Happy Holidays, strangevisitor7! It's a twofer!
Title: The faraway land is an old barn.
Author: NOT the Crimmas Kurgan AKA RODLOX
Written for: strangevisitor7
Crossover with: Supernatural
Characters: Methos, Amanda, Anna, Dean, Castiel, Sam, Lucifer (briefly). Mention of Raat and MacLeod.
Wordcount: 1,260
Author's Note: My muses saw that you listed Supernatural as a fandom you were familiar with, and they insisted I write this for you.
Summary: The last two Immortals on Earth meet Dean, Sam, Anna, and Castiel.
The faraway land is an old barn
Dean was waiting in the abandoned barn. "C'mon," he muttered to empty air, waiting for her to arrive.
It was a risky move, but Dean knew Sam was right - even though Sam had been talking about a demigod, and this here was a forcibly-retired god. To keep calm, in addition to keeping both eyes open, Dean paced and reviewed everything he'd been able to dig up on her:
Raat had been a goddess of fresh water way back in Pharonic Egypt. She'd sided with the demons because they were the closest thing to a credible opposition to the Deity who'd taken the jobs of herself and her family. And she had a habit of killing anyone who crossed her - even her demonic coworkers.
Dean just hoped that the status - or stature - of him and Sam would be enough for Raat to consider them a better ally in opposition than Lucifer.
"What?" said a woman ten feet behind him.
Dean turned around and he saw standing there Anna and a stranger who was looking confused as to how she'd gotten here.
Dean's gun went off. Amanda fell.
This will save on explanation later, Anna felt, and was sorry Dean would blame himself for what she'd done. She looked from Amanda to Dean and said, "Not a problem," and was gone.
"No problem," Dean said, knowing he wasn't being heard. "I don't mind dealing with dead bodies."
*
"So Anna showed up with her - and you shot her?" Sam asked as they were digging a grave of sufficient depth that they wouldn't have to worry about the body coming back up.
"Hey, it was my hand, but it wasn't me," Dean said.
"Riight, like Anna would make you shoot someone."
"True," Dean said, not knowing any reason Anna would have to do that.
"So what do we do if this is Raat?"
"Dude, if she was Raat, she wouldn't be dead, now would she?"
"Well she's dead for now," Sam said.
In answer, Dean planted his shovel in the ground. "Look Sammy, now I'm n-" stopping when the dead body sucked in a great big breath. Dean pointed a finger at his brother and said, "Don't do that."
"Wasn't me," Sam said.
"Yeah well no offense, bro, but I don't see anybody else out here who's had the power over life and death."
"That doesn't mean it was me."
"This is awkward," Amanda commented dryly.
*
By the time Anna returned a few minutes later with Methos, there had been introductions on the part of Sam and Dean, with Amanda giving her latest name as the three of them returned to the barn.
"Friends of yours?" Sam asked Anna. "Or did you figure we needed target practice?"
"He's a friend," Anna said with a half-headtilt at Methos.
"Oh?" Methos asked.
"I'm Anna. We met in Assyria. I brought the wall down."
"I remember you," Methos said warily.
Anna let go of him, and strode up to Dean with a noticeable motion in the hips, Anna told him, "They're a game-changer," palm on his chest, a light in her eyes.
"How so?" he asked, wanting to believe her, but not entirely sure what she'd brought before him.
"You just saw...they're Immortal."
*
"So who's your friend?" Amanda asked, her and Methos having a private conversation while Dean, Sam, and Anna were talking more than a few meters away in the same barn.
"Anna," Methos said. "An angel."
"Methos," Amanda said, "you and I deal with MacLeod all the time - she's like us?"
"This isn't a figure of speech, Amanda."
"So...hail marys, flaming swords, all that?"
Methos nodded.
"Have I ever mentioned you need new friends?"
"No, but MacLeod says it enough for both of you."
*
"So none of the Enochian stuff works on them?" Sam asked.
"That's right," Anna said.
"What does?"
"Sharp objects."
"You're shitting us," Dean said. "Well no wonder there's only two of them left."
"There used to be more," Castiel said, having just arrived. "And they can't be vessels."
"Lucky bastards. Just for angels?"
"For anything," Anna said. Angels, demons, demigods, jinn, warped ones, woodens, or anything else in Creation.
*
Dean was pacing the length of the barn, which brought to mind memories that brought a smile to Anna's face (as she kept the bad memories from that time under her shoes). "So Lucifer and Michael are brothers -"
"And angels," Castiel said.
"And angels, right. But they need the bodies of me and Sam, who're also brothers, so the Apocalypse can happen -"
"Or be prevented."
"I was getting to that. So...are the two of you brother and sister?" Dean asked the Immortals.
"Not unless mother had a particularly long labor," Methos said.
"How long?" Sam asked.
Neither Immortal was forthcoming, so Anna said, "Considerably."
Frowning at her, Amanda said, "I'm only a thousand years old."
"And you?" Dean asked Methos.
"Older than dirt, you might say," Methos said.
"Lucifer is older than dirt," Castiel said. "You can't be that old."
*
"What happens when there's only one left?" Dean asked.
"Depends what you believe," Amanda said.
"Aw c'mon, you guys have religions too?"
Methos looked at Amanda and asked her, "You notice he didn't question our need to kill each other."
"That's just the human condition," Dean said.
"They're Immortal, Dean," Anna reminded him.
"Doesn't mean they're any crappier at knocking people off than the rest of us."
With a grin on his face, Methos asked, "You do realize you're saying that to someone who was an assassin before she was transferred to a barracks."
*
"I'd rather not do this," Amanda said as she and Methos walked alone to the center of the field behind the barn.
"We had some good times," Methos agreed.
"You weren't my favorite person, but you were good."
"Likewise."
The knowledge of what had to happen, the words every Immortal taught their pupils, moved through Amanda's thoughts: 'To fight for the Prize.'
*
Jab, thrust, swing, parry, block, bowl over...
"I have an idea," Methos said.
"I'm listening," Amanda said, swiping her sword at him, missing his abs narrowly.
"We agree to stop."
"What? It doesn't work like that."
"Oh it does. The Four Horsemen were the only survivors of the previous Gathering."
'The Horsemen are a myth."
"You're looking at one of them."
Amanda stopped, and Methos did likewise. "Verifiable evidence - good for gems too," she said, and they smiled together. "So what do we do?"
Methos flicked his sword to stand upside-down. Now it was the butt of his Ivanhoe that pointed up. "We slam our butts together."
Though she did the same, Amanda raised her eyebrows.
With a shrug, "It sounded better in Harappan," Methos said.
*
The sky above and the ground beneath were flowing, bowing to their masters as said Immortals received the energies of the universe.
"At least we get a light show outta it," Dean said under his breath.
"Last time this happened," Lucifer commented, "they could have ground Hell to a fine powder, ripped Heaven from the heavens, anything they chose."
"This time'll be different," Dean snarked.
Lucifer snorted. "You can't even get me to change my mind. So what makes you think you'll be able to tell them what to do now?" and he vanished.
"He's right," Anna said sadly, watching as the lightning spun and rolled sheet-like into the Immortals.
"So all we can do is do our best and hope for a good outcome?" Dean asked. "Sounds like par for the course."
The End
Title: The Immortal Lee's Enemy.
Author:
Written for: strangevisitor7
Crossover with: NCIS (with a touch of Burn Notice)
Wordcount: 3,300
Author's Note: I kept trying to write something for you, but the only thing that was more than a page long, had the Immortal Michelle Lee used in "Three Views of a Person" - so this is a sequel. Bad news: the vid "reunion" seems to have vanished from the link I'd provided there; if anyone knows where to find it, please provide a link; thank you.
Summary: You have to do more than know where they bodies are buried - you have to be ready to kill them if they escape.
The Immortal Lee's Enemy
Sleep is fragmentary, not so much snatched as tripped into and hurriedly pulling out (of) as soon as possible.
Is that why this madman - a very mad man - is...?
Ziva shakes her head, not liking where that train of thought heads: right into the dark tunnel of insanity. It's a trick knife, she tells herself, not for the first time.
This felt like a new day - but she wasn't certain which day it was. The third? The seventh?
Her ears caught the amused clapping which her captor always did when he - when he wakes up, Ziva corrected herself before she could even think the alternative.
"Did we enjoy ourselves?" he asked Ziva. He was a serial kidnapper of Navy officers, driving each one insane before setting them free. "Come now, Officer David," he said, his tone perfectly reasonable. "Answer me," he requested.
Ziva remained silent, eyes closed so as to deny him even the satisfaction of her looking in his direction - she was and has been bound to a wooden chair securely stuck in the concrete floor.
"Ask me anything," he said, tiredly pleading with her. "I'll answer anything with the truth."
No! Ziva thought but refused to say, for that would be caving to his demands.
"Fine," he said, standing up this time - sometimes he'd done it sitting against the wall, sometimes lying on the floor; always in front of Ziva - drew the dagger to his abdomen and struck at an angle upwards, heartwards.
Pulled the dagger out as he started to - to pretend to die, Ziva re-told herself as her abductor fell to the floor once more.
Only now did Ziva open her eyes. Deliberate? she wondered as she saw that he'd fallen towards her, the dagger within stretching distance of her left foot.
Nothing went awry as she pulled the blade to her. Not a problem in sight the entire time she was cutting herself free. Finding her NCIS jacket at the back of the room and the foot of the stairs, she wrapped the dagger in it. Not an obstacle to be found then or as she went up the stairs and through an empty television room.
It was a few steps away from the front door - a long straight line from the basement floor long-caked in blood - that she was grabbed from behind. "Tsk, Officer David," he said, his breath hot on her ear. "That's not polite."
Ziva slammed her head back into his, struck her elbow into his stomach, following those up with a slash from the dagger as he staggered back, then kicked him in a way designed to not just break ribs but to impale the lungs fatally on those ribs.
And she got out of there, running, racing, speeding before she called it in. She knew what procedure called for, but she was only human.
.~~.
77 YEARS AGO:
Looks familiar, Methos thought to himself; distinct in many ways, but the idea is the same. Looking over at his fellow Immortal, he thought, May you still be around when this guy gets out of this closed pit...thousands of years from now. After all, his own hadn't failed thus far.
"All done," Michelle said, resting her shovel on the grassy edge of where they'd just closed off.
"Think we should carpet the area with rocks, maybe a few boulders?"
She just looked at him in disbelief. "Second thoughts?"
"Not on this," Methos said. "Never hurts to be thorough, is all."
"In that case... Let's get something to eat first."
Methos nodded. First time she's bowed to little things like the need to eat when there's still work to be done. "Sounds like another excellent plan."
As they walked towards the nearest house, Michelle said, "I kinda like it here," the fact of the newly-imprisoned excepted; "I think I'll come back here."
As it was, it was several decades before she again set foot on Vietnamese soil.
.~~.
PRESENT DAY:
3 months ago:
Miami:
Nori Phelps was having a drink with Sam Axe and Michael Westen at a casual roadside restaurant when The Buzz drew her attention. Stretching her arms, she casually looked around, and then saw someone who she remembered from her NCIS days.
Two Immortals, she thought to herself, identifying the man beside 'Faatin Amal' as another Immortal.
They came over to where 'Nori' was sitting. "Much as we hate crashing parties, we need a word with you," the man said to Nori.
"You mind?" Sam asked him.
"Richie, introduce yourself," Faatin smiled. "I'm sorry," she told them.
Possible she's acting through a cover identity right now, Nori - Michelle Lee - thought to herself. Or this is what she's like when she's not getting revenge on the David family. "Richie, Faatin, I'm terribly sorry," Michelle said, still in her Nori identity. "I completely forgot we'd planned on getting together for drinks," and bore a look of appropriate bashfulness.
"It's okay" Richie said. "Happens to the best of us. We just got off the plane, ourselves."
"We honeymooned in Vietnam," Faatin confided to Michael and Sam soto voice.
"Well congrats," Sam said.
Michael nodded.
"We ran into a guy down there," Richie told Michelle. "He was digging himself out of a pickle when we met." He didn't challenge us or attack - said he owed us for how we didn't behead him when he was breaching the topsoil... and then he knocked us both out.
I told Joe about it, just so the Watchers were aware... and a minute later, Methos calls me.
"New friend for you?" Michelle asked, her voice chilled.
"Hell no." Just how many jars within jars was he inside? And how far did he have to dig? But Richie didn't ask that - the Old Man hadn't told him, and Richie had a feeling that Michelle wasn't about to be any more forthcoming on the matter.
Nori's shoulders stopped being so relaxed. How she held her hands changed as well, as did the tightness of her lips. And her gaze became a lot more penetrating.
"Adam told me I should tell you in person," Richie said. "And I shouldn't do it with just the two of us present," and he told me to tell you that too.
"I see," Michelle said, coming out from under the guise of being Nori.
Michael and Sam both blinked. "Something we can help with?" Michael asked.
"This is an internal matter, gentlemen, but thank you," Michelle said, standing up. "And thank you for allowing me to help you on your recent case," and
"Nice to meet you," Richie told Sam and Michael before following after her, Faatin behind him.
Michael's face was question enough. "Whoa, don't look at me, Mikey," Sam said. "I did the full background check on her - one hundred percent civilian. Nothing that would give her a reason to be so much as behind a security checkpoint."
"Can't think of many civilians who can do what she just did," Michael. Unless they're civilians like me.
"Multiple personalities?" Sam said, reaching for an explanation.
By the next day, there was no evidence anywhere that Nori Phelps had ever existed.
.~~.
PRESENT DAY:
Today:
Ziva provided a decent glare.
"Terribly sorry," said Dr. Per Sussman, the shrink assigned to her case. "Would you much rather I ask you what you think about that?"
"No," Ziva said. "What I want is to be out there, hunting him down."
Cassandra, version 2. "Hunting?"
"That's right."
"Do you have any leads?" Methos asked.
"None of the blood is identifiable, as his or as anyone else's," Ziva said. "Not even in the kitchen." And where is he? He couldn't have gotten 30 yards before keeling over!
Ziva sighed. "Abby says the blood isn't simply degraded, every blood cell has ruptured and all the DNA collapsed." Fallen apart. Like the coherent speech of his victims.
"Fingerprints?" the good doctor asked.
"You really want to know?" Ziva asked, surprised.
"Your recovery is something you have to want. Besides, I have a curiosity about such things." And I do - you can never know too much about where all the other Immortals are. "Fingerprints?"
" 'Too many oils' Abby said."
"A shame," said Per.
"And they can't catch him!" Ziva exclaimed. "Not even with him leaving me flowers at my house!"
"Flowers?"
'Buttercups.
The flower that smells like poison gas; that haunt survivors of World War One. "If you met your kidnapper this afternoon, what would you do?"
"I'd kill him," Ziva said simply. "Because I clearly failed to do so the last time."
"Hm," the shrink said, then placed a post-it in his palm and jotted something down.
"Yes? What?"
"Meet me here," handing her the post-it and standing up. "Well, Miss David, it seems our time today is up. I'd say you're handling it well.
Not looking at the paper now in her possession, Ziva asked him, "Do you have him?"
"No, I do not. But if you don't want to help, you needn't attend," said Per, who had once gone by the name Pierson. And he walked calmly out of the room.
Ziva looked down at the post-it in her hand. There was an address on it, a house not too far from here...written in Hebrew.
.~~.
It's shabbier than I'd expected, Ziva thought once she parked in the right low-rend neighborhood only spitting distance from D.C.'s monuments and museums.
After two knocks, a bushy-tailed boy let her in, smiling at her and saying she wanted the second room on the second floor.
The person who answered the door was - "Mr. Dawson," Ziva said.
"In the flesh," Joe said "Come in, take a load off."
Ziva came in and sat down, though long habit with DiNozzo prompted her to say, "I am not wearing any loads."
More than you think you are. Taking a chair himself, Joe then said, "You need to know that - that we'll help you track down the bastard, that's not an issue."
"Then what is 'an issue'?" Ziva asked.
"Whether or not you want to know the full story about the man who held you captive."
Ziva waved him off: "I do not need to know his childhood; only how it is I failed to kill him."
Joe stomped his came on the floor three times. "The short answer, Ziva, is that you didn't." From a room down the hallway came Dr. Sussman to join them at the dining room table.
And so did a pig-tailed businesswoman in glasses Ziva felt were two sizes too large. "Your captor's name is Harold Klimpt," she told Ziva in a thick accent.
"And you are?" Ziva asked.
Her accent dropped like a brick, "You don't remember me?" humorous at what was par for the course for Immortals had fooled a decorated foreign agent - under stress, granted. She took off the glasses which drew attention away from the rest of a face whose light makeup alone would not have hid her identity from Ziva on any other day.
"Agent Lee?"
Michelle nodded. "The one and only."
"But how? You were dead?"
She nodded again.
"People don't come back from the dead," Ziva said firmly.
Joe rapped his cane against the floor three more times.
The apartment door opened and in came that bushy-tailed kid and -
"Faatin Amal," Ziva spat, recognizing the woman who had helped Eshel frame her. "But..."
"She's dead too," Michelle said. "We know." Faatin, another of my teacher's few students, had a quiet in-her-sleep death while in custody.
"It's hard to warn for something like this," Joe said.
"This is your posse, Ziva," Faatin said. "You call the shots. If you would prefer I not help you against Harold Kimpt, I will oblige." To Joe, "Do you play bridge, Mr. Dawson?"
"I'm passable at it," Joe said.
"You work for VIVAK," Ziva said to her.
Faatin chuckled, then said, "When last I was in Iran, the Shah did not permit women in such roles. No, Eshel wanted a confederate in his plottings against your father, so I tailored the identity I had at the time to dovetail his dream with his end."
To Joe, Ziva turned and asked, "How is all of this happening?"
"They're Immortal, Ziva," Joe said. "But before you ask, no, Eshel Namin wasn't Immortal - sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and most times a faked death is just a faked death."
"I suppose that made it easier to kill im," not looking at Faatin.
Faatin thought but did not say, Eshel would have done what he did, Ziva, with or without my help.
"Actually, it's easier to kill another Immortal," Michelle said. "So what do you say, Ziva?"
"I say...we're burning daylight." Explain in the car.
.* * *.
'Hunting the bastard down wasn't the problem it was with most criminals, Immortal and mortal alike. Klimpt wanted Ziva to find him; it's possible he had a warped idea of how to train a pupil, starting with the revelation of the teather's own Immortality...leading him to try it on anyone he could get ahold of.
'The open question is, how will we handle Ziva and her knowledge of all this - of us - after this?'
.--- from the Special Case File entered by Joe Dawson, RET.
.* * *.
"I'll go around back," Faatin volunteered,"flush him out."
"Same here," Richie said. "I take the left alley, you take the right one?"
Faatin nodded.
"I'll keep watch on the entrance," Methos said.
"That just leaves us," Michelle said to Ziva.
"I - thank you, Michelle; all of you, thank you," Ziva said. "But I can handle it from here."
"Can you?" Richie asked. "Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with bravery. God knows I was full of myself too."
"Was?" Faatin jested.
Methos nodded agreement with her. "Ziva," he said. "From what you recounted to me, you've already killed Klimpt twice. Did you have a goal in mind, maybe kill him a prime number of times?"
"I didn't kill him," Ziva said. "I was mistaken."
"They're so cute at that age," Methos said to the others.
"You can fight him first if you want, Ziva," Michelle said. "But I'm going to be right there too."
Ziva nodded, and just before they all split up as agreed, Methos said, "This is yours," he said, but Ziva couldn't tell if he was addressing her or Michelle.
Ziva and Michelle didn't go too fast in entering the building - not only did they want the Buzz of their confederates to frighten Klimpt to her and Ziva, but Ziva watched as Michelle slowly circled each room they entered. "What are you doing?" Ziva whispered at her.
"Listening for him," Michelle said. If we'd already explained the Buzz to you, I'd say I was listening for his Buzz, Ziva. But we didn't, so I'll wait until we get out of here.
"Okay," Ziva said, her fingers itching to deal with Klimpt.
Several rooms in, well past the reach of natural light, lit only by overhead bars, Michelle froze, feeling the Buzz. "He's here."
"Where?" Ziva asked, and saw what Michelle was pulling out. "A sword?"
"Traditional. And effective," Michelle said, brushing her jacket closed against her body.
And that was when the opposing door opened, with their enemy sliding into view, sword-first.
"You!" Ziva said in what would've been a hiss if she'd been closer to him.
"A delight to see you again," Klimpt said happily to Ziva.
"Harold Klimpt," Michelle said.
"Michelle, yes?" Klimpt asked, recalling. "Or that was what you called yourself then."
"You still want to do this?" Michelle asked Ziva in an undertone.
"Definitely," Ziva said, and walked across the room alone, one arm extended for a handshake.
Harold smiled and freed his good hand by switching his sword to the other hand. "So nice to see you come being sensible," he said to Ziva. "Even if you did come here with her."
"You don't much like her, do you?" having come within spitting distance, yet not spitting upon him.
He smiled an unsettling smile. "What I am, I owe to her. My every crime, I lay at her feet."
Close enough to shake hands, Ziva instead grabbed his good wrist and spun herself and that arm behind around behind him. "Like the dog you are," she spat at him, spittle flying free.
"I am innocent," he replied in crisp Hebrew, with one word having been coined and abandoned at the turn of the 20th Century.
Ziva knew the word from advanced studies.
Harold knew it from having eaten briefly at the same table as the father of modern Hebrew.
"The devil can quote scripture," Ziva replied, and kicked him forwards, only letting go afterwards.
Klimpt fell to the ground, rolling once, turning his sword to avoid crippling one leg.
"Get up!" Ziva yelled at him.
He complied, slowly, his shoulder correcting all damage as he rose.
Ziva's eyes didn't believe what was before her. "Impossible."
"As I said," Michelle said under her breath. "My turn," she announced loudly enough for both of them to hear.
"Afraid for her?" Klimpt asked her, not turning away from Ziva.
"How much do you want to suffer?" To Ziva, "This is Immortality. He can recover from whatever is dealt out to him."
"Then what is your plan?" Ziva asked Michelle.
"A fight to the death."
Klimpt bowed to Ziva, a full formal presentation. "May I?" he asked her.
"Go ahead," Ziva told him. If he heals from everything, then how can it be a fight to the death?
Harold turned and switched hands, twirling his shortsword. "Betrayer," he accused Michelle.
"Impetuous fool," Michelle replied with, letting him come to her, her rapier drawn and lying in wait, her arms trained to patience.
To Ziva, it was a swordfight where fisticuffs were permitted. A duel which heavily favored the smaller Michelle.
Gutted both literally and figuratively, Klimpt lay on the ground, his shoulders feeling the shoe of the victor-to-be. "Cut clean?" he requested.
"Always," Michelle said. To do otherwise is unthinkable. "Though its better than you deserve." And she sliced, swooping her rapier in an arc through his neck. Turning her head to look at Ziva, Michelle commanded her to, "Run! Now!"
It was the electricity in the room, as much as the tone of the order itself, that put Ziva on the move.
.~~.
Location: NCIS Offices:
One Day Later:
"That was Vance," Tony said once he'd returned his phone to its cradle. "He wants a word, Ziva."
"Very well then," Ziva said, having finally returned to work, and now this. She went upstairs... and found Director Vance's secretary absent, but Vance and Dawson were standing there, waiting for her. "You wanted to see me, Director?"
"Congratulations, David," Vance said.
Before Ziva could ask what specifically the congratulations was for, Joe opened the Director's door and told Ziva, "If you need anything, we're right here."
Looking in at who was waiting in there, Ziva asked her boss and Joe, "My mother? Why is she here?"
"She wanted to congratulate you in person," Vance said.
"And to fill in the rest of the story," Joe said. And to welcome you to the family of Watchers.
Ziva went inside, and as the doors closed all but a crack, she sat down opposite her mother.
END
Author: NOT the Crimmas Kurgan AKA RODLOX
Written for: strangevisitor7
Crossover with: Supernatural
Characters: Methos, Amanda, Anna, Dean, Castiel, Sam, Lucifer (briefly). Mention of Raat and MacLeod.
Wordcount: 1,260
Author's Note: My muses saw that you listed Supernatural as a fandom you were familiar with, and they insisted I write this for you.
Summary: The last two Immortals on Earth meet Dean, Sam, Anna, and Castiel.
The faraway land is an old barn
Dean was waiting in the abandoned barn. "C'mon," he muttered to empty air, waiting for her to arrive.
It was a risky move, but Dean knew Sam was right - even though Sam had been talking about a demigod, and this here was a forcibly-retired god. To keep calm, in addition to keeping both eyes open, Dean paced and reviewed everything he'd been able to dig up on her:
Raat had been a goddess of fresh water way back in Pharonic Egypt. She'd sided with the demons because they were the closest thing to a credible opposition to the Deity who'd taken the jobs of herself and her family. And she had a habit of killing anyone who crossed her - even her demonic coworkers.
Dean just hoped that the status - or stature - of him and Sam would be enough for Raat to consider them a better ally in opposition than Lucifer.
"What?" said a woman ten feet behind him.
Dean turned around and he saw standing there Anna and a stranger who was looking confused as to how she'd gotten here.
Dean's gun went off. Amanda fell.
This will save on explanation later, Anna felt, and was sorry Dean would blame himself for what she'd done. She looked from Amanda to Dean and said, "Not a problem," and was gone.
"No problem," Dean said, knowing he wasn't being heard. "I don't mind dealing with dead bodies."
*
"So Anna showed up with her - and you shot her?" Sam asked as they were digging a grave of sufficient depth that they wouldn't have to worry about the body coming back up.
"Hey, it was my hand, but it wasn't me," Dean said.
"Riight, like Anna would make you shoot someone."
"True," Dean said, not knowing any reason Anna would have to do that.
"So what do we do if this is Raat?"
"Dude, if she was Raat, she wouldn't be dead, now would she?"
"Well she's dead for now," Sam said.
In answer, Dean planted his shovel in the ground. "Look Sammy, now I'm n-" stopping when the dead body sucked in a great big breath. Dean pointed a finger at his brother and said, "Don't do that."
"Wasn't me," Sam said.
"Yeah well no offense, bro, but I don't see anybody else out here who's had the power over life and death."
"That doesn't mean it was me."
"This is awkward," Amanda commented dryly.
*
By the time Anna returned a few minutes later with Methos, there had been introductions on the part of Sam and Dean, with Amanda giving her latest name as the three of them returned to the barn.
"Friends of yours?" Sam asked Anna. "Or did you figure we needed target practice?"
"He's a friend," Anna said with a half-headtilt at Methos.
"Oh?" Methos asked.
"I'm Anna. We met in Assyria. I brought the wall down."
"I remember you," Methos said warily.
Anna let go of him, and strode up to Dean with a noticeable motion in the hips, Anna told him, "They're a game-changer," palm on his chest, a light in her eyes.
"How so?" he asked, wanting to believe her, but not entirely sure what she'd brought before him.
"You just saw...they're Immortal."
*
"So who's your friend?" Amanda asked, her and Methos having a private conversation while Dean, Sam, and Anna were talking more than a few meters away in the same barn.
"Anna," Methos said. "An angel."
"Methos," Amanda said, "you and I deal with MacLeod all the time - she's like us?"
"This isn't a figure of speech, Amanda."
"So...hail marys, flaming swords, all that?"
Methos nodded.
"Have I ever mentioned you need new friends?"
"No, but MacLeod says it enough for both of you."
*
"So none of the Enochian stuff works on them?" Sam asked.
"That's right," Anna said.
"What does?"
"Sharp objects."
"You're shitting us," Dean said. "Well no wonder there's only two of them left."
"There used to be more," Castiel said, having just arrived. "And they can't be vessels."
"Lucky bastards. Just for angels?"
"For anything," Anna said. Angels, demons, demigods, jinn, warped ones, woodens, or anything else in Creation.
*
Dean was pacing the length of the barn, which brought to mind memories that brought a smile to Anna's face (as she kept the bad memories from that time under her shoes). "So Lucifer and Michael are brothers -"
"And angels," Castiel said.
"And angels, right. But they need the bodies of me and Sam, who're also brothers, so the Apocalypse can happen -"
"Or be prevented."
"I was getting to that. So...are the two of you brother and sister?" Dean asked the Immortals.
"Not unless mother had a particularly long labor," Methos said.
"How long?" Sam asked.
Neither Immortal was forthcoming, so Anna said, "Considerably."
Frowning at her, Amanda said, "I'm only a thousand years old."
"And you?" Dean asked Methos.
"Older than dirt, you might say," Methos said.
"Lucifer is older than dirt," Castiel said. "You can't be that old."
*
"What happens when there's only one left?" Dean asked.
"Depends what you believe," Amanda said.
"Aw c'mon, you guys have religions too?"
Methos looked at Amanda and asked her, "You notice he didn't question our need to kill each other."
"That's just the human condition," Dean said.
"They're Immortal, Dean," Anna reminded him.
"Doesn't mean they're any crappier at knocking people off than the rest of us."
With a grin on his face, Methos asked, "You do realize you're saying that to someone who was an assassin before she was transferred to a barracks."
*
"I'd rather not do this," Amanda said as she and Methos walked alone to the center of the field behind the barn.
"We had some good times," Methos agreed.
"You weren't my favorite person, but you were good."
"Likewise."
The knowledge of what had to happen, the words every Immortal taught their pupils, moved through Amanda's thoughts: 'To fight for the Prize.'
*
Jab, thrust, swing, parry, block, bowl over...
"I have an idea," Methos said.
"I'm listening," Amanda said, swiping her sword at him, missing his abs narrowly.
"We agree to stop."
"What? It doesn't work like that."
"Oh it does. The Four Horsemen were the only survivors of the previous Gathering."
'The Horsemen are a myth."
"You're looking at one of them."
Amanda stopped, and Methos did likewise. "Verifiable evidence - good for gems too," she said, and they smiled together. "So what do we do?"
Methos flicked his sword to stand upside-down. Now it was the butt of his Ivanhoe that pointed up. "We slam our butts together."
Though she did the same, Amanda raised her eyebrows.
With a shrug, "It sounded better in Harappan," Methos said.
*
The sky above and the ground beneath were flowing, bowing to their masters as said Immortals received the energies of the universe.
"At least we get a light show outta it," Dean said under his breath.
"Last time this happened," Lucifer commented, "they could have ground Hell to a fine powder, ripped Heaven from the heavens, anything they chose."
"This time'll be different," Dean snarked.
Lucifer snorted. "You can't even get me to change my mind. So what makes you think you'll be able to tell them what to do now?" and he vanished.
"He's right," Anna said sadly, watching as the lightning spun and rolled sheet-like into the Immortals.
"So all we can do is do our best and hope for a good outcome?" Dean asked. "Sounds like par for the course."
The End
Title: The Immortal Lee's Enemy.
Author:
Written for: strangevisitor7
Crossover with: NCIS (with a touch of Burn Notice)
Wordcount: 3,300
Author's Note: I kept trying to write something for you, but the only thing that was more than a page long, had the Immortal Michelle Lee used in "Three Views of a Person" - so this is a sequel. Bad news: the vid "reunion" seems to have vanished from the link I'd provided there; if anyone knows where to find it, please provide a link; thank you.
Summary: You have to do more than know where they bodies are buried - you have to be ready to kill them if they escape.
The Immortal Lee's Enemy
Sleep is fragmentary, not so much snatched as tripped into and hurriedly pulling out (of) as soon as possible.
Is that why this madman - a very mad man - is...?
Ziva shakes her head, not liking where that train of thought heads: right into the dark tunnel of insanity. It's a trick knife, she tells herself, not for the first time.
This felt like a new day - but she wasn't certain which day it was. The third? The seventh?
Her ears caught the amused clapping which her captor always did when he - when he wakes up, Ziva corrected herself before she could even think the alternative.
"Did we enjoy ourselves?" he asked Ziva. He was a serial kidnapper of Navy officers, driving each one insane before setting them free. "Come now, Officer David," he said, his tone perfectly reasonable. "Answer me," he requested.
Ziva remained silent, eyes closed so as to deny him even the satisfaction of her looking in his direction - she was and has been bound to a wooden chair securely stuck in the concrete floor.
"Ask me anything," he said, tiredly pleading with her. "I'll answer anything with the truth."
No! Ziva thought but refused to say, for that would be caving to his demands.
"Fine," he said, standing up this time - sometimes he'd done it sitting against the wall, sometimes lying on the floor; always in front of Ziva - drew the dagger to his abdomen and struck at an angle upwards, heartwards.
Pulled the dagger out as he started to - to pretend to die, Ziva re-told herself as her abductor fell to the floor once more.
Only now did Ziva open her eyes. Deliberate? she wondered as she saw that he'd fallen towards her, the dagger within stretching distance of her left foot.
Nothing went awry as she pulled the blade to her. Not a problem in sight the entire time she was cutting herself free. Finding her NCIS jacket at the back of the room and the foot of the stairs, she wrapped the dagger in it. Not an obstacle to be found then or as she went up the stairs and through an empty television room.
It was a few steps away from the front door - a long straight line from the basement floor long-caked in blood - that she was grabbed from behind. "Tsk, Officer David," he said, his breath hot on her ear. "That's not polite."
Ziva slammed her head back into his, struck her elbow into his stomach, following those up with a slash from the dagger as he staggered back, then kicked him in a way designed to not just break ribs but to impale the lungs fatally on those ribs.
And she got out of there, running, racing, speeding before she called it in. She knew what procedure called for, but she was only human.
.~~.
77 YEARS AGO:
Looks familiar, Methos thought to himself; distinct in many ways, but the idea is the same. Looking over at his fellow Immortal, he thought, May you still be around when this guy gets out of this closed pit...thousands of years from now. After all, his own hadn't failed thus far.
"All done," Michelle said, resting her shovel on the grassy edge of where they'd just closed off.
"Think we should carpet the area with rocks, maybe a few boulders?"
She just looked at him in disbelief. "Second thoughts?"
"Not on this," Methos said. "Never hurts to be thorough, is all."
"In that case... Let's get something to eat first."
Methos nodded. First time she's bowed to little things like the need to eat when there's still work to be done. "Sounds like another excellent plan."
As they walked towards the nearest house, Michelle said, "I kinda like it here," the fact of the newly-imprisoned excepted; "I think I'll come back here."
As it was, it was several decades before she again set foot on Vietnamese soil.
.~~.
PRESENT DAY:
3 months ago:
Miami:
Nori Phelps was having a drink with Sam Axe and Michael Westen at a casual roadside restaurant when The Buzz drew her attention. Stretching her arms, she casually looked around, and then saw someone who she remembered from her NCIS days.
Two Immortals, she thought to herself, identifying the man beside 'Faatin Amal' as another Immortal.
They came over to where 'Nori' was sitting. "Much as we hate crashing parties, we need a word with you," the man said to Nori.
"You mind?" Sam asked him.
"Richie, introduce yourself," Faatin smiled. "I'm sorry," she told them.
Possible she's acting through a cover identity right now, Nori - Michelle Lee - thought to herself. Or this is what she's like when she's not getting revenge on the David family. "Richie, Faatin, I'm terribly sorry," Michelle said, still in her Nori identity. "I completely forgot we'd planned on getting together for drinks," and bore a look of appropriate bashfulness.
"It's okay" Richie said. "Happens to the best of us. We just got off the plane, ourselves."
"We honeymooned in Vietnam," Faatin confided to Michael and Sam soto voice.
"Well congrats," Sam said.
Michael nodded.
"We ran into a guy down there," Richie told Michelle. "He was digging himself out of a pickle when we met." He didn't challenge us or attack - said he owed us for how we didn't behead him when he was breaching the topsoil... and then he knocked us both out.
I told Joe about it, just so the Watchers were aware... and a minute later, Methos calls me.
"New friend for you?" Michelle asked, her voice chilled.
"Hell no." Just how many jars within jars was he inside? And how far did he have to dig? But Richie didn't ask that - the Old Man hadn't told him, and Richie had a feeling that Michelle wasn't about to be any more forthcoming on the matter.
Nori's shoulders stopped being so relaxed. How she held her hands changed as well, as did the tightness of her lips. And her gaze became a lot more penetrating.
"Adam told me I should tell you in person," Richie said. "And I shouldn't do it with just the two of us present," and he told me to tell you that too.
"I see," Michelle said, coming out from under the guise of being Nori.
Michael and Sam both blinked. "Something we can help with?" Michael asked.
"This is an internal matter, gentlemen, but thank you," Michelle said, standing up. "And thank you for allowing me to help you on your recent case," and
"Nice to meet you," Richie told Sam and Michael before following after her, Faatin behind him.
Michael's face was question enough. "Whoa, don't look at me, Mikey," Sam said. "I did the full background check on her - one hundred percent civilian. Nothing that would give her a reason to be so much as behind a security checkpoint."
"Can't think of many civilians who can do what she just did," Michael. Unless they're civilians like me.
"Multiple personalities?" Sam said, reaching for an explanation.
By the next day, there was no evidence anywhere that Nori Phelps had ever existed.
.~~.
PRESENT DAY:
Today:
Ziva provided a decent glare.
"Terribly sorry," said Dr. Per Sussman, the shrink assigned to her case. "Would you much rather I ask you what you think about that?"
"No," Ziva said. "What I want is to be out there, hunting him down."
Cassandra, version 2. "Hunting?"
"That's right."
"Do you have any leads?" Methos asked.
"None of the blood is identifiable, as his or as anyone else's," Ziva said. "Not even in the kitchen." And where is he? He couldn't have gotten 30 yards before keeling over!
Ziva sighed. "Abby says the blood isn't simply degraded, every blood cell has ruptured and all the DNA collapsed." Fallen apart. Like the coherent speech of his victims.
"Fingerprints?" the good doctor asked.
"You really want to know?" Ziva asked, surprised.
"Your recovery is something you have to want. Besides, I have a curiosity about such things." And I do - you can never know too much about where all the other Immortals are. "Fingerprints?"
" 'Too many oils' Abby said."
"A shame," said Per.
"And they can't catch him!" Ziva exclaimed. "Not even with him leaving me flowers at my house!"
"Flowers?"
'Buttercups.
The flower that smells like poison gas; that haunt survivors of World War One. "If you met your kidnapper this afternoon, what would you do?"
"I'd kill him," Ziva said simply. "Because I clearly failed to do so the last time."
"Hm," the shrink said, then placed a post-it in his palm and jotted something down.
"Yes? What?"
"Meet me here," handing her the post-it and standing up. "Well, Miss David, it seems our time today is up. I'd say you're handling it well.
Not looking at the paper now in her possession, Ziva asked him, "Do you have him?"
"No, I do not. But if you don't want to help, you needn't attend," said Per, who had once gone by the name Pierson. And he walked calmly out of the room.
Ziva looked down at the post-it in her hand. There was an address on it, a house not too far from here...written in Hebrew.
.~~.
It's shabbier than I'd expected, Ziva thought once she parked in the right low-rend neighborhood only spitting distance from D.C.'s monuments and museums.
After two knocks, a bushy-tailed boy let her in, smiling at her and saying she wanted the second room on the second floor.
The person who answered the door was - "Mr. Dawson," Ziva said.
"In the flesh," Joe said "Come in, take a load off."
Ziva came in and sat down, though long habit with DiNozzo prompted her to say, "I am not wearing any loads."
More than you think you are. Taking a chair himself, Joe then said, "You need to know that - that we'll help you track down the bastard, that's not an issue."
"Then what is 'an issue'?" Ziva asked.
"Whether or not you want to know the full story about the man who held you captive."
Ziva waved him off: "I do not need to know his childhood; only how it is I failed to kill him."
Joe stomped his came on the floor three times. "The short answer, Ziva, is that you didn't." From a room down the hallway came Dr. Sussman to join them at the dining room table.
And so did a pig-tailed businesswoman in glasses Ziva felt were two sizes too large. "Your captor's name is Harold Klimpt," she told Ziva in a thick accent.
"And you are?" Ziva asked.
Her accent dropped like a brick, "You don't remember me?" humorous at what was par for the course for Immortals had fooled a decorated foreign agent - under stress, granted. She took off the glasses which drew attention away from the rest of a face whose light makeup alone would not have hid her identity from Ziva on any other day.
"Agent Lee?"
Michelle nodded. "The one and only."
"But how? You were dead?"
She nodded again.
"People don't come back from the dead," Ziva said firmly.
Joe rapped his cane against the floor three more times.
The apartment door opened and in came that bushy-tailed kid and -
"Faatin Amal," Ziva spat, recognizing the woman who had helped Eshel frame her. "But..."
"She's dead too," Michelle said. "We know." Faatin, another of my teacher's few students, had a quiet in-her-sleep death while in custody.
"It's hard to warn for something like this," Joe said.
"This is your posse, Ziva," Faatin said. "You call the shots. If you would prefer I not help you against Harold Kimpt, I will oblige." To Joe, "Do you play bridge, Mr. Dawson?"
"I'm passable at it," Joe said.
"You work for VIVAK," Ziva said to her.
Faatin chuckled, then said, "When last I was in Iran, the Shah did not permit women in such roles. No, Eshel wanted a confederate in his plottings against your father, so I tailored the identity I had at the time to dovetail his dream with his end."
To Joe, Ziva turned and asked, "How is all of this happening?"
"They're Immortal, Ziva," Joe said. "But before you ask, no, Eshel Namin wasn't Immortal - sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and most times a faked death is just a faked death."
"I suppose that made it easier to kill im," not looking at Faatin.
Faatin thought but did not say, Eshel would have done what he did, Ziva, with or without my help.
"Actually, it's easier to kill another Immortal," Michelle said. "So what do you say, Ziva?"
"I say...we're burning daylight." Explain in the car.
.* * *.
'Hunting the bastard down wasn't the problem it was with most criminals, Immortal and mortal alike. Klimpt wanted Ziva to find him; it's possible he had a warped idea of how to train a pupil, starting with the revelation of the teather's own Immortality...leading him to try it on anyone he could get ahold of.
'The open question is, how will we handle Ziva and her knowledge of all this - of us - after this?'
.--- from the Special Case File entered by Joe Dawson, RET.
.* * *.
"I'll go around back," Faatin volunteered,"flush him out."
"Same here," Richie said. "I take the left alley, you take the right one?"
Faatin nodded.
"I'll keep watch on the entrance," Methos said.
"That just leaves us," Michelle said to Ziva.
"I - thank you, Michelle; all of you, thank you," Ziva said. "But I can handle it from here."
"Can you?" Richie asked. "Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with bravery. God knows I was full of myself too."
"Was?" Faatin jested.
Methos nodded agreement with her. "Ziva," he said. "From what you recounted to me, you've already killed Klimpt twice. Did you have a goal in mind, maybe kill him a prime number of times?"
"I didn't kill him," Ziva said. "I was mistaken."
"They're so cute at that age," Methos said to the others.
"You can fight him first if you want, Ziva," Michelle said. "But I'm going to be right there too."
Ziva nodded, and just before they all split up as agreed, Methos said, "This is yours," he said, but Ziva couldn't tell if he was addressing her or Michelle.
Ziva and Michelle didn't go too fast in entering the building - not only did they want the Buzz of their confederates to frighten Klimpt to her and Ziva, but Ziva watched as Michelle slowly circled each room they entered. "What are you doing?" Ziva whispered at her.
"Listening for him," Michelle said. If we'd already explained the Buzz to you, I'd say I was listening for his Buzz, Ziva. But we didn't, so I'll wait until we get out of here.
"Okay," Ziva said, her fingers itching to deal with Klimpt.
Several rooms in, well past the reach of natural light, lit only by overhead bars, Michelle froze, feeling the Buzz. "He's here."
"Where?" Ziva asked, and saw what Michelle was pulling out. "A sword?"
"Traditional. And effective," Michelle said, brushing her jacket closed against her body.
And that was when the opposing door opened, with their enemy sliding into view, sword-first.
"You!" Ziva said in what would've been a hiss if she'd been closer to him.
"A delight to see you again," Klimpt said happily to Ziva.
"Harold Klimpt," Michelle said.
"Michelle, yes?" Klimpt asked, recalling. "Or that was what you called yourself then."
"You still want to do this?" Michelle asked Ziva in an undertone.
"Definitely," Ziva said, and walked across the room alone, one arm extended for a handshake.
Harold smiled and freed his good hand by switching his sword to the other hand. "So nice to see you come being sensible," he said to Ziva. "Even if you did come here with her."
"You don't much like her, do you?" having come within spitting distance, yet not spitting upon him.
He smiled an unsettling smile. "What I am, I owe to her. My every crime, I lay at her feet."
Close enough to shake hands, Ziva instead grabbed his good wrist and spun herself and that arm behind around behind him. "Like the dog you are," she spat at him, spittle flying free.
"I am innocent," he replied in crisp Hebrew, with one word having been coined and abandoned at the turn of the 20th Century.
Ziva knew the word from advanced studies.
Harold knew it from having eaten briefly at the same table as the father of modern Hebrew.
"The devil can quote scripture," Ziva replied, and kicked him forwards, only letting go afterwards.
Klimpt fell to the ground, rolling once, turning his sword to avoid crippling one leg.
"Get up!" Ziva yelled at him.
He complied, slowly, his shoulder correcting all damage as he rose.
Ziva's eyes didn't believe what was before her. "Impossible."
"As I said," Michelle said under her breath. "My turn," she announced loudly enough for both of them to hear.
"Afraid for her?" Klimpt asked her, not turning away from Ziva.
"How much do you want to suffer?" To Ziva, "This is Immortality. He can recover from whatever is dealt out to him."
"Then what is your plan?" Ziva asked Michelle.
"A fight to the death."
Klimpt bowed to Ziva, a full formal presentation. "May I?" he asked her.
"Go ahead," Ziva told him. If he heals from everything, then how can it be a fight to the death?
Harold turned and switched hands, twirling his shortsword. "Betrayer," he accused Michelle.
"Impetuous fool," Michelle replied with, letting him come to her, her rapier drawn and lying in wait, her arms trained to patience.
To Ziva, it was a swordfight where fisticuffs were permitted. A duel which heavily favored the smaller Michelle.
Gutted both literally and figuratively, Klimpt lay on the ground, his shoulders feeling the shoe of the victor-to-be. "Cut clean?" he requested.
"Always," Michelle said. To do otherwise is unthinkable. "Though its better than you deserve." And she sliced, swooping her rapier in an arc through his neck. Turning her head to look at Ziva, Michelle commanded her to, "Run! Now!"
It was the electricity in the room, as much as the tone of the order itself, that put Ziva on the move.
.~~.
Location: NCIS Offices:
One Day Later:
"That was Vance," Tony said once he'd returned his phone to its cradle. "He wants a word, Ziva."
"Very well then," Ziva said, having finally returned to work, and now this. She went upstairs... and found Director Vance's secretary absent, but Vance and Dawson were standing there, waiting for her. "You wanted to see me, Director?"
"Congratulations, David," Vance said.
Before Ziva could ask what specifically the congratulations was for, Joe opened the Director's door and told Ziva, "If you need anything, we're right here."
Looking in at who was waiting in there, Ziva asked her boss and Joe, "My mother? Why is she here?"
"She wanted to congratulate you in person," Vance said.
"And to fill in the rest of the story," Joe said. And to welcome you to the family of Watchers.
Ziva went inside, and as the doors closed all but a crack, she sat down opposite her mother.
END