Part 2: Reaction

A/N: It's only fair to warn you that while I have seen the third and fourth Highlander movies, I'm mostly going off the first one and a little bit of information gleaned from watching Spoony's recent reviews. I haven't seen the series.

Conner MacLeod does make a brief appearance in this chapter, so I've changed the category to 'crossover'.

Mrs Hudson, and indeed most of the civilized world, was long abed by the time Inspector Lestrade arrived at Baker Street and quietly let himself in. He found Holmes pacing the sitting room amidst a haze of whatever noxious weed it was that he stuffed in his pipe. When the amateur did not acknowledge his presence, Lestrade took a seat anyway and waited.

After a time, Holmes flopped unceremoniously into his chair and sighed aloud. "Well, Lestrade?"

"I've put off the paperwork until I have a better idea what to put on it," said Lestrade, who stifled a yawn before he continued. "My story for now is that Debtford was the only one there, but managed to get in a good blow on the doctor, so you took him home while I took Debtford in. I cleaned all the blood and footprints from the scene, and the casings from my revolver. You may be called upon soon to investigate the mystery of a headless body - or bodiless head - dumped in the Thames, but that's your business."

"Why did you keep the blade?"

Lestrade was too tired to be surprised. He produced the panabas from his coat, the blade wrapped in a layer of bloodstained cloth. "Truth is, I wasn't sure what to do with it. And if it turns out..." He hesitated, turning the blade over in his hands. "That is, if..."

"If Watson's explanation doesn't illuminate the matter to our satisfaction, then it will be evidence against him."

Lestrade shifted uncomfortably. "Well... yes."

Holmes sighed again. "This morning I would have thought you mad for questioning the doctor's character. After tonight... I don't know what to think. May as well prepare for the worst."

Silence fell for a long minute, then Lestrade asked, "How... how is he?"

"Sleeping upstairs. He nearly nodded off while I was bandaging him. That... that light, whatever it was, must have taken a lot out of him."

"You really don't know what happened, do you?"

Holmes sent Lestrade a withering look. "Is it really such a shock?"

"Sort of, yes. I'm used to you knowing everything, and lording it over the rest of us besides. That something like... like this should slip past you - he's your own flatmate!"

"I know that, Lestrade!" Holmes snapped. He stopped and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I have spent every moment of the last few hours going over every memory of our acquaintance, but even now-" He trailed off suddenly, cocking his head to one side. Lestrade opened his mouth to inquire, but Holmes silenced him with a gesture. Then he leapt out of his chair, vaulted the settee, and darted to the door, barely keeping it from slamming into the desk when he yanked it open. "It will not do, trying to sneak out!" he snapped in a harsh stage-whisper. "I believe that Lestrade and I are due an explanation for to-night's events."

At length, Watson appeared in the doorway. Where on the wharf he had been uncharacteristically confident, now he was the opposite, head bowed and shoulders hunched in a neatly-framed picture of subdued resignation. In averting his eyes from Holmes, he turned toward Lestrade, and professional concern crossed his otherwise drawn features. "Have you received medical attention, Inspector?"

Lestrade wordlessly indicated the bandage on his temple. Watson nodded, but still lingered where he stood, visibly flinching when Holmes shut the door behind him. He only took a seat when Holmes bade him.

Holmes crossed to the gasogene, pouring brandy for all three of them before resuming his own seat. "Now, Watson-" He faltered, began again in a more hesitant tone. "I... must confess that I am rather at a loss. Whatever falsehoods you have told me have taken me in entirely. I have given you far too little credit in our time together."

"That was my intention, Mister Holmes," said Watson, with lacklustre intonation and lukewarm formality that seemed almost to negate the warmth of the fire. "I had rather hoped that it would remain so - I was getting comfortable in this new life."

"You say that as if you expect to leave it," said Holmes.

"I do," said Watson.

"Then you expect to be arrested?" Lestrade asked.

Watson shook his head. "No. Not arrested."

"You expect me to chase you out," said Holmes. At a nod from Watson, he continued, "I consider that outcome unlikely."

"You'll change your mind by the end of my story."

"You seem awfully certain of that. Shall we test the theory?"

Watson contemplated his brandy, pointedly not looking at either of his associates. Neither pressed him.

"I am," he finally said, "a consummate liar. But gentlemen, I swear to you that every word I say now is true. Whether you believe it or not, I shall leave to your good judgment. I... will understand if you do not. I only ask that you hold your questions, and do not interrupt my narrative until it is through. You do deserve the truth, bald and whole, but it... will not be easy for me, to recount the life that I left behind. I fear that if I am stopped, I may not have the will to continue."

"Of course," confirmed Lestrade, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

Holmes slid back, folding his hands over his snifter and letting his eyelids droop. "Pray, continue."

Watson took a deep breath.

"John Watson is not my christian name. Thomas Murray is. I am nearly sixty years of age. I am... an Immortal.

"Among my kind, I am young. I have met men hundreds - thousands, even - of years old. We do not die. We cannot be killed by conventional means. Our lives only end if our heads are cut from our necks, and then our... our energy, our life-force, flows into our killers - you saw it at work tonight. It is called the Quickening. And we live in this way until the Gathering, when we will all be drawn to the final event and we fight until there is only one left, and to this one goes the Prize. I do not know what it is - no one does. We just know that it is.

"I do not know why or how we are chosen, or if indeed there is any sense to it at all. I am given to believe that it is simply random, for I cannot otherwise justify my part in it." Though his tone had remained flat and lecturing, he now chuckled, hollow and without warmth. "Perhaps it was some cruel vagary of fate, a nasty little trick born of the Almighty's boredom. Certainly there never was a man less deserving of such power.

"But I get ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning.

"I was found in Edinburgh in 1823, raised in the working-class among a number of foster-siblings. At an early age, I displayed an unusual intellect, wit, and charm, with potential for far more than what the lower-class life could offer me. At twelve I left home to join a traveling show.

"It was there that I first met James Karras - the man you met as Kessler tonight - though then I knew him as Jack Hanon. It was there also that I met Cyril Pengelly. Cyril was a stage-hand and an acrobat, small and graceful, with hooded gray eyes and messy hair that was nearly white despite his youth and energy. Cyril took me under his wing when first I joined, taught me to read and write, to build up and tear down the stage. He also taught me to pick pockets and cut purses when I mingled with the crowds, the best way to present my youth so as to escape consequence, and how to escape anyway when that failed me. Though I had no formal education, I learned quickly, eager for every lesson no matter the content. I understudied some of the actors, and in a few years was even given my own parts, becoming a minor star of their mobile stage. In this way I passed ten years of my life.

"We performed a night in Dùn Phàrlain, and in the morning were approached by uniformed officials. This was no rare thing, and the leader of the troupe was more than ready to 'clear up' whatever matter they brought, but they weren't there to chase us out, investigate a complaint, or chide us on some minor transgression.

"They were there for me.

"You see, I... was not a well man, and I don't mean in the... physical sense. I was weak of moral character, deficit in empathy for my fellow man, and rather given to malicious action for no other reason than my own amusement. And I was clever." He laughed again, this time rueful. "Oh, I was clever, in all the worst ways. While I was with the show, I made a habit to slip off into town and amuse myself - sometimes gambling or indulging in women, sometimes mugging or theft or vandalism, just because I could. Sometimes... three times, I killed. I only remember the first one, a man that I mugged at knife-point, and stabbed him when he struggled. When he opened his mouth to scream, I drew out the knife and slit his throat.

"Scottish law took years to catch up, but catch up it did, and I was hauled off to Aberdeen to be tried. Despite all my acting talent, I was found guilty. I was only twenty-three when I stood before the firing squad and was shot dead.

"And I curse the devil that I did not stay there.

"We Immortals are not born with our powers, you see. They only awaken upon our first death, which must be untimely and violent. The firing squad fulfilled every stipulation nicely. I died in the morning and awoke again in the night, to find James and Cyril watching over me.

"I was, as you might expect, rather disquieted by such sequence of events, but Cyril soothed my fears. Once I had calmed enough to listen, he set about explaining.

" 'How old would you say I am?' he asked me.

"Besides the snow-white hair, he didn't look a day over forty, and I said as much. He laughed, and told me that he was two-hundred and sixty three. Old enough to sense pre-Immortals like I had been. James, his protegé, was two and fifty.

"Cyril took me under his wing in much the same way he had in the show, except that now his teachings were on Immortality, on sword-play, and on the use and honing of our other power - cheating death is not our only gift, you see. We have a... a sense of beings around us, of disposition, and movement. I took to these as I'd taken to all his teachings, and even at my fledgling stage I could predict a normal man's actions a vital second ahead.

"You can imagine, I think, the effect that such power would have on a man already given to moral bankruptcy. Unfortunately, Cyril and James were no better - Cyril taught us that our power made us inherently superior to the rest of the world. We were made to use that power, he said, to seize what we wanted, when we wanted it. Mortal laws could no longer touch us.

"Never were there men less deserving of such power, and I was by far the worst.

"It was my idea to form a gang, to bring mortals under our leadership so as to extend our power. We recruited and trained men, ruled them through fear and respect and the promise of riches. I was at the forefront - Cyril was my mentor, but I was a natural leader, and the men turned to me when decisions had to be made. James became my second in command. I became known in whispers as Hellequin, the Devil's Horseman, leader of the Wild Hunt, and together we tormented the Continent.

"No, I was not always the paragon of virtue that you know, gentlemen. In fact, had things gone differently, I would be known to you only as an enemy - perhaps the enemy, if I might allow myself the conceit. I am not proud to say that you cannot name a crime that I have not committed. Theft, arson, rape, blasphemy, treason, assault, murder - it's quite a list, I assure you, and the counts tally far higher than even I dare contemplate anymore. Our reign of terror went on for a decade, until finally, mercifully, it was brought to an end.

"I was returning from a night on the town on my own - we often traveled alone, we three, as unafraid of death as we had become - when I was stopped on the road by two men - two other Immortals, I found as I drew closer. They were unfamiliar to me, and yet, at the same time... we all know each other, in a way, once we've Awakened. I don't know how to explain it, except in our sense of things.

"The one that approached me was known among our kind as the Highlander. Older even than Cyril by a century or more, he was - still is, I believe - considered one of the more dangerous of us, and was most certainly more powerful than me. The other was an African, and older still. I tried to smile and make nice, hoping to make an ally or to at least escape with my skin.

" 'You are the one they call Hellequin, leader of the Wild Hunt?' he asked me.

" 'I am,' I foolishly declared, puffing out my chest with pride.

"He and his companion exchanged glances and then laughed, deep, chilling, foreboding laughs. 'Very nice to meet you,' he said. 'Now you're going to die.' He drew a blade from his coat and leveled it at me, smiling, waiting for me to make the first move.

"I chuckled - high and nervous - and told him that I was unarmed. His African friend only laughed again and threw his own scimitar to me.

"I broke and ran. It was no use, though, the Highlander was faster than I and caught me before I'd even left the road.

" 'It's a little different, isn't it? Facing someone that can actually fight back,' he said - sneered, really. 'Pick up the sword,' he said, and he backed me up until I all but tripped over the blade. 'Come on, Hellequin, go out like a man.' I had no choice but to snatch up the blade and make some vain attempt to save my life. It was for naught - he beat me swiftly, knocked the unfamiliar weapon out of my hands in minutes, and a stab to my gut brought me to the ground.

"That pain awoke something in me - a realization, and as he raised his bastard sword for the execution, it was only solidified. I was not invincible, not a master of the world as I had been lead to believe. The Highlander was right. I was a coward and a bully, and now, faced with the possibility of real death, I was more deeply terrified than I had ever known possible. In my panic I cried out for him to wait, and to my surprise, he did.

" 'I'm not the one you want,' I told him, my plan already forming. 'I'm just a figurehead. You want the leader of the Wild Hunt, I can bring you to him.'

"He looked at me like something he'd stepped in, and made to kill me again.

" 'He's another Immortal!' I cried desperately. 'Much older - more powerful! Taught me everything I know!' This stayed his hand again.

" 'And what is the name of this older Immortal?' he asked.

" 'Pengelly. Cyril Pengelly. I can lead you to him - but you'll never find him without me!'

"The Highlander shared a disgusted look with his friend, but he sheathed his sword. 'Alright,' he agreed. 'Take us to him.'

"And I did. I lead them both back to our hidden encampment, and once they were inside, I ran again, while they were distracted by Cyril and James and the rest of the gang. I looked back only once, and I saw them all locked in combat - Cyril and the Highlander, James and the Moor, the mortal gang pressing around them and then scattering as they realized how ineffectual their little guns were. I looked back just in time to see the Highlander's sword cut through Cyril's neck, just in time to see him fall. James saw, too, and he let out the most terrible, anguished cry. His head whipped around, somehow finding me in amidst the chaos, and his blazing eyes bored accusations into my skull. I turned my back and made good my escape.

"Listless and weary, unhappy with the revelations I had made about my own character, I drifted for a time, my only aim to escape a phantom that seemed to jump from every stray shadow. Eventually I returned to Edinburgh and took up at the medical school, for no real reason other than that it was there when I finally grew tired of the stress of wandering. The coursework was interesting and demanding, and it kept my mind occupied, diverting me from thoughts of pursuers or of my own self-doubts.

"It wasn't to last, though. I was near to finishing my third year when James caught up to me, somehow having escaped the clutches of the African.

"He appeared to me at nightfall, sitting in my room, and when I entered he just asked, 'Why'?

"I could not answer him. What would I say? Admit that I was a coward? That I was so unnerved by the thought of death that I replaced my own neck with that of the man who had taken me in, who was nothing short of a father to us both? Maybe I should have. He deserved the truth. But I again feared for my own hide, and fear stilled my tongue.

"I ran again, and again barely escaped, though James hounded me for months across the Continent, always just half a step behind. Finally, just to escape him, I enlisted in Her Majesty's forces, and due to my meager medical training was made orderly to the surgeons of the Berkshire infantry.

"It was there that I met the real Doctor John Watson, a surgeon that was assigned to us after we'd already broken through enemy lines. I was less than impressed - he was young, with brown hair and a neat moustache, and he said not a word to me on our first meeting, just looked me up and down, nodded in greeting, and walked away. He kept to himself thereafter - indeed, one might have thought him a mute but for the occasional 'yes, sir' to the officers - and as consequence made few friends in the regiment. That part of him I liked, for I had no interest in the fireside chatter that all-too-often turned to homesick anecdotes about farms and families and waiting fiancées and lovers.

"Then we came to battle, and I found a whole other side to the young doctor. As the wounded came in he barked out orders, judging each arrival with a keen, quick eye, judging them by urgency and nothing more. Officer and enlisted, Indian and English, all were equal in his eyes but for their wounds, and he treated them with care and efficiency. He remained at post all through the morning and long into the night, long after the battle had drawn to a close, just walking around the tent and attending, providing what comforts he could now that the urgency was lessened. I even found him standing by the side of a bed, holding a man's hand and just murmuring soothing nothings until the patient slipped into sleep. Only when the last casualty had been loaded back to Candahar did he finally succumb to his own exhaustion, and that night I know that he slept like the dead.

"Apparently he liked what he had seen of me, as well, for no sooner had he woken than he requested that I be assigned to him specifically. That was the extent of his speaking, though, for in the lull he returned to his withdrawn way, ignored most conversation and answered thanks with merely a raised brow and a nod. That night I came to sit by him, and he looked at me, raising his brow. When I made no effort to speak, he smiled. We smoked there, in silence, for the whole of the night - and the next night, and the next. Our second battle together came, and I watched as he repeated his performance, changing again into the expedient professional, and then the tender caregiver.

"The next night, as we sat again by the fire, he spoke to me. He asked - of all things - he asked if I thought he was strange.

"I answered with the truth, and that was, no. I didn't find him strange, so much as perplexing.

"He laughed - for the first time I had ever heard - and asked me why.

"I thought for awhile, and eventually said, 'Because you are the exact opposite of everyone I've ever known. You have such capacity for care and warmth, and yet you shun contact except when the men are wounded. You could be dear friends with every man here if only you gave them a 'hello' and 'good morning' once in awhile. Instead you let them dislike and disparage you, until their lives are in your hands.'

"And he said, 'I don't need to be friends with every man. It would be a pain, anyhow. They aren't my business until they're hurt.'

"I had no answer to that, so we fell into silence once more. Not until the next night did I think of what to say, and I ventured to ask, 'Why do you do this, then? Why save men whose lives you have no interest in?'

"He took a time in answering, and when he did, just said, 'Because I want to. They don't have to be good men, or funny men, or friendly. They don't have to like me, and I don't have to like them. What matters is that they are there, and they deserve a chance.'

"Carefully, I asked, 'Even if they have committed some unforgivable sin?'

" 'I'm in the business of saving lives, not souls,' he said, and he turned and regarded me with that keen gaze of his. 'It's not my place to pass forgiveness. That's for men to earn for themselves - and so long as they still draw breath, they have a chance for it.'

"So utterly pertinent were his words that I was struck speechless. He smiled and excused himself for the night, leaving me to wonder if he'd found out about my past, and how, and if he would come to his senses in the night and realize that I was despicable and not worth his second-chance philosophy. The thoughts nagged at me all night, but I never had a chance to press him further, for the next morning we had struck out for fateful Maiwand, and this time we found ourselves on the field itself. With men and horses screaming around us, mortars whistling down and rifles roaring, we did what we could to save the fallen, despite too few supplies and too many wounded. I already wrote of how a Jezail bullet shattered my shoulder, and of the mortar shrapnel that tore into my leg. It was Watson that shot the Ghazi who would have finished the job, dressed my wound there on the battlefield, wrapped me in his own coat - for I had torn mine into makeshift bandages long before - and brought me back to British lines. He told me I would be alright, and then he turned away, as if to march straight back onto the battlefield. I have no doubt that he did just that.

"That was the last time I ever saw him.

"The next months progressed as I wrote - enteric fever and all - with one exception. Wrapped as I was in Watson's coat - and bearing something of a resemblance, if my more reddish hair were ignored - I was assumed to be Watson, and by the time I was in any state to refute it, everyone already had it firmly in their heads. Though I searched for news of the real man, it was in vain, and the only thing close to it that I could find was a singular name among the fatalities - Murray, Thomas.

"Sometimes I wonder just how it happened, and wish I could have been there to see. I imagine him shot a dozen times by a dozen Ghazi rifles - and he shoots them right back down and keeps going, keeps on until the retreat is called, until the men are all back at Kushk-i-Nakhud, and only when they're all in safe hands does he finally fall, just collapses without pomp and ceremony and is buried right along with the rest. Somehow I think it's the sort of thing he'd have wanted.

"So he was dead, and so, in effect, was I. I didn't have to run anymore. And without that to guide me, I found myself again drifting, without purpose, until the tides of old Britain carried me to London, and I found myself with a razor in hand, staring at my wretched face in the mirror of a fine hotel where I was registered under his name. I had finally set about shaving the beard-growth from my months of sickness, and though my cheeks were bare, I had paused at my upper lip. It may sound strange, but it was there, staring in the mirror at this strip of hair, that I found my purpose.

"With my moustache groomed, a touch of make-up, and a hat to cover my reddish hair, it was no longer the coward Thomas Murray that looked back at me from the mirror, but John Watson. I had already taken up his name, the least that I could do was try to do it service - to take my second chance and make all that I could out of it. Though I was not yet sure how, I resolved that so long as I still drew breath, I would pay tenfold for every one of my sins, and more, if circumstances permitted.

"That very day, someone saw my disguise, and recognized me for the man I was pretending to be. I improvised my way through lunch with Stamford - and through him, I met you.

"For me to take rooms with such an observant man must seem foolhardy, but from the first moment I met you I could not have said no - you were so deucedly full of life, so straightforward and honest, and in small ways, so much like the real Watson that at times it hurt to even be near you. I had to agree.

"When I went with you on that first case, that's when I knew for certain I'd made the right decision, for it was you that gave me the how. Here, at your side, I could help set right what I'd done wrong, by aiding in the capture of men like the one I had once been. I even hoped to set up a practice, eventually, so that I might save lives as well as avenge them. As time went on I relaxed my guard. I used less and less of the make-up, until I gave it up completely - foolishly believing that I had finally left Murray behind.

"Until tonight... until I recognized the Immortal that we were coming to, and was seized by that old, terrible fear... I... I almost ran again. I almost left you both to die, simply because I was too much of a coward to face my comeuppance."

The room fell silent.

Dawn had broken while the doctor's story unfolded, pale rays peering through the smoke that curled listlessly from the cigarette dangling in the doctor's fingers. He had migrated to the bow windows, where he watched the first trickles of sleepy-eyed morning traffic make their way past. The other two remained fixed in their seats, utterly stupefied.

Eventually Holmes took a deep breath, rolling his long-cold pipe between shaking hands. "That's... that's quite a remarkable story," he said.

"Yes," the doctor said gravely. "Yes, it is."

After another moment, Holmes rose and set about repacking the pipe. "What was it," he asked, tentatively, "that James said to you, back on the docks?"

The doctor's voice was flat as he recalled the words. " 'So, now go tell, an if thy tongue can speak, who 'twas that cut thy tongue and ravish'd thee. Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so, an if thy stumps will let thee play the scribe.' Titus Andronicus, act five, scene one, the brothers Demetrius and Chiron mock Lavinia after ravishing her and cutting off her hands and tongue so she could not reveal her tormentors." He took a draught from his cigarette and then stubbed it out. "I played Chiron."

Holmes' already pallid countenance paled further.

"That- that was meant as a threat?" said Lestrade. Watson nodded again, and Lestrade's color followed Holmes'. Silence again descended over the room, cloying and uncomfortable.

The doctor broke it with a sigh and rose, keeping his gaze to the carpet. "The first train is in an hour," he said. "I'll be gone in half."

Holmes' eyes went wide. "What? No! I absolutely forbid it!"

"Holmes-"

"Absolutely not, and that's final."

"I don't think you understand..."

It was Lestrade that answered. "No, Doctor, I think you've got that one backward." He rose and marched over, looking up into Watson's surprised blue eyes. "Whatever your name is - whatever may lie in your past - you are, in my experience, the most decent and noble man that I have ever had the privilege of knowing. I have never had reason to doubt that, until tonight - and after tonight, I still feel the same. We can't all be born saints, Doctor - we all make mistakes, even Mister Holmes here - but it's what we do to fix them that counts."

"Well-said, Inspector," Holmes chimed, finally lighting his pipe before he joined them by the window. "And may I add that I can think of no more worthy a candidate for a second chance. I would be nothing short of honoured to keep you by my side, Doctor, and to further your purpose in whatever way I can."

"But I- I almost abandoned you," the doctor protested. "I'm not-"

"But you didn't. You were afraid, yes. Fear is natural, dear boy. He was older, stronger, and bore a rather deep grudge. You overcame that - and just in time, too. No, I won't hear of you leaving, not a word! I've just gotten used to having you around."

That finally brought a smile to the doctor's face, his blue eyes shining. "I... I-I don't know what to say," he said, his voice choked with barely-repressed emotion. "But... thank you. Thank you both."

"Of course. Besides, these abilities of yours might prove quite handy in-" said Holmes, trailing into a not-quite stifled yawn. "Ah, but it's been a long night for all of us. Now that's all settled, I propose we all turn in for a few hours. Inspector, you're welcome to the settee. You had best still be here when we wake up, Doctor - by the by, what name would you prefer we call you?"

"I've grown rather fond of 'Watson'."

"Well, then, Watson you shall continue to be. I'm sure your namesake is glad to know his name is being put to good use."

Watson smiled all the way back to his bed.