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.

Although they had no way of knowing it at the time, the sight of Adam Pierson removing Steven Keane’s head from his body would be the cause of days -- even weeks -- of Slayerette nightmares.

It may have a been a bit odd, all things considered. With the horrors and atrocities they saw on a daily basis, what was a simple beheading in the grand scheme of things? After all, they *did* live on a Hellmouth. Fighting all manner of vampires and other demonic creatures was par for the course for them by that point in time.

At least that was what they were all busy trying to convince themselves.

It was difficult, though. The problem was that while they heard Adam’s one-sided conversation with the demon, Ahriman had only revealed itself to Pierson. Save Angel, with his heightened night-vision, the other Slayerettes saw nothing of the demon -- only the pale-faced Englishman whom Ahriman was using as a host.

A host that -- Immortality aside -- appeared far more normal than the usual demonic opponents that the Slayerettes usually fought. And without fangs...or pointy horns...or a horribly disfigured outward appearance, the body of the late Steven Keane was a little too ‘human looking’ for the Slayerettes’ comfort.

Not knowing what else to do, they ended up staring in humbled silence. At first they couldn’t keep their eyes from wandering between the body on the ground to the head lying a few feet away. But eventually, one by one, they pried their eyes away from the headless corpse in favour of the Immortal that was still left standing.

Despite their horror over the results of his actions, the Slayerettes silently reminded themselves that Adam had only been acting in self-defense. But the sight of him -- half-slouching from both his injuries and exhaustion, with a bloody sword in hand -- was still a bit unsettling. That feeling only grew as Adam, feeling their eyes upon him, turned to meet their gaze.

For a moment, it looked as if the Immortal was about to say something -- but whatever the words were to have been, they were lost as the unbelievable began to happen.

At first, Angel thought his eyes must have been playing tricks on him. He blinked and refocused, but the white glow that began to form around Keane’s body and head was no illusion. In fact, it continued to grow as the long seconds passed, making the vampire’s light-sensitive eyes water from the glare.

The hair on Angel’s neck rose up as the air surrounding the vampire filled with energy. An involuntary shiver raced down his spine, his nerves jittering in reaction to the electric static that quickly surrounded and enveloped not only himself but also the other Slayerettes as well. And somewhere deep inside himself, Angel felt his inner-demon go ballistic.

More than a century earlier, the vampire known as Angelus had been fortunate enough to unwittingly stumbled across an Immortal Quickening in progress. Armed with that knowledge in the present day, it was all the vampire could do not to give in to his demon’s panic-driven impulse to run.

But Angel refused to abandon his companions.

“Get back! Now!” Angel shouted to the mortals around him, using his arms to herd the mobile Slayerettes out of harm’s way.

But it was too little, too late.

Looking back over his shoulder, Angel witnessed the energy forming around Keane’s body brighten and intensify. At last, the energy seemed to reach critical mass. There was a long moment as the strange power coalesced, hesitating for the span of a single heartbeat as if deciding upon a destination.

Then, without warning, it exploded outwards, arcing forward to hit Adam Pierson directly in the chest.

Reacting instinctively, Angel threw himself against Willow, knocking them both to the ground. The vampire used his larger form to cover the redhead, trying to protect her from the barrage of discharges that continued to charge through the heavy night air. Even on the ground, the level of energy was so intense that it made Angel’s skin tingle, as if a thousand invisible ants were crawling across it.

Raising his head to see the spectacle before him, Angel looked up in time to see another bolt of lightning hit Adam squarely in the stomach. The Immortal was screaming, but whether from pleasure or pain the vampire couldn’t tell. The tall, slender man began to convulse, twitching repeatedly from the sheer intensity of energy that continued to strike him.

Almost belatedly, all of the windows of the surrounding buildings shattered, followed quickly by the streetlights blowing out one by one. Angel was quick to pull Willow’s shaking body even closer in an effort to protect her from all the flying glass shards and other debris that rained down upon them.

And through it all, Adam was barraged by bolts of the energy. Although Angel’s ears were ringing from the explosions around him, he could still hear the Immortal’s cries into the night sky. As if reaching the crescendo of the event, Adam struggled to raise his sword over his head, even as the forces that pounded into him drove him to his knees.

Finally, it was over -- the Quickening ending just as swiftly as the stroke that had triggered the event in the first place. Adam crumpled heavily to the ground. Whether he was unconscious or just simply exhausted, none of the spectators knew for certain.

With the ceasing of the violent outburst, the sudden stillness of the night seemed almost unreal -- almost as if someone had abruptly turned down a loudly playing stereo. One by one the Slayerettes began rising from their crouched positions. Their initial movements were timid and wary, uncertain whether or not the danger was truly over.

It was only when he felt something squirm uncomfortably underneath him that Angel realized he was still pinning Willow to the ground. He pulled away from her rather quickly, half-embarrassed by the way his body had been pressed so intimately against hers. The other half of him, however, was too busy wallowing in just how good it felt to be so close to her.

Before he could react, though, a raspy, shaken voice broke the silence that pervaded the street.

“So, do you think these guys are available for parties?”

Although the killing and maiming portion of the night that the Army of Legion fell ended with the death of the Immortal Steven Keane, the Slayerettes were still left with a few loose ends to tie up -- the foremost being the disposal of Keane’s corpse.

When asked to help with the ‘relocation’ of the body, the expressions of disgust on the teenagers’ faces were enough to leave Adam gaping in amazement. Put simply, the Immortal found it quite impossible to believe that, given all their ‘extracurricular activities, they’d never before seen a dead body.

“Well, not exactly,” Xander admitted for both himself and his friends. “Most of the things we kill are kinda self-cleaning, if you know what I mean.”

Taking pity on the teenagers, it was Angel who provided the easiest -- and most obvious -- solution. Working together with Adam, the two immortals shoved the headless corpse down the nearby open manhole cover. Pierson even went so far as to toss Keane’s sword in after the body.

“If the police in this town are in as much denial as you say,” the Immortal scoffed wryly, “maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll assume that Keane managed to accidentally behead himself right after he started the fire in the tunnels.”

With that said, Angel replaced the manhole cover while Adam and Oz began the laborious process of getting the injured to the waiting car and truck. After abandoning the extra pumper-truck at the empty warehouse, the group was finally able to rest at their temporary base of operations: the Rosenburg house.

It was unilaterally decided that taking four wounded people who reeked of smoke and were smudged with ash to the hospital in one night would raise far too many questions from the medical staff. Once again, the Immortal in their midst came, albeit reluctantly, to the Slayerette’s rescue. It seemed that Adam had -- at several points in time -- trained as a doctor.

Despite their initial skepticism, Adam Pierson proved to be a relatively able physician. Working with the rather well-stocked first aid kit Giles had brought earlier from the library, the Immortal did what he could for the Watcher’s dislocated shoulder while ordering Cordelia to shower away the grime on her body before he taped up her broken ribs. After binding the librarian’s shoulder, the Immortal asked Oz to help Giles to a bedroom to rest. Having finished tending to Angel’s still-bleeding wrists, the werewolf hastened to comply.

Oz and Giles were about halfway down the upstairs hallway when pandemonium broke out in the room behind them. Painstakingly retracing their steps, they returned to find a mortal and a vampire exchanging sharp words with an equally irritated Immortal. In fact, the only silent person in the room was the fiercely blushing Willow.

Apparently, Adam had requested that the two men leave while he saw to the deep cut Eleni had inflicted in Willow’s side. For once Angel and Xander found themselves united. Neither one was willing to leave the embarrassed redhead alone with the Immortal, no matter how trustworthy Adam had proven himself to be. After a few minutes of their bickering, the Immortal ended the argument in exasperation.

“Did it ever occur to either of you bloody idiots that in order for me to stitch up her wound, Willow is going to have to remove her shirt?” Xander and Angel’s sheepish expressions only confirmed that neither of them had considered the notion. At the same time, the embarrassed redhead in question gave the Immortal a look of gratitude. “Now get out of here so I can treat my patient.”

In too much pain to sleep, Giles slowly made his way down to the living room. After assisting the injured Watcher to a seat on the couch, Xander and Angel resumed their restless pacing as they waited for Adam to finish with Willow. As the minutes passed the quarter, then half-hour mark, even the seemingly unflappable Oz began to look a bit pensive.

When the shaken, pale-faced Willow finally appeared at the top of the staircase, Angel was at her side in an instant with Xander only a few paces behind. Mindful of her injured side, the vampire nevertheless swept the petite witch into an embrace. Ignoring Xander’s annoyed protest, Angel steadfastly refused to let go of the girl in his arms.

From his seated position on the couch, Giles was the only person in the room to see when the apprehension on the vampire’s face melted away as he held on to Willow. Angel’s eyes briefly looked heavenward, as if he was giving thanks for her safety. That accomplished, the vampire squeezed his eyes tightly shut, allowing him to savor the feeling of the girl he was holding.

Finally, after a long moment had passed, Willow pulled away in order to reassure Xander and Oz that she was all right. Well, as all right as a person with fifteen newly-sewn stitches in her side could be. Then, as the night’s events quickly caught up with her, Willow swayed just a bit. It was enough of a warning for Angel to lean forward to sweep the demure girl up into his arms. With a curt word to the two teen-aged boys, the vampire turned sharply, carrying his precious bundle down the hall toward her bedroom.

The librarian must have dozed off after that, because the next thing he new, Adam and Oz were gently waking him. With the aid of the two uninjured men, Giles managed to stagger sluggishly up the staircase. An almost paternal need forced the Watcher to slow as they passed the two rooms where his other charges were already sleeping. Seeing Xander and Cordelia curled up in each other’s arms did not surprise the librarian in the least.

Finding Angel and Willow in an almost identical position on her bed, however, most assuredly did.

Giles’ eyes instinctively turned toward Oz, only to find the teenager’s face totally impassive. As usual, whatever the werewolf’s thoughts on the subject might have been, he was keeping them to himself. Too exhausted to do anything else, Giles decided to follow the teenager’s example. Saying nothing, the Watcher simply filed the information away for examination at a later time.

Adam kept a close eye on all of the injured over the course of the night, especially Xander. Since they had neglected to ‘borrow’ any oxygen gear during their earlier ‘equipment raid’ at the fire station, there was little else the Immortal could do but monitor the teenager, making sure the youth’s abused lungs did not hamper his breathing any more than necessary. Fortunately, Xander did not experience any major problems.

Exhausted not only by the events of that night but also from the long weeks that preceded it, the Slayerettes spent the next eighteen hours in various stages of sleep. After sharing a relatively light-hearted and jubilant celebratory Chinese take-out dinner (and pig’s blood for the vampire in residence), most of the Slayerettes returned to their respective homes.

Although he made a good show of it, for once the Sunnydale residents were able to see through the facade Adam erected over his true feelings. While the Immortal *was* genuinely happy to have played a pivotal part in the destruction of the Legion, his confrontations with Keane and Ahrimin left him with a deeper sense of urgency. Despite his accomplishments thus far, Adam was really no closer to helping MacLeod.

In addition, he had also picked up a new cause for concern -- the fate of the Immortal Amanda. Adam had already checked in with his friend, Joe Dawson, but the mortal’s Watcher network had not been able to locate the missing woman. Nor had they uncovered any new clues as to where the Highlander was hiding hiding himself.

Since there was little else Adam could do, he decided to stick around and finish the work that had drawn him to Sunnydale in the first place.

The following day brought a sense of renewed normalcy to the Slayerettes. Although they were still aching and tired from the battle, the teenagers all resumed their regular class schedules. As was typical in Sunnydale, nobody deemed to comment on their collective bruises or their group absence the previous day.

With the Slayerettes’ immediate problem out of the way, Adam Pierson finally found the time to delve deeply into more scholarly pursuits. Taking advantage of the quiet library, the Immortal spent his days heavily researching the demon called Ahriman. He was aided in his search not only by the resident librarian but also by the world’s only vampire with a soul.

Day after day, Giles watched the two dark heads lean forward as they poured over book after book. They rarely spoke to each other, however, save for terse exchanges when one or the other uncovered a bit a new information. And yet, despite his obvious discomfort in being around Adam, Angel was a constant presence in the library.

Guilt, Giles thought as he watched the vampire hand over yet another ancient book to the Immortal, can be the most powerful of motivators.

It quickly became apparent, however, that Angel was not the only local resident who felt a lingering obligation to the Immortal. One by one, Cordelia, Willow and Xander eventually arrived at the library after their classes let out for the day. Even Oz, who had dropped out of Sunnydale High to pursue his music interest, turned out to lend a hand in the information search.

Five days after the fall of the Legion, an unexpected influx of new research material made it readily apparent that Adam was going to need every pair of hands he could get.

As fate would have it, word about the holocaust under the streets of Sunnydale spread throughout the supernatural community...well... like wildfire. Stories began to surface, undoubtedly embellished by the vampires who had been lucky enough to escape into the night, about the Army of Light that had thoroughly vanquished the 10,000 vampires that had gathered together.

Perhaps it was inevitable that the Watcher’s Council heard of the Slayerette’s victory from their own independent sources long before Giles even had time to prepare and submit his own report upon the events.

Up until then, Buffy’s disappearance had left Giles in poor standing with the London-based Council. With the success of their victory, though, the librarian found himself back in the good graces of his peers and superiors.

Giles used his renewed status to press the Council to send any and all additional information they possessed on Ahriman. After realizing the potential danger the demon posed to the world at large, the Council complied. Within days, another large crate of dusty tomes was delivered for the Slayerette’s review.

The books, however, were not the only new information to arrive from the Council that day.

Another smaller packet was delivered to Giles at his home later that evening. In answer to his special request, the Council had also sent all the information it could quickly find on both Adam Pierson and Duncan MacLeod.

It surprised Giles to learn that the latter name appeared twice in the vast archives of Watchers. Apparently, the Immortal Highlander had first entered a report in 1840. The Slayer at the time had been dispatched to Paris following rumors of vampire attacks within the city. It had, however, turned out to be a hoax -- one perpetrated by an Immortal to cover up several run-of-the-mill murders. The deception was uncovered by MacLeod before the Slayer could even reach Paris from her native city of London. Nevertheless, her Watcher had recorded the facts in his journal for posterity’s sake.

It was the second entry on Duncan MacLeod that interested Giles the most. According to an unsubstantiated report, less than two years earlier, the Highlander had uncovered one of the greatest lost secrets of his kind: the mythical Horsemen of the Apocalypse were actually four ancient, still living Immortals. The report went on to state that MacLeod, with the help of an unidentified female Immortal, managed to kill all four in a single night at an abandoned submarine base in the French town of Bordeaux.

Although he doubted the veracity of the report, Giles could not help but find the notion intriguing. It wasn’t that he doubted that the Horsemen might have been Immortals -- after all, it was commonly accepted that most myths and legends had some basis in fact. But after witnessing just how weak Adam had been after Keane’s Quickening, Giles was hard pressed to believe that any Immortal would have had the strength to defeat four different opponents in rapid succession.

Fallacy or not, both reports seemed to paint the Highlander in a very positive light. A decent man and a strong Immortal, one that would most likely *not* be an immediate cause for alarm were he to be the one to win the Immortals’ Game.

‘And a good man to have as a Champion in fight of good against evil,’ Giles mentally noted as he read the reports.

The little tidbits about MacLeod were a novel compared on the scant information the Council provided on Adam Pierson. A birth certificate, his college transcripts, passport records, some incomplete employment history. It was all they managed to uncover about the mysterious Immortal.

Although he was not surprised by the lack information, Giles could not help but be a little disappointed. It wasn’t that he distrusted Adam -- not after the Immortal risked life and limb to help them defeat the Army of Legion. No, the simple truth was that, first and foremost, Giles lived for piecing together puzzles -- and Adam Pierson was certainly a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

An enigma that currently needed their help.

So, with no other immediate avenue of recourse, the librarian volunteered his services. Together with Angel and the other Slayerettes, his spent his afternoons and evenings in the library researching.

How quickly things had returned to status quo.

And yet, Giles noted as he wrote in his private journal on one of the following afternoons, things were not quite as normal as they appeared on the surface.

Although it often seemed that the librarian was oblivious to the personal intricacies and entanglements of his young charges’ lives, that was never truly the case. As the ‘adult’ in the group, Giles actually found it both useful and necessary to keep a careful, if distant, eye on any changes that could alter or disrupt the carefully woven relationships of the Slayerettes.

For any other group of teenagers, such changes might not have been so important. Things were, however, different for these particular children -- especially when one poorly-timed moment of distraction could cost one or more them their lives. That was an outcome that the Watcher refused to allow to come to pass. Not when he could prevent such circumstances from happening.

The only real problem was determining just what *exactly* had changed now that the dust had settled.




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