Title: You Forgot To Mention Hell, Horatio
Author: JR
Email: JRR42@yahoo.com
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Status: Complete
Warnings: Nope. Not this time.
Category: Crossover with Highlander
Disclaimer: All other characters belong to their respective owners and are used without permission. This story is not intended to infringe upon any copyrights, nor is any profit being made from it.
This is what happens when you get involved with too many different fandoms.
Universe setting: For you Highlander fans, this story takes place sometime after ‘Archangel’ (sorry to all those Richie Forever people). Please forgive me for playing with the timelines of the shows, but hey, it’s fan-fic and I can do that ;-)
Thanks: As always, to Carrie, and to Marius, the oak and the ash to my birds in the forest.

It was just past noon by the time Adam and Giles let themselves into the Rosenburg house. The teens were scattered throughout the house, taking advantage of the beds that were usually unavailable to them during their long hours at the High School library.

“There’s a note here,” Adam commented, reaching for the yellow legal pad propped up on the living room coffee table. “It’s from Willow. She says you are to use the bed in her parents’ room – second door on the right,” he added.

“So what’s next?” Giles asked around a mouth-stretching yawn.

“According to the schedule Willow pulled off the computer, the first City Works truck is scheduled to finish up on the highway project at 12:45. The second will leave the depot at 2:00.”

“That would be Cordelia, then, wouldn’t it?” Giles recalled sleepily.

“Yes,” the Immortal confirmed, looking back at the pad in his hand to discern the location of the girl in question.

“Are you sure it’s wise to do this during the day?”

“It’s much less risky than trying to steal them from a motor pool lot that’s bound to be guarded,” Adam reminded.

“Point taken,” the Watcher yawned again as the two Brits made their way up the stairs. “And the police?”

“Both trucks aren’t expected back until six o’clock tonight. We just have to keep them out of sight for two hours. By then, the police will be so busy, they won’t have time to look for two City Works trucks,” the Immortal promised.

“Indeed.”

“You’ve done your part for the time being. Why don’t you just get some sleep?” Adam asked the librarian, who simply nodded a farewell before closing the door behind him.

Quietly as a mouse, Adam opened the first door on the left. Looking at the ceiling for some kind of divine patience, he wondered how in the hell he was going to wake Cordelia without disturbing Xander, when the two were sleeping on the bed entangled together like a pretzel.

“Are you sure you can handle this?” Adam asked a short time later. “This should be good. Pull over here,” he indicated.

“Been here, done this,” Cordy answered with a gratuitous roll of her eyes. Pulling over to the shoulder of the two-lane highway, she brought the car to a stop and eased the gear shift into park. Adam was already out of the vehicle by the time the teen popped the hood, griping all the while. “God, I hope nobody I know recognizes me. It’s bad enough that my popularity stock has taken a nosedive from dating Xander, but this…”

“The whole point of you being dressed up like this *is* so nobody will recognize you,” the Immortal reminded. In all actuality, he doubted that anyone would associate Cordelia Chase with the…tart…in the driver’s seat.

To be on the safe side, Adam had used one of his other fake identities to rent a different car in the next town down the road. While the police would have little luck tracking down the ‘Benjamin Carter’ who had rented the car, they would probably have an easier time tracing a hometown girl – especially one as pretty as Cordelia.

The girl who stepped out of the Ford Taurus looked nothing like Sunnydale High’s last May Queen. Decked out in the platinum blond wig and big sunglasses Giles had ‘borrowed’ from the costume box of the school’s drama club, the heavily applied makeup and barely-there clothing successfully completed the disguise.

Grimacing in distaste, Cordelia hiked her already mini-skirt up to a point that would have gotten her publicly flogged not too many years ago, Adam thought to himself. Even in the current day and age, there still was a good chance that Cordelia could get herself arrested for indecent exposure. Hopefully, the police would not avail themselves of this tiny scrap of highway in the few minutes it would take to complete this phase of their preparations.

“There it is!” Adam exclaimed as the top of the truck broke over the edge of the not too distant hill.

“Go!” Cordelia ordered, never taking her eyes off the slow-moving heavy vehicle.

Moving stealthily, the Immortal gave the girl a confident smile before cutting through the flowerbeds of yet another state-funded highway beautification project. Taking cover in the brush just past the wildflowers, Adam waited.

“Come on already!” Cordelia hissed as she leaned over to peer under the hood of the car. Long minutes passed until finally, the pump truck was close enough for the brunette to see miniature rainbows as the sunlight refracted off the non-potable water being sprayed over the flowers on the side of the road. Righting herself, the teenager turned around as if just noticing the approach of the oncoming truck. Waving her arms frantically, she signaled her ‘distress’ to the driver of the heavy vehicle. After a heart-stopping moment, the truck slowed to a stop.

“Having problems, there, missy?” The driver’s words were half-obscured by the harsh, creaking groan of metal as he opened the truck’s door. The driver – Aaron, by the patch on his county-issue uniform shirt – appeared to be in his mid-thirties. Sweat-soaked in the heat of the Californian afternoon, Aaron’s shoulder length, dirty-blond hair hung down limply.

“Oh, thank God you stopped! I’m all alone out here, and this stupid thing just died on me,” Cordelia gushed, gesturing at the propped hood of the rental car. “I didn’t know what I was gonna do!”

‘Careful kid,’ Adam cautioned mentally. ‘Don’t lay it on too thick.’

“What seems to be the problem?” the driver asked helpfully. Although his words were kind, there was no mistaking the leer he shot at the scantily dressed girl.

“I’m not sure,” Cordelia fumed. “I was just driving along, and the stupid thing just stopped going.”

“Did it make any noises or anything? Or smoke, maybe?”

“No, nothing,” Cordelia insisted.

“Well,” he asked, taking an unnecessary step into the teenager’s personal space in order to get closer to the car, “let’s take a look, okay?”

“Okay,” she replied, forcing herself *not* to give in to her instinct to back away from the sweating, leering man.

Occupied with poking around the engine, Aaron never noticed the Immortal slipping up behind him with stealth that would have rivaled a vampire’s. To her credit, Cordelia did nothing to betray Adam’s approach. In fact, she distracted him further by pointing deep within the bowels of the engine to ask the name of a specific part.

Two seconds later, Aaron slumped to the ground, unconscious from a blow to the head from the butt of Adam’s gun.

“Geez,” Cordelia complained. “Took you long enough.”

“And it’s going to take longer if you don’t give me a hand here,” he retorted as he struggled to heft Aaron towards the trunk of the rental. “Grab his feet. No, other side – we need to keep him out of sight in case any cars happen by.”

“Yeah, right. Out here in the middle of nowhere? We’ll have a better chance of seeing a horse-drawn carriage than another car.”

The Immortal was wise enough to recognize that Cordelia’s sarcasm came more from leftover adrenaline and nervousness than from actual malice.

“On three,” Adam suggested as they prepared to heft their burden into the trunk. “One…two…and threeeeee.” The body landed with a muffled ‘thud’.

“God, why are they always so *heavy*?” Cordelia sulked. Despite himself, Adam ended up snorting in laughter.

“You know, I always end up asking myself the same thing.” Slamming the trunk closed, the Immortal once more turned his attentions on the girl assisting him. “You did a good job,” he said honestly.

Expecting some dry, bitchy retort, Adam was taken aback by the teenager’s demure ‘thanks’. Suddenly, he suspected that the girl wasn’t often thanked for her participation in the fight against evil. Then, with no small amount of discomfort, he recalled how quickly he himself had dismissed her as the weakest link in the Sunnydale group’s ‘chain’. It wasn’t often that he underestimated someone, and much to Cordelia’s delight, he told her so.

The May Queen was fairly glowing from the Immortal’s words of praise when she drove off toward the abandoned warehouse where they planned to store the heavy-vehicle until they needed it later that night.

As he slid behind the wheel of the heavy-truck, the Immortal allowed himself a calculating smile. With her self-confidence bolstered by his comments, Cordelia would definitely be a force to be reckoned with tonight. Just as he had planned.

With both trucks hidden in the warehouse, the drivers locked safely away with the bartender in Willy’s walk-in refrigerator, and Cordelia returned – makeup free – to the Rosenburg house, Willow, Oz and Xander were called to step up to the plate. Using both of Adam’s rental cars, the two boys led the way to Sunnydale’s Fire Station Number 1.

From their vantage point on a rooftop across the street, the three men passed the pair of binoculars back and forth as they scoped out the situation.

“I still don’t like this. I mean what if there’s a real fire? What if somebody gets hurt because we…” Xander protested.

“One – there *is* going to be a real fire. Two -- if we don’t have that equipment, *we’re* going to be the ones to get hurt. Any questions?” Adam reminded, never taking his gaze from the wooden ‘tower’, which the rookie firemen used to conduct practice drills. The tower was little more than unfinished wood sturdily constructed into four flights of wrap-around stairs, but it was not the structure itself that interested the Immortal.

“There,” he pointed, handing the binoculars off to Oz. “See the hoses? We’ll need both of them. I suggest that you two work together moving both of them. Fire hoses are deceptively heavy. See that parking lot over there? Your best bet is to wait there, then drive in once I give you the all clear sign.”

“Can you handle the rest by yourself?” Oz inquired.

“If I’m not done by the time you get the hoses in the trunk, one of you should come in to help me while the other takes the Taurus back to the warehouse.”

“You take the Taurus, I’ll help Hannibal here,” Xander addressed Oz.

“Hannibal?” Adam questioned, wondering if the dark-haired teen knew the whole story of the ancient general.

“Yeah, you know, like the leader of the A-Team?”

“The A-Team,” the Immortal repeated, his voice flat in disbelief. Closing his eyes slowly in disbelief, Adam shook his head, wondering if the gene pool was starting to get a bit shallow again after all these centuries. Stifling a sigh, the Immortal reached for his cellphone, dialing a number recently committed to his memory.

“Hello,” Willow answered at the other end of the line. It had taken the combined efforts of Xander, Giles, and Adam to persuade Cordelia to relinquish her mobile phone to the redhead, for even just a few hours.

“You ready?” Adam asked the witch.

“Whenever you are,” she said, but Adam could hear the slight tremble in her voice. Softening his tone slightly, he spoke gently to reassure her. “You’re going to do fine, Willow. Just remember, the faster we get this done, the faster we can go after Angel.”

There was a slight pause before the girl responded. This time the Immortal could almost hear her smiling. “You’ve studied psychology before, haven’t you?”

“Kind of transparent, was I?” Adam grinned.

“Just a bit,” Willow laughed. But the tension of the moment was broken.

“But the important thing is: did it work?” Adam asked honestly.

“Yes.”

“Good to know there are some things I haven’t forgotten,” he jested. “Ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes, starting…now,” Willow confirmed.

Nodding at the two teenagers physically with him, all three men checked their watches. Adam hit the off button as they all headed for their respective cars.




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