like to get to know you. Not just as a supervisor. Maybe as friends, for now?"
It wasn’t much. It wasn’t what Joe wanted, Amy knew, but it was the best she could offer at that moment.
And Joe seemed to understand that. “Yeah. Yeah, that’ll be good.”
Title: Interference, Chapter 4: "Undertow"
Summary: Amy's memories of her initiation bring up issues in the present that still need to be dealt with.
Warnings: There's a teeny bit of swearing in here, nothing that shouldn't have made it through prime-time censors. See previous chapters of "Interference" here, here, and here.
Disclaimer: The characters and concepts involved herein do not belong to me, but the storyline does. No money is being made of this - if it were, it wouldn't have taken me so long to get it finished. ;)
Author's Note: Many thanks to the irrepressible
zinjadu for listening to me rant, helping me edit, and providing much-needed moral support in the writing of this chapter. It was intended as a sort of Father's Day gift but, as usual, the writing process got a bit out of control. Hopefully Chapter 5 won't give me so much trouble. "Interference, Ch. 4: Undertow"
Traffic was horrible that morning, a sure sign that it was a sunny summer weekend - everyone in Seacouver seemed bent on getting somewhere, and Amy was hardly the only one headed for the lake. Just as she was convinced she was finally making progress, she heard a fog-horn. The warning lights on the bridge began to blink, and traffic came to a stop. “Oh, come on!” A ship going through the canal would add at least another five minutes to her commute, and there was nothing to say it’d be better closer to the water. Worse, more likely. Someone behind her began to honk. If that’s possible. It wasn’t Parisian traffic, but Seacouver’s road system had its own brands of annoyance.
Trust immortals to choose the worst possible cities to live in, and to refuse to go for their daily jog before the usual traffic rush. At least Walker had been a morning person - Methos seemed determined to make up for the length of time already behind him by sleeping in late whenever he could.
What must it be like, to have the memories of five thousand years stewing under the surface of your mind? Rising at inconvenient moments, even the memories of a short twenty-four years could seem overwhelming. They appeared out of nowhere, sometimes, linked in ways Amy tried not to dwell on, chained by fear, shame, and pain. One that was always presenting itself was the night her father died - no, her mother's husband, she reminded herself with a twinge of guilt for both men who might be considered for the title. The whole disaster with Morgan Walker was another sore subject that entered her mind often, dragged out now by the linking memory of Joe - never had she been so certain of her own mortality and impending death. The best thing to say for it was that it had entirely pushed out the memory that, for the months previous to that little 'adventure' had been most frequently on her mind.
The bridge finally lowered again, and Amy continued in the procession across the city. If she was late, Methos would just have to wait - she wasn’t risking a speeding ticket to spare his mood. An image popped into her mind for a moment, of herself earnestly informing a patrol officer “I’m sorry, but my Immortal is waiting for me, and he gets restless if I’m late. You don’t want a pissed off five thousand year-old on your hands, do you?” The thought kept her from flipping off a red convertible that cut in front of her, but wasn’t persistent enough to push away the memory she’d been considering a moment before.
The night of her formal initiation into the Watchers had started with the pride of graduation, the relief and joy and celebration, drinking and partying in the grand ballroom at the old chateau headquarters. Through the night, a group of older Watchers led each trainee away from the party one by one. Everyone knew the tattooing that would mark them as a full Watcher would come that night, and rightly assumed that was the purpose of the individual audiences. Amy was called sometime after ten - she remembered helping to tease and blackmail two of her classmates into singing a duet at the rented karaoke machine first, although she could never quite remember what song they'd chosen. As everyone else laughed and cheered the drunken pair on, two of her professors appeared and beckoned her away from the crowd, into a nearby hallway, where they blindfolded her and led her away from the sounds of the party. Down several flights of stairs, into what Amy guessed had been the wine cellar of the old manor, she'd been led blind and helpless, but mostly just amused. She knew these people, had seen them every day for the last four years, had babysat their children a time or two - the ritual and melodrama was probably very effective for newcomers to the order, but for a child of a Watcher, it was nothing. Smoke and mirrors, Amy smirked to herself.
Finally they'd reached the bottom of the stairs, and the blindfold was removed. A single bright light cut into her eyes, and she'd flinched away from it, and the light suddenly went out, leaving only a circle of candles in the very center of the room. "Initiate, you have studied long and hard. Speak now the oath that you swore in light, that you will remember it in darkness."
Amy recognized the voice as one of her instructors, but when she tried to turn, someone behind her firmly redirected her, holding her head facing forward. Fine. She recited the oath slowly, resisting the urge to patter it off with thoughtless ease - no one could get through the Academy training without hearing and repeating the damned thing so often they could say it in their sleep, but that wasn't what they were looking for. This was meant to be as solemn as earlier, at the main ceremony. Beyond the circle of light from the candles, a ring of figures clad and masked completely in black was coming into focus. It was unnerving, being watched by all those shadowy forms.
One figure on each side stepped forward and held her shoulders. "Kneel here," the voice intoned, "in the circle of your brothers and sisters, your mothers and fathers, and all who came before. Under the gaze of those who Watch, join now our kindred."
Now, it occurred to her how ironic that remark was - she was already twice over a child of the Watchers, born to their blood on both sides. At the time, Amy's pride had only prickled a bit at that command, but she lowered herself nonetheless. Did they have to make such a quasi-religious event of the whole thing? A third figure swabbed the underside of her wrist with what smelled like an alcohol pad and made a show of putting into the gun a new, sterilized needle - an interesting nod to modern hygienic concerns in a ritual that, otherwise, had probably changed little since the middle ages, if not earlier. At least they used a gun, not a needle and coal dust or a jar of indigo ink. A part of Amy that was completely detached from preparing herself for the pain wondered how long it had taken the old guard to allow modern technology into the ceremony. Probably a few generations, at least.
The man with the gun knelt in front of her on a cushion (Nice of them to make him comfortable, Amy recalled griping to herself), and motioned for her to hold out her arm.
"Amy Jolene Thomas, repeat after us the laws of the Watchers, by which you will be bound, now, until death releases you from your oath."
Now? Amy blinked at the masked figures as the full weight of what the man had said. If they'd already swabbed her arm... then she was expected to recite through the tattooing?
It was a good thing she knew the first law by heart, as she hardly heard the voice recite it through the confusion and panic that was mounting in her mind. The first sting of the needle caught her mid-word, and she gasped and jerked her arm involuntarily. Immediately, a pair of hands caught her, one holding her hand tightly, the other clasping her elbow and steadying her, keeping her arm immobilized.
"Continue."
Amy glared at the darkness around her and ground out the rest of the law through the buzzing sting of the tattoo needle. For the next hour, she recited back the law code, trying not to wriggle, and likewise trying to stifle the cries of pain that kept bubbling forth around the words, turning them into screams and whimpers, and trying to ignore the blood that had to be wiped away from the tattoo every so often. Hadn't someone told her once that tattooing rarely caused much bleeding? Maybe that was normal for the wrist? Or was it going too deep? She tried not to look at it - the droplets of blood on the emerging tattoo made her feel light-headed and wish she hadn't had quite so much champagne at the party. The next day she would remember that alcohol thinned the blood and was no longer be surprised by the little rivulets she remembered. Nice of them to warn us...
Each time she lost her place in the laws, someone from the circle would repeat it over again, slowly, as though the process would burn the words into her mind. Maybe that was the purpose - by the end, Amy was hardly aware she was parroting back their words through her pain, and when the tattooing was done and her arm bandaged and released, she slumped to the ground, curling over her stinging wrist and hanging her head, trying to hide the panicked, hiccoughing quality her breathing had taken on. The pain, at least, had sobered her - any desire to go back to the party was covered with the need to just curl up and hide from the world for a while.
Someone helped her to her feet, and slung her arm over their shoulder to shepherd her out of the room, as she saw the tattooist removing the old needle with clinical detachment and preparing a new one for the next initiate.
"Come on, Amy. Little bit further - you can sleep upstairs in the chateau tonight."
A pair of arms, from the opposite direct of the voice by her ear, picked her up, and she vaguely recalled someone carrying her up the stairs before she passed out. It wasn't until she awoke the next morning, tucked fully dressed into one of the beds on the second floor of the chateau, that she remembered and recognized that last as the voice of Joe Dawson, her parents' friend, and the man she had strong suspicions was her biological father...
In the present, Amy pulled into a parking space, turned off her car, and pressed her fingers to her forehead. The tattoo on her wrist, hovering in the corner of her eye, had ached for weeks after that night, twinging in a way that at first had convinced her she’d taken nerve damage from it, but at last she’d overheard another pair of initiates talking about the same feelings and been spared the humiliation of having to ask someone. She was used to it now, although it had surprised her all the time when she first got it, and annoyed her by the need for long sleeves or contrived wrist-bands or the like whenever she went out in the field. After checking the athletic watch that mostly hid the circle of the tattoo, Amy got out of the car and headed over to where she and Methos usually met. Sure enough, he was waiting - sprawled on the grass watching the sky with a contentedly thoughtful look on his face.
“Nice of you to show up,” he drawled. “You’re lucky nothing important is happening this morning.”
“What, like a parade?”
“No, like a challenge. You’d have missed the fireworks, and I’d be stuck with one of those ‘unknown termination’ notes in my file.”
Amy rolled her eyes. “Let’s get to work, then. Are you ready?”
“I already jogged. We can go again, or you can get your stories for the day - your choice. I meet MacLeod for sparring every Saturday at two, remember?”
“Oh. Right.” A quick glance at her watch confirmed that it really was getting to be that late. With a quick curse in the direction of the traffic gods, Amy sat on the grass beside him, and pulled out the little digital audio recorder from her pocket, setting it between them. “Umm… I’m sorry, where did we finish last time?”
"Iceland.” He waited as Amy tried to remember what this was leading to. “And before that Ireland. And the monastery? And the boats? Hating water and all that.”
"Oh." Amy looked out across the lake, where a number of sailboats were taking advantage of the early summer winds. "Why do you hate water?"
He shook his head, looking torn between amusement and exasperation. "I told you that last time. If you’re not going to pay attention to this, Thomas, I don’t know why I’m bothering to tell you.”
"Oh. Right. I wasn't not interested," Amy griped defensively. "I just... got distracted. I just have other thoughts in my life that don’t revolve entirely around you. I was thinking about something that came into my mind on the drive here."
"Something to do with singing Irish monks and bad food?"
"Something about memories."
"Ah." Methos slouched back further against the grassy slope they rested on. "I suppose I can understand that. Anything particularly interesting?"
"Not particularly." He raised an eyebrow, at which Amy crossed her arms over her chest and lay back so she wouldn't have to look at him. “It's private."
He laughed. "So are the things I tell you. Now it's your turn to reciprocate, Watcher."
"Don't do that."
"What? Make sense?" A grin covered what Amy suspected was honest curiosity in his eyes.
"No, call me 'Watcher.' You do that whenever I've pissed you off."
"Oh, I don't think you're capable of that just yet. You're too amusing to start annoying me, yet. I find naivete very entertaining." Methos stretched out and rested his head on twined fingers, watching the sky. "I'm waiting. And I won't tell you anything more until you've told me this."
"Fine. I was thinking about my initiation."
"Ahhh."
"See? Nothing interesting." Amy started plucking blades of grass. "You've been through it, haven't you?"
"Yes."
She looked up from her decapitated grass blades. "More than once?"
He smiled, still regarding the clouds and not her. "Now that would be telling. Let's just say I'm familiar with the innermost workings of your organization, and leave it at that."
Amy snorted. "Whatever."
"Cheer up. People will think I'm breaking up with you if you keep scowling like that."
"Oh, shut up." Amy tossed the little clump of grass at him, and it bounced off his forehead. "Have you ever been one of the initiators?"
"Adam Pierson was too new to do that. Besides, I don't think they invite researchers very often. Usually it's the field Watchers who get called for that illustrious duty, and the old hands at that."
"Like Joe."
He rolled over to lean on his elbows and look at her. "Is that what's bothering you? That he might have been there when you were initiated?"
He only sees me when I'm weak. "I'm pretty sure he was. He talked to me, after. At least I'm fairly sure it was his voice. I was pretty out of it."
Methos reached out and tilted her chin up to look at him, watching her with a sharp and searching expression for a moment. He seemed to come to a decision, then, and let his hand drop. "He thinks no less of you for it, you know."
"I didn't think it would be that bad. I thought it'd just... Of course I know tattoos hurt. But I assumed it would just be a quiet, private thing. And it... it was like something buzzing in my bones, shaking my whole arm from the inside out. I didn't think it would hurt that badly."
"The underside of the wrist is a painful place for a tattoo," Methos agreed. "I expect that's why they chose it. And I suppose it didn't help to have all that as a ritual in front of half the Tribune?" Methos offered a vague half-smile. "Just think of going through it, all the while worrying that they'd notice the wounds were healing too fast."
Amy laughed, the image of him glancing nervously at the tattoo from time to time as it progressed, wishing he could control his rate of healing and slow it to human norms. "I hadn't thought of that - it must've been hard."
"Fortunately they bandaged me right up afterward, and no one thought to check it in the morning. I had to renew the damned thing at least six times, though; the ink kept bleeding away too fast."
"And now?"
He raised his arm, underside forward, to show a flat of unmarked skin where the tattoo had once been. "I removed it, after I quit. Immortals don't scar."
"Of course." Amy shook her head. "I suppose that means in another few generations you can go back and join again?"
"Not since the advent of reliable photography and data storage, I'm afraid. Besides, it's too hard. Too much potential for split loyalties."
"MacLeod and Joe?"
He inclined his head in gracious agreement. "I'm afraid your father didn't much like that I sided with MacLeod on a few occasions, and MacLeod was equally unimpressed when the reverse was the case.
"Leaving you between rock and a hard place."
"More like two boulders, with those two." Methos shook his head, but Amy could see he was smiling nonetheless. "That's the problem with strict honor codes - often they come into conflict."
"I see what you mean with MacLeod, but Joe...?"
Methos chuckled. "That's right, you wouldn't know about that. I'm sure you remember the debacle with Joe and the Tribunal. MacLeod broke into the chateau to rescue Joe, and when our white knight got caught he convinced them to hold a trial judged by Joe's peers - which convicted him, of course, and sentenced both of them to death. So MacLeod plans a break-out, and what does Joe do? He refuses to leave - wants to take his punishment and be executed, because that was the judgment of the Tribunal. No pair of fools ever so deserved each other."
"I'd be insulted on his part, but I seem to recall that 'Adam Pierson' burst into the trial to speak in Joe's defense, and didn't you say you were the one who healed his gunshot wound?"
An unrepentant smile answered her. "What can I say? MacLeod is a horrible influence on me."
Amy shook her head at him, then remembered another detail of the trial that had interested her ever since the truth about 'Adam Pierson' came out. "Who really wrote that journal you showed them, anyway?"
"You obviously read the transcript - you tell me."
"I know what the transcript said, and what you told the Tribunal. I want to know the truth."
Methos shrugged. "Take it as you will. You can read it, sometime, and make up your own mind. Anyway, I thought we were talking about your father, not me."
"Joe..." Amy's brows drew together, and she looked at her watch. "I'm going to be late if I don't leave. I have a shift at the bar at two."
"How like the Watchers. Why deal with an external organization's structures when they can handle everything from the inside?" Methos stood and helped Amy to her feet. "Enjoy, then. I might see you later, there, if I feel like going out." He started to walk away, then turned back to her, a surprisingly earnest look in his eyes. "If you're concerned about what happened during your initiation, ask Joe about it. He won't be around forever, and you'll regret it later, if you leave these things unanswered."
Amy bit her lip and watched him leave. She hated when he said things like that, mostly because they were both undeniably true, and nothing she wanted to think about. And then it struck her - after all that fuss about wasting their time, he’d tricked her into spending what little they had left talking about her own past, instead of his. She stared in the direction he’d left in, shaking her head. “Clever, manipulative old bastard,” she muttered.
* * *
"Hey, Joe." Dad. I should have called him Dad. She smiled, hoping it would soften the blow. No matter how hard Amy tried, the word had yet to actually make it past her stubborn lips. Something always held her back, and she could tell that Joe noticed, and it hurt him. Of course it did. It's his own fault, for not telling me when I was younger. Amy pushed away the viciously defensive inner voice. It wasn't Joe's fault he'd been less than eager to ruin her parents' marriage, or to put himself up for her father's ire.
Regret-filled hazel eyes met hers, and in them she read the same accusation her own mind had just voiced. "Hey, Amy." The words were slow, deliberately casual. Yup, it had hurt him. Damn.
"Sorry I'm late." And that I've been a horrible daughter so far... "Adam and I took our jog a little late this morning, and I had to go home to change."
"No problem. It's been a slow day." Joe handed her apron across the bar, and Amy used tying it on as an excuse to look away from him for a minute.
"I had a question. While there aren't any customers in," she added softly, to tell him it was serious business.
"Is this a question that needs a drink?" Joe didn't wait for her to answer before pulling out a pair of glasses, and automatically filling hers with tonic, lime, and a bit of gin. Her favorite. They'd only known each other a few months, but he always remembered the little details she'd revealed about herself in that time.
"It's about my initiation."
Joe looked at her, eyebrows raised, then went right on and poured himself a half-glass of Scotch. "Okay. Shoot."
Amy swished her glass for a moment while trying to think of a graceful way to ask what she wanted to know, then gave up on trying for subtlety. Maybe that was another thing they had in common - they worked best when they just pushed to the truth behind all the bullshit and elegant talk. "You were there, weren't you? When I was confirmed."
"Yeah, I was there." Joe sipped his Scotch and pursed his lips to think. "I told the Tribunes I wanted to be there, as a friend of the family. Your mom didn't know. She'd never been one for all the ritual crap, didn't want to see it."
"And you did? You wanted to see... god, Joe, it was sick. It was like an interrogation! Why would anybody want to see that?"
Joe shook his head. "It's not like that. Didn't your mom and dad go to your highschool graduation?"
Amy blinked. She couldn't recall Joe referring to her dad so easily before, and it was a surprising sting. "Of course. But I wasn't humiliated there. I didn't... I wasn't crying, or struggling like some sort of animal in a trap, screaming..."
"We all go through it, Amy. We all know what it's like." Joe's voice was low and rough, and out of the corner of her eye, Amy saw his hands toying with his glass. "Hurts like a sonofabitch, and they're bastards about it besides. They think it makes sure we'll all remember our oaths and the laws, no matter what kind of pain we go through. Think they can tell who'll be a good field Watcher by how people react."
"Well they're more right on that count than they think, aren't they?" Amy took a deep swig of her drink. "I blew both."
"You didn't blow either. You didn't tell Walker, he used your damned cellphone."
"I'm weak, Joe, give it up. People have died keeping immortals from finding out. I can't handle it. Any of it! And you knew it even back then, didn't you? You helped me get Walker because you knew they'd never place me in the field if you didn't. And wouldn't that have been an embarassment, to the Tribune, to my family, to you..."
"No."
Amy looked up, surprised by how firm his voice sounded, and was completely shocked to see tears forming in his eyes.
"Damn it, Amy, I did it because I wanted you to be happy, and I wanted to do something for you, for a change." Joe looked away, and his jaw clenched for a moment as he thought over his next words. "I could barely talk to you when you were a kid, I missed all the usual dad stuff, missed your graduation 'cause I was out of town on assignment with Mac and too damn embarassed to see your mom or you after your dad died, and then that night in the chateau, I couldn't even help you up the stairs 'cause it takes too damned much work getting myself up them. You bet I wanted to give you something, finally. If an assignment was the best I could do, that was what it'd be. And I went to the damned initiation because I wanted to be there for at least one important moment in your life."
Amy took a deep breath. Methos was right - it was time to say something, or risk waiting too long and losing the option forever. Watching was a hard business, and Joe had already had too many close brushes... the next one might be too close. "You don't have to do anything for me, I just want... I want to get to know you. We wasted too much time... honestly, Methos knows you better than I do, and that's ridiculous. It's my fault as much as anybody's - I pushed you away, after Walker. I wasn't ready." For one more moment Amy grappled with her words, the image of Frank Thomas before her mind's eye. I'm allowed this. Dad wouldn’t want me not to... It was hard to talk around the lump and dryness in her throat, so she picked up her cup, shaking the ice a little to distract herself. A quick sip steadied her. "I’d like to get to know you. Not just as a supervisor. Maybe as friends, for now?"
It wasn’t much. It wasn’t what Joe wanted, Amy knew, but it was the best she could offer at that moment.
And Joe seemed to understand that. “Yeah. Yeah, that’ll be good.”
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-25 08:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-25 08:43 pm (UTC)Very nice. You've cleaned it up nicely, and it has a nice flow to it. And ♥ Joe! You write him very well, I think. His voice is very good in this, and you get across how much he loves Amy and wants to be her dad and the waiting for her to accept him as her dad is killing him.
And yay Methos! Love the clever, old bastard. Or don't. He doesn't care. ^_~
no subject
Date: 2005-06-25 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-25 09:09 pm (UTC)Good ole Methos. I love the way he thinks. XD
no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 12:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 03:59 am (UTC)