By XWingAce

DISCLAIMER: Highlander, its universe and its characters don’t belong to me, and I’m not making a profit off them. The idea of an Immortal Joe Dawson is Jo Layne’s, and my thanks to her for letting me continue playing with it.

Also my thanks to Beth Winter, who was nice enough to beta this for me. (And thanks for the compliments Beth!)

TIMELINE NOTE: This story takes place near the end of Stand By Me 2: Artificial Immortality, by Jo Layne.

I’ve written another story in the same timeline, titled Amy’s Death, set sixty years after this one.

Both of these fics were written before I’d ever seen ‘Endgame’, so as far as this story is concerned, that never happened.

~~~~~

New York. The Big Apple. An enormous city, always bustling with people, on packed sidewalks and in towering high-rises. But even so, outside those areas --which were the only ones the common tourist usually saw-- it was pretty much a city like any other. In the back streets lay the smaller clubs and the more interesting shops. That was where Joe was walking on his two artificial legs. They were so good that he didn’t even need a cane.

He’d taken a vacation from the Watchers to spend some quality time with his daughter, while he still could. It wouldn’t be too long before he’d have to distance himself from Amy and the organisation. If he didn’t, they would start to notice things. Things like him looking a lot younger than he really was, for instance. Immortality would do that.

A few months ago he’d suffered a heart attack and ended up in a Watcher-run nursing home. What the Watchers didn’t know was that the supervisor of the home was running medical experiments behind their backs. She was trying to find a way to induce Immortality, and was using the patients in the home as test subjects. Amy had tried to contact her father in the home, and when she found she couldn’t, she’d mobilised Mac and Methos to get him out. They succeeded, and after that they allied with the Watchers to find and punish Clarissa Barrymore. They found her alright, but she escaped, killing Joe in the process. Then he revived. Surprise wasn’t the word for it. And more, with all the excitement, his daughter hadn’t even found out about this, and he wasn’t so sure he should tell her. She was also a Watcher, after all.

Amy hadn’t arrived in New York yet so he was just getting a feel for the place. He was browsing in the shops, checking out the clubs and generally seeing the sights. He had promised Amy that he would pick out a nice club for them to go to the first evening they could spend together.

As he looked around him, he noticed that he recognised features of it . He was absolutely certain that he’d never been here before, but he had seen that building somewhere. And that one. That antiques store definitely rang a bell. The sign read Nash Antiques.

But of course. Connor Macleod had run that store. Nash had been his alias at the time. The store and the street must have been in pictures taken by his Watcher. Then again, that had been more than fifteen years ago. Surely someone would have put another shop there by now? Well, there was only one way to find out, go in and ask.

When he entered the store a bell chimed and an elderly man came out of the back to greet him. Whoever it was, Joe knew it most certainly wasn’t Connor. “Good afternoon, sir. May I help you?”

“Mr Nash?” Joe asked, knowing the answer, but hoping to find out more.

“Sorry sir, Mr Nash doesn’t own this store anymore. I shouldn’t think he owns anything anymore.”

“Why is that?”

“He died, sir, fifteen years ago. He left this store and an apartment to his adopted daughter. She hired me to take care of the store. After Rachel died, I bought it.”

“And you are?”

“Marcus Blake at your service. Is there anything you wanted to ask Mr. Nash about?”

“No, not really. I’d heard of this store somewhere, but that was a long time ago. I thought it was odd that it was still here.”

“I never bothered to change the sign. I mean, it’s still an antiques store. The name also came with immense goodwill and didn’t want to change it. Who really cares anyway?”

“The tax collector, maybe? But I see your point.”

“So, may I help you, Mr…?”

“Dawson. Not at the moment. I’d just like to browse.”

“Just give me a sign if you want anything, Mr Dawson. Well, almost anything.”

Joe had a laugh at that closing remark while Marcus went back to his task at the back of the shop. He’d found out what he wanted to know, but there was no reason why he couldn’t browse for a while. He looked at the display cases, all displaying some sort of silverware. Not much of interest there, but on the other side lay some far more interesting things. A quartet of claymores, for example, and a few used-looking shields. Blake must have raided Connor’s apartment to get these things in his shop.

This side seemed to serve as an unofficial storage area, because nothing had been sorted. The items were just piled in a heap, half concealed by another row of display cases containing statuettes. Something poked up through the pile. It seemed to be a kind of walking stick, a cane. Joe grabbed onto it and pulled. It came free very easily, but it was heavier than he expected.

The object was a little over a metre in length, with two metal knobs on it, one on the end where the hand would rest, and the other about fifteen centimetres further down. The knobs and the area in between were finely engraved, but the rest was smooth. Joe could just make out a monogram featuring the initials CM. There was also a plate of metal on the lower end to protect the wood from wear. Still, even accounting for all that metal, it felt too heavy for what was essentially a metre-long, three quarter inch-thick stick.

Blake must have seen him holding the cane, because he came over to talk to Joe. “An interesting piece, that. It was part of Mr Nash’s personal collection. He seemed very interested in anything to do with weapons.”

“Weapons? This is a cane, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes. But that’s not all it is. Try twisting the handle.”

Joe turned the knob on the end, and to his surprise the lower part of the cane came loose, revealing a rapier blade eighty-five centimetres long. The gleam made it look as if it were still razor-sharp. He tested it with his thumb. It was. He whistled. “This couldn’t have been a common feature.”

“I don’t know much about this kind of antique, but carrying a sword of some kind was relatively common well into the nineteenth century, so this fits right in with the period.”

“Do you know what the initials stand for?”

Blake looked at the cane and shook his head. “CM? Could be anything. I don’t know how Nash came by it. All of this came out of his apartment before it was sold. Rachel thought that maybe I could do something with it, so it got lumped in with the store inventory. But I specialise more in artwork, not weaponry. All of it’s been lying around here for years. Not many people are interested in it. I do believe that you are the first to inquire about any of it in years.”

“Really? Well, I like this. Not something I expected to find, but I think it’s just me.”

“This is a store. You can buy it, if you like. Two hundred dollars.”

That was a lot of money, but Joe really wanted this cane. Maybe Blake was interested in a little bartering. He sure seemed to ask for it, with that kind of price. He could play ball. “Two hundred dollars? I thought you said nobody was interested in this stuff. That’s an awful lot of money for something no-one is looking for.”

“You’re looking to buy it now, aren’t you?”

“Not for that kind of money, I’m not. I do have a limit to my means, you know.”

“Because you like it so much, and because you knew Mr Nash, maybe I can cut down a little. One-seventy-five.”

He was right. Blake had been looking for someone to practise his art of negotiation on. As long as this got the price down, Joe was more than willing to co-operate. He put the cane back together and looked it over before handing it to Blake. “Seventy-five.”

“Come on. It’s worth more than that. One-fifty.”

Joe was enjoying this. Bartering could be fun, if you didn’t do it with someone whose experience far outweighed yours. He painfully remembered a few bargains he’d struck with Methos, all unfavourable for himself. This wouldn’t prove such a disaster. Blake wasn’t that good. “Ninety.”

“Are you trying to rob me? One-thirty.”

“Robbing you? The thought hadn’t crossed my mind. Aren’t you robbing me, though? A hundred.”

“I am a far too kind man for this. One-twenty. Final offer.”

Joe could see by the look on his face that Blake was enjoying this as much as he was, but it was nearing the end. The men shook hands as they both said: “One-ten”

“You drive a hard bargain, Mr Dawson. Shall I wrap this up for you or will you take it as is?”

“I had a good teacher, Mr Blake, and I’ll just take it with me. No need to pack it.”

Joe handed over the one hundred and ten dollars, and took the cane back from Blake. This was money well spent. He’d never been a man for long coats, but with this cane he could always have a sword in hand without anyone noticing it. Everyone was used to seeing him with a cane anyway. He didn’t need it anymore, because his new prosthetic legs enabled him to walk --even run short distances-- unaided, but he’d gotten them very recently. So few people had seen him walking without a cane, that it would go virtually unnoticed.

“A pleasure doing business with you,” Blake called after him as he left the shop.

“That I’ll believe,” mumbled Joe to himself while he walked out of the street. He still had about two hours to kill before he had to head for the airport to pick up Amy, but he had enough of browsing for the day. Maybe he could spend the time trying to find a cabbie that spoke proper English. Nah, Joe thought. Finding one needle in a haystack was enough for a day. No sense in pushing his luck.

He did signal for a taxi, and told the driver --a Russian, from the sound of it-- to head for the airport. He could park himself in a coffee-shop and just do what he had been doing for years, watch. Only this time he could watch whoever he wanted, instead of one particular person. Maybe it would make for a nice change.

Or maybe not. After ten minutes of people-watching, Joe was bored. Somehow, watching what one person was doing was more interesting than watching the world at large. And he still had an hour to wait. Well, he didn’t see any reason to stay here. They didn’t even play good music. He tossed some money for his drink on the table and left the bar.

The newspaper stand didn’t have anything particularly interesting either. He picked up a copy of TIME just to have something to read, then sat down on a bench near the arrival gate.

“Air France flight 112 out of Paris is now arriving.”

Joe looked up when the announcement came over the speakers. That was the flight that Amy would arrive on. He got up and walked to the gate. He waved as he saw his daughter approaching. She came to him and greeted him with a kiss on the cheek. She asked, “Have you picked out a decent club yet?”

“Half a dozen. But I still think mine’s the best. You’re going to have to play referee on that one.”

“Then yours is not going to be the best. I never was all that keen on Blues or Jazz.”

“Oh, and here I picked all those Jazz clubs. Looks like we’re going to have to improvise. Shall we go?”

As he turned to head for the exit Amy noticed the cane he was using. “I thought you didn’t need a cane anymore.”

Oops. Amy was one of those few people who knew that he didn’t need a cane. Bad slip-up, Joseph. “I couldn’t get used to walking without one. Besides, I look far to good holding one of these.”

Amy looked at him, not sure whether it was a joke or that he really meant it. Then she seemed to decide to let it go.

“True enough. Now, can you at least find us a cabbie that speaks English?”

“In New York? Not a chance. But the hotel’s close to a subway exit. We don’t need a cab. Let’s go”

THE END