Amanda held her breath as she clipped the wire, wincing at the loud sound the cutters made in the still winter night. If I can just pull this one job off, I swear, I'll give up stealing... well, at least for a while, Amanda prayed to no one in particular. She hated that she was having a hard time with the security system; especially with her extensive experience.

"Hurry up! I'm freezing out here!" Methos hissed in her ear, making Amanda jump. She'd nearly forgotten he was there.

What am I doing? She asked herself, and why am I with Mr. Personality here? What was I thinking? Duncan's going to be really pissed when he...

"Got it!" She said under her breath.

"What?" Methos whispered back.

"I said, 'Open Seasame'." Amanda said as the door to the storage area swung open.

They looked around the dusty room, seeing crates from all over the world, from all different times. Tall objects covered in sheets, most likely statues, were gathered together in the far right corner. There were thin rectangular objects, covered in paper that would protect the priceless art underneath, laying all over as well. But it was what lay in the center of the room that drew the attention of both Immortals.

"Two cars? I thought he only had one here." Methos whispered in confusion.

"Well, he must have had them ship the other one from the states, after... you know." Amanda whispered as she walked between them, pulling the protective covers off as she went along. "He is such a pack rat at heart. He never really threw it all away. Good thing too, because I love the T-bird." She opened the driver's side door, and slid in as Methos did the same on the other side.

"Duncan's gonna be really pissed if he finds out we did this..." Amanda started.

"So, we'll just neglect to mention the fact that we went snooping in his storage building. Now what? And why are we still whispering?" Methos whispered back...

Amanda snickered. "You know, I'm not sure. I guess I'm just use to being quiet while I work."

That caused a chuckle from Methos. "So, what's the plan, or do you have one?" He suddenly realized he had agreed to help her without knowing full well what he was suppose to do. How stupid could he be?

She cocked her head at him, which he understood not to be a good sign. "Of course I have a plan. Well, sort of. I need to make sure it's still here."

Methos glanced around the storage room. "It could be anywhere. But I don't suppose it would just jump up and announce it's whereabouts?"

A sigh filled the space between them. "I should have just left you out of this. I should have known you'd be like this."

"Hey, what you see is what you get." His grin infuriated her.

"Fine. You stay here, and I'll look for it," she huffed.

"Fine," Methos huffed back, mockingly. "I'll be on the lookout."

Amanda rolled her eyes. "As if I wouldn't know if he was coming," she mumbled.

Methos slid into the driver's seat when she exited the car. "I've always wanted to do this." But she ignored him and set about the room once again. Not sure which side to search first, she ran her gloved hand along a sheet clad object. It was one of the sculptures that Tessa had created. Amanda was almost certain that most of the art work there had been created by his one-time lover.

"Think Amanda," she told herself. "If I was MacLeod, where would I hide it?" Rounding the corner of a pile of momentos, she found the place. "Here," she smiled victoriously and reached for the sheet to unveil....

Across town at Le Blues, Joe Dawson was busy watching the club's new band rehearse before their premiere later that night. "Blues in the Raw" as they called themselves, was a five piece all acoustic band with a range of material from Muddy Waters to Allman Brothers; pretty good in his opinion. Actually damn good to be honest. Steve, the lead guitarist, like all the really great ones, seemed to have been born with the instrument in his hands; although his vocals could stand a little fine tuning, Joe was looking forward to jam sessions with him. What really caught his attention though was the pianist, Randi. Her raw, throaty vocals were a guaranteed crowd pleaser. As she worked through Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" he was captivated by the power of her voice. The pain expressed was a palpable thing, and he found himself wondering just how much of it was the song and how much was genuine.

"Got some Janice Joplin in her doesn't she?" Duncan whispered as he took the chair next to Joe.

"In more ways than one. She has Janice's face tattooed on her right shoulder."

"Joe, I'm shocked at you! Peepholes in the dressing room?" he jokingly chided.

Joe chuckled. "Nope, she was wearing a spaghetti strap job under that jacket when they came in earlier."

"And of course you hired them on the spot, right?"

"Not gonna quit are you?"

"When you got 'em down, keep 'em down." he smiled.

"They just got here from the States. Friend of mine from Chicago told me I should give 'em a listen. The job was a natural after what I heard."

Duncan paused to listen to Randi finish the song with a flourish; joined Joe in rousing applause before turning again to his friend/Watcher. "Speaking of friends Joe, seen Amanda or Methos lately?"

"Not since last week. Why, what's up Mac?"

"Oh, nothing concrete. Just a feeling that one or the other of them, or both of them is up to something. If it's Amanda, it's probably illegal, if it's Methos, it's mischief and if it's the two of them together, I don't want to think about it Joe."

"Well, if I hear anything, I'll let you know." As they rose from the table Duncan made his way toward the door and Joe went behind the bar. After pouring himself a bourbon, he watched his friend disappear into the Paris fog. A sly smile spread across his face; he toasted aloud, "Here's to you Amanda and friend. If you screw this up, we are in deep trouble."

After looking for Amanda and Methos at a few other places after leaving Joe's; without any luck, Duncan decided to call it a night. The fog thickened around him as he approached the barge; he became aware of another immortal.

...as he turned around he saw a brief glance of his black T-bird go past. He also saw what looked like a sculpture in the back seat, covered with a white tarp. "What the...."

Methos and Amanda saw MacLeod standing by his barge and sped up, hoping he wouldn't recognize his car. "Amanda, I thought you said he wouldn't be back in town yet." Methos said.

"I didn't think he would be, but we've got other things to worry about, remember?"

"Yes Amanda, I do. Where should we stash the statue?"

"We'll leave it with Joe. I just hope Duncan doesn't notice us."

"Well for you it wouldn't be so bad, but he might kill me if he found out I was involved in this."

Methos and Amanda went to Joe's apartment to stash the statue. When they got there it was about two in the morning. "Hope he's up." Methos muttered. "Don't worry Methos, he will be. I cleared everything with him before we took the statue." Amanda said as she rang the bell.

Ding-dong

"I'm coming; hold on."

"Hello Joe. How are you on this wonderful night in Paris?" Methos said when Joe opened the door.

"Good. Amanda." He nodded toward her to acknowledge she was there. "You bring it?"

"Yeah we did, where should put it?"

"In the closet, if it fits that is."

"It'll fit. Mac got in to town tonight. I think he might have seen us driving his car..."

MacLeod was sitting in his barge collecting his thoughts. Who was driving my car? He sat there thinking about any details of who was driving. I remember blond hair. That was all he could remember.....

"Okay, on the count of three. One, two, three," Joe counted. On three, he, Methos, and Amanda shoved the heavy metal sculpture into the closet and closed the door. Amanda and Joe both collapsed on the couch as Methos headed into the kitchen.

"You know, for a sculpture that thing is heavy. How did you two get it into the T-bird?" Joe asked.

"Pure luck. I don't think we could do that again if we tried," Amanda answered.

Methos sauntered back over to them and handed them each a drink. Then, clutching his own beer, he settled down into the soft recliner. "Alright, Amanda, we have it here and it's in one piece. Now tell us what is so special about this one sculpture," he said as he turned his gold-green eyes toward her.

Amanda just grinned. "Well, the first time he showed it to me, his whole face seemed to light up. I had never seen him so proud of an object in all the time I had known him. It was very special to his heart."

"When was this?" Joe asked.

"Let me see. Oh, yeah, now I remember...."

Paris, 1992

Amanda and MacLeod walked through a small storage area, Amanda with her hand on Duncan's bent arm. "This is where Tessa keeps the pieces she can't stand parting with." Duncan said with a loving smile.

"Duncan," Amanda said with just a touch of petulance, "why are we here?"

Duncan looked at Amanda with the look of pity that people in love give to those who aren't. "You wanted to know why I stay with her, year after year, while she gets closer and closer to dying?" He said softly, while he stared at a large object, covered by a dusty, white sheet. "Because it makes everything... more. It makes every moment count more. Every kiss is worth a thousand more, and every look, every word, each one is just worth... more.

"And likewise, so is everything she does. She doesn't have forever like we do, so Tessa has to put as much living in as possible. She has to feel everything. She has to do everything. And when I'm with her, I can almost pretend I'm mortal. In the past, way too short, thirteen years, Tessa has done more for me, shown me more, and helped me more than the three hundred and eighty-seven years before I met her. I love her Amanda. That is why I stay. Not because I feel obligated to her, but because I need her. I love her, and I can't imagine being without her."

For the briefest of moments, Amanda understood how Duncan felt, but then she banished the thought. Now is not the time to indulge in self-pity, she thought, and then spoke: "So what's under the sheet?"

Duncan placed his hand on the top of the covered sculpture, and pulled the sheet away. "This."

Amanda stared at the piece of art before her. It was a painting, in a metal frame. The painting was over five feet tall, and on either side was a standing figure, leaning its back against the frame. Although each reclining figure was made from metal, what Amanda had already realized as Tessa's favorite medium, it was easy to discern that one figure was a man, and the other a woman. Their arms were streched out behind them, and each one's fingers intertwined with the other's as they held the painting between them.

The painting was double sided. On one side was a painting of a young couple, the man with dark hair, the woman with blond, laying in a tangle of sheets as they held each other. On the other side, the painting was of an elderly couple, their backs to the artist's perspective. They stood, holding hands, at the edge of a cliff, and looked down at what appeared to be either a small city or a town below them. It may have been a small, perhaps almost insignificant villiage that they looked at, but it was by no means boring. Fading sunlight glinted off of rooftops, and people that were little more than specks of color walked in the streets.

Amanda turned to Duncan when she could trust her composure. "It's beautiful." She whispered.

Paris, present