by Donna and Abby

Ignoring her burning lungs, Katherine Dixon concentrated on one and only one thing - running for her life. Part of her mind seemed to say, why bother? If she stopped, the loneliness and despair that was her lot lately would finally be ended, and she could join her Captain in the final death. But the urge to survive was too strong in her to just give up. Ignoring the voices of defeat in her head, she kept on running. She could hear the running footsteps of the Immortal who had discovered her walking back to the dingy little studio apartment she called home, and challenged her. Instead of drawing a sword, she had hit his nose with the flat of her hand as hard as she could, shattering his nose, and then turned on her heels and started running. The footsteps were getting louder and she knew he was getting closer.

Ducking into an alleyway that she knew would lead her to a street with the nearest church, she raced through the darkness, sending the stray cats scurrying for cover as she ran by. A pile of large pile of boxes blocked her way, and when she reached the obstacle in her mad dash for safety, she did a flying vault to the other side. But to her surprise, instead of landing on her feet, she hit water instead and with a big splash, went completely under!

Fighting the momentary panic, she kicked her feet, heading back to the surface, choking and gasping for air. As she tread water, Katherine looked around. The city was gone! All she could see in the moonlit darkness was the outline of trees. From the feel of the current, she appeared to be in some sort of river. Once she had recovered her breath, she started swimming with the current, heading for the nearest shore.

When she got to the shore, the only thing she could think of was getting warm and dry. It wasn't overly cold, but she wanted a fire and didn't have the patience to make it. She could smell wood smoke and she followed it, eventually finding a small fire with a very young man huddled over it. He was shivering.

Soaked to the skin, she was a little chilled herself. Clearing her throat to catch the man's attention, Katherine said softly, "Mind if I share your fire? I just took a rather unplanned bath in the river back there."

He looked frightened for a moment at the sound of her voice, then tried to stand and tripped over the log he was sitting on. He couldn't have been more than 18 years old. Forgetting her chill, Katherine went to see if he was all right, and in the light of the fire she realized that he looked just like a very young Kronos!

But the teenager sprawled on the ground in front of her was not Immortal. She knew that was sure. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to startle you," she said with a friendly smile. She knew she must look like a kid herself, her clothes and hair still dripping water from her dip in the river. "My name is Kat. What's yours?" she asked as she extended her hand to help him to his feet.

"B-Bogaslav," he stuttered in a heavy accent. "I-I just g-got here."

English was clearly not his first language.

"Polish?" she asked, and when he nodded, she switched to his language, hoping to make him feel more at ease. Together, the two of them huddled near the fire as Kat tried to squeeze the excess water from the dress she was wearing. She was barefoot, having lost her shoes somewhere in her mad flight away from the man pursuing her.

Bogaslav seemed to relax a little when she had begun speaking his language, though he was still nervous, being very young - and not experienced with women. This one was beautiful! And smart, too, he thought, since she was clearly not Polish but could speak it like a native.

The two of them chatted away, getting to know each other, as Katherine built up the fire with some of the wood lying around. "Would you mind terrible if I took off this wet thing and hang it up to dry?" she asked, indicating her dress.

The gulp he made was audible way on the other side of the fire! Nodding, he put his head down immediately, and then, after a moment, he started to take off his shirt.

But as she peeled off her wet dress and slip, he couldn't resist taking a peek. Dressed in a rather lacy push up bra and bikini panties, he could see there wasn't much of her, but what he saw, he really liked. Taking the shirt that he offered her, Katherine smiled kindly at him. "Thank you very much," she said, slipping it over her head.

He nodded, shivering a little, and then went back to the fire. The chill was a *good* thing, he thought, praying to himself for some relief from unclean thoughts.

Katherine hung her clothes across some branches to dry. "Once the sun comes up, we can see if we can find some sign of civilization," she suggested. Gathering up a bunch of pine needles, she made a small bed of sorts near the fire. "We would stay warmer if we lie next to each other, don't you think? Don't worry, I won't bite."

"I might," he said, hoping she didn't hear him.

Katherine chuckled softly, laying down on the bed of pine needles. After a moment of hesitation, the young man laid down with her and she snuggled into his arms. As the two of them lay under the stars next to the fire, all thoughts of being cold faded away. It was a very nice feeling having her cuddle up to him the way she was. Very nice indeed.

He hoped she wouldn't say anything about what had to be poking her in the back! She made a snuggly sound, pushing back onto him, and he bit his lips so hard he tasted blood. "Good night, Bogaslav," she said.

"Good night, Miss," he croaked in return.

She drifted off to sleep, Katherine’s small body combining her heat with that of his own. Surely he wouldn't be able to sleep himself, he thought as he yawned. But it had been a long, eventful day, and as the sounds of the night lulled him to sleep, he snuggled closer to her, and before he knew it, he too was asleep.

The next thing he knew, it was dawn. Birds were singing a cheerful chorus of morning song, and the rising sun was sifting through the trees, bathing the little wooded glen in its soft, reddish glow. His shirt had been draped over his bare shoulders, and the young woman was once more wearing her dress. She was kneeling down by the fire, over which a river trout stuffed with wild carrots and a few other types of vegetation was roasting on a spit. It smelled wonderful!

His stomach growled as he sat up. His shirt started to slide off, he caught it, and then he sniffed the air. "That smells good," he said. "I am hungry. I thank you for making me - us - breakfast."

"No problem," she chuckled, handing him a piece of bark after he had put his shirt back on. "Use this for a plate. We'll have to use our fingers though to eat with." She took the fish off the spit and pushed it onto a flat rock, and divided it between the two of them. "Plenty of food around here it looks like. You just have to know what to look for."

He just nodded. Though she looked young - maybe even younger than him - she seemed more experienced at these things. All he could do was milk a cow. Not much of a qualification for this sort of life!

The fish was excellent. It seemed to almost melt in his mouth and he wished that there had been two of them on the spit. After they ate the last bit of it, Katherine handed the young man a couple of pieces of fruit. "Eat one now, and stuff the rest in your pockets. We can snack on them as we walk. I'll put out the fire and we can get started."

He nodded obediently and did as she asked. Then he went to wash up in the river, which still wasn't that far away. In fact, they were able to use their bark "plates" to bring water to douse the fire! And then they were on the road.

"Won't your feet hurt?" he asked, wondering if he should give her his shoes. They would be too large, though, and unlike shirts, shoes did more harm than good if they did not fit properly.

"I'm tougher than I look," Katherine told him with a playful sparkle in her bright blue eyes. "I've had to rough it more than once in my lifetime." What she didn't tell him was that she had actually been alive for over 430 years.

As they walked, Katherine pointed out various edible plants, and some that were questionable at best. A couple of wild deer crossed their path from time to time, and more than once, they scared up rabbits. Katherine found a vine like plant that she stripped off a tree, and told him that if they had to camp out again, she could set up a snare trap and maybe catch one of them for her dinner if push came to shove.

But it wasn't necessary. After a couple of hours of walking, they came upon a trail. Pointing down in the dirt, Kat pointed out both tracks of people walking on foot, and riding on horseback. "You can tell the horse had a rider by how deep of a track it left," she explained.

He nodded, soaking in everything she said. He didn't know why he was here, but Providence had sent him a guide, and a very pretty one at that. "Cows I know," he said. "Not horses."

From the way she wrinkled up her pert little nose, she had had some experience with cows herself. "I prefer horses," she told him. "Though a tall glass of ice cold milk would go down awful good right now."

"Do you know," he smiled, "I would volunteer to milk a herd of cows, I'm just so happy to see buildings and, hopefully, other people!" Then, thinking of how it sounded, he flushed. Katherine laughed and said she understood; she took his hand and they ran toward town.

As they hit the edge of town, they slowed down, and still holding hands, walked down the streets. "Looks like a ghost town," Kat mumbled to herself in English, then switched back to Polish for her young friend’s benefit. They passed a livery of sorts, where several horses and one milk cow dozed in the bright sunshine. When the cow mooed at them, Kat chuckled and poked Bogy in the ribs, teasing him about he might have to milk one after all. They passed several shops, all with goods inside them, but there was no sign of anyone manning the till.

Suddenly Kat froze, pulling Bogy to a halt beside her as the tingling sensation of the presence of another Immortal washed over her. "Oh balderdash," she grumbled. "Not again!"

"Why if it isn't Little Katherine Dixon," said a familiar bass. "Look,

MacLeod. Everyone's showing up for the party."

Katherine whipped around, her heart pounding at the name Methos had spoken. But seeing it was only Connor's cousin Duncan, a low moan escaped her lips, and all the color drained from her face. Her legs wobbled under her for a moment, as the sudden stab of wild hope died in her heart. Katherine stood up as tall and straight as her barely five feet of height would allow, head held high and proud as she once more fighting the grief that had been a constant part of her daily existence every since the dreadful night that Duncan MacLeod had taken the life of his elder kinsman.

Duncan was scowling at Methos' levity. Looking at Katherine, he said, "I'm sorry, Kat. He wanted me to . . . I know, that's no excuse."

"It would have been kinder if you had taken my head as well," she said in Gaelic as the young lad next to her moved closer to her side, as if to somehow protect her from the two strangers. "I have no real reason to live anymore, and you know it."

"Perhaps that is why you're here," Methos said. "To start over. We're all starting over."

Kat tilted her chin up at him a defiant manner, but when the ancient Immortal met her eyes, he saw the same sort of haunted look in them that had been there when he had first met the petite Scotswoman. It had taken her years to recover from the horrific abuse that had put that look in them back then. Could she recover from the loss of the man she had loved almost all of her life?

"Maybe," she said with a sigh. "I was one step away from having it ended for good in a dark alleyway. But instead I took an unplanned bath in a rather cold river that appeared out of nowhere. Can we get Bogy here settled somewhere? Maybe then you can tell me just what exactly is going on here?"

"I find it encouraging that you were running away," Methos said wisely. If she wanted to die, all she had to do was give up. "C'mon Bogy," he lingered over the word, "we'll get you a room upstairs."

They got the young Polish lad settled with a room, and left him polishing off another plate of food that Lupe provided him. Walking between Methos and Duncan, Katherine followed them into a private drawing room that could be used for poker or some other form of entertainment. Setting heavily in a chair, Katherine gave up the struggle to maintain her composure and allowed the tears to fall. MacLeod hesitated for a moment, then put his arms around her and held her tight, even though her grief was almost overpowering once the two of them were in actual physical contact.

The fact of the matter was that he felt it, too, even without her empathy. And he was carrying Connor's essence within him.

Methos looked at the two of them oddly, a little surprised that Katherine would let the man who had killed her long time lover anywhere near her. But then again, the petite Scotswoman had always shown an amazing capacity to forgive. After a moment, she sat up, wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said, her sweet voice cracking with emotion. "I don't know what came over me."

"I do," said Duncan. Then he stopped, confused for a moment, and said, "I do! I really do. Did you and Connor have a connection of some sort?"

Katherine nodded, a sad smile. "We did. It started accidentally, the night he first made love to me. I didn't have much control of my abilities back then. Every time we were together, the bond became stronger. It didn't take long before whenever we were in close contact with each other, we could feel what the other was feeling. It made for some pretty wild sex at times, I can tell you that for nothing," she said, shaking her head.

Duncan shook his as well. It was almost as he could hear his teacher's rather unique laugh ringing in his head, as if he was agreeing wholeheartedly with what Katherine was saying.

Glancing up, Kat caught Methos' eye. "The same thing happens from time to time when I am with someone else, although it never became the permanent bond like the one my Captain and I had. Did have." She sighed softly, crossing her arms over her breasts and the feeling of utter desolation that had been her constant companion since that awful night threatened to overpower her again.

Methos wondered if she was trying to tell him something. As Doc Adams, he had taken her out of an abusive brothel where he had found her chained to a wall, keeping after her - gently, he thought - until she was able to give herself physically without the trauma she had come to expect. Was she trying to say she'd shared a bond with him during their brief time together?

Maybe they had, he thought, drawing on the memory of their last night together, back in New Orleans, just before the War Between the States. That night had seemed to be special for both of them, since they had known that most likely, it would be a very long time before their paths crossed again, if they ever did. Katherine was unique among immortals, since she refused to carry a sword. Methos was somewhat surprised she had managed to survive all the time she had without hiding out on Holy Ground like most of their kind who chose the path of non-violence.

"Excuse me," she said, rising up from the little settee she was sharing with Duncan. "I need to clean up a bit. I must look a fright." As she disappeared into the nearby bathroom, Methos and Duncan exchanged glances.

After a moment, Methos said regretfully, "If she'll have you, I think you have more issues with her than I do. We parted friends."