==========================

Chapter Four
What Strange Realms Are These We Find Within
--------------------------------------

Rather than spend more time dwelling on such morbid considerations as the validity of his death, he decided to get a quick shower, followed by some much needed sleep.

Stripping off his bloody clothes, he tied the shirt up in the plastic liner from the trashcan, and tossed it next to Sue's Emergency kit, while hanging the pants over the side of the shower stall. He then removed the sports bra, underwear, and socks, until naked.

Stepping into the shower, he paused first to adjust the temperature to something neither chilling, nor burning. A quick sluice of his body, and he bent over and lifted the now sopping wet jeans up under the spray. He watched the reddish-brown water draining off them for a few moments, before draping the pants over one arm, and using both hands to open the little blue packet of complementary soap, tossing the wet paper back over the top of the stall to land somewhere on the floor of the bathroom.

A few moments spent massaging the soap with his hands, and he then ran the soap over the outside of the pants a few times to lather them somewhat, before again placing them under the stream of water to rinse the soap, and hopefully the rest of the blood, or at least the worst of the blood, off them.

Futilely coiling them to wring them out, then letting water soak in again and repeating the squeegee process a second time, and he was done and ready to drape the tops of the pants over the top of the stall, so they'd be out of the way.

Part of his mind cringed, as he again lathered the soap up, only this time working the soap into his equally blood-soaked hair.

There was a lot of hair, he realized, as he belatedly and painfully pulled the sopping scrunchie out, and tossed it after the soap wrapper.

However, after a few moments, he felt he had done as good a job as possible of getting the worst of the blood out. A final rinse, and sluice of his entire body, and he turned off the shower and stepped out, right on the cold, wet scrunchie.

"Blech" he said, bending over and plucking the dripping elastic cloth from between his toes, then tossing it on the sink and grabbing a towel from the rack by the door.

A quick over-all with the painfully rough towel, and he dropped it to the floor before grabbing a second one, with which he automatically wrapped his hair, before noticing he had done so.

A quick check of the Emergency kit turned up a small bottle of shampoo, one of conditioner, a brush, two more scrunchies, a really large t-shirt, a spare sports bra, two pairs of panties, and a roll containing another pair of black jeans, and a dark maroon top.

Selecting one of the pairs of panties, and the oversized t-shirt, he quickly and again, almost automatically dressed for bed. He then unwrapped his hair, gave it a vigorous rub with a third towel, then swiftly brushed it out, and tied it, still damp, into a loose braid before turning to the bed.

Just before laying down on the bed he turned back to the dresser, and picked the Katana up to carry over to lay at the right side of the bed on the floor. He then finally turned off the lights, and in the gloom broken slightly by the sunrise trying to peek through the closed curtains, he went to sleep.

He was walking in a long hallway. Along the sides were doors. As far as he could see to the front, the hallway stretched on for hundreds of doors before ending at a distant wall, but to his rear there was just one door, but it, unlike all the ones on the sides of the hall, was only partly closed.

Slowly, after a glance along the hallway, he opened the door and looked inside.

Beyond the door was darkness. With a lighted area in the immediate vicinity, the rest of the room seemed to stretch on forever.

In the brightest part of the light amid the gloom there was a table, and two chairs.

Eadgils stepped through the door, and approached the table. As he got closer, he noticed The Girl. She was sitting in one of the chairs, watching him approach. A glance down confirmed he was back in his own body.

"Uh, hello." He said to The Girl.

"My name is Sue. Why do you call me The Girl all the time?" she asked, watching as he sat down across the table from her.

"Um, because that was how I named you when I first noticed you six months ago? Since I didn't know your name, I had to call you something. By now, it is a force of habit. Sorry."

"It's ok. Tell me, do you know what's going on? Am I dead?" she asked.

"No, I think I'm dead. You, my dear, are quite alive, I hope." He responded.

"But how? The last thing I remember was being shot in the stomach while trying to help you get away from the Hunters. After that, things are so weird. Nothing makes sense. What is going on?"

"Well, as best as I can figure, you died. I lost my head. You got my Quickening, all of it, for a change. And then, you woke up."

"But, ho-how could I wake up? I'm not an Immortal. I had a family. Immortals never have families."

"Not quite true. All Immortals are either Foundlings, or Changelings, you must have been a Changeling. You know what that is, don't you?"

"A Changeling? Isn't that where some fairy or elf steals a child and replaces it with one of their own in the fairy tales?"

"In essence. Although while I have seen a lot of things, both good and evil, I have never seen an elf or a fairy. No, most changelings are switched by normal humans, for normal human reasons, whatever they may be." He replied, and suddenly a pair of memories floated to the top of both their minds.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

May 21st, 1682, Rhode Island...

Eadgils watched as the young girl leaned over the mangled body of the older man, moaning in pain from the multiple broken bones and torn organs caused by the crash of his wagon. Eadgils knew as well as everyone else there that he was watching the poor souls last moments on this earth.

As the girl reached out though, she said "Hold still Master Warner. It'll be all right."

Suddenly, from her hands what looked for all the world like a Quickening shot out, and surged through the man's body.

Even as the onlookers watched in shock, currents of electricity seemed to stitch together his wounds, and bend his bones back into position. As the girl collapsed over his torso, the man sat up, and looked around with amazement.

"Witchcraft!" someone called from the watching crowd.

Master Warner looked down at the body of the unconscious girl stretched out over his own, and a sudden look of revulsion crossed his face. He leapt to his feet, letting her small form thunk into the mud where he had previously lain.

"Get the Parson" he growled, while reaching for a rope.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

May 22nd, 1682, Rhode Island...

Eadgils watched helplessly as the so called "Judge" passes sentence. "Mary-Elizabeth, by your own admission, and the testimony of witnesses, you are hereby found guilty of the crime of Witchcraft, and consorting with the devil. For these crimes, you are to be sentenced to death by blooding, sentence to be carried out immediately, in the name of God."

There was nothing that he could do as they dragged the poor girl to a post encircled by brush, and shackled her down. Her screams echoed off the church behind them as the Parson first sliced her chest deeply, just below the neck, causing her blood to pour out onto the brush at her feet, which he then lit with a torch, causing flames to rise up and consume her, as dark foul smelling smoke climbed to the heavens from the bonfire at her feet. Mercifully, she did not last long, whether it was blood loss, or inhalation scorching her lungs and she passed out, or perhaps died. The fire burned out and all that was left was her charred corpse, still hanging from the smoking remnants of the post to which she had been shackled.

The townsfolk prayed for her soul, despite it's obvious damnation, and removed her body to bury it outside the churchyard, on un-consecrated ground, as befitted a witch.

Eadgils waited around for 3 days, hoping not to feel a stirring of a Quickening from the girls grave, and when he did not, he headed out of town, to the east, to catch a ship back to Europe, away from this wretched place. He'd had enough of the New World for a while.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Wha-what was that?" Sue asked, looking at Eadgils in alarm.

"That, my dear was a memory you just dredged up. Happens all the time. Anyhow, as I was saying, you must have been a Changeling, someone for some reason swapped you with the original Sue Danning in the hospital, or shortly after you were born. That is the only explanation."

"But, who? My mom, she died giving birth to me. It almost killed my Dad. Everyone said that if it hadn't been for having to take care of me, that he might have just slipped away and followed her. But who would want to do that to him?"

"I don't know Sue, but someone must of. If you really want to know, you can try and check with the Hospital. It could have been a nurse, or a Doctor, it could have been almost anyone. It doesn't matter. What does is that you were not really your father's biological daughter. Oh, he raised you, and in every sense was your father, but you I'm afraid were not the fruit of his loins. Couldn't have been."

"This makes no sense. How can I be Immortal? I'm a Watcher. They check all candidates for Immortality, even ones who grew up more or less in the Society, like I did. How could I pass the tests? I remember them, when they cut my thumb during the Initiation, before they gave me my Tattoo. Wouldn't the test of shown?"

"No, I don't think so. I think that test is more to see if you are a mortal, sort of the old 'Cut them and see if they heal' type of test. Granted, not as extreme as the other, 'Kill them and see if they stay dead' test, but along the same lines. The thing is though, that before you are killed for the first time, there really is nothing to differentiate an Immortal from a normal Mortal. At that time, you were essentially still Mortal. I wonder though how Death passed that test."

"Death? You mean Adam? He can't be an Immortal! And even if he was, he can't be Death! I mean, I know they look the same, but I've known Adam for years. I remember when he was with Alexia. He took almost a whole year off, traveled around the world, just to make a dying woman happy. That is not the act of someone like the Death you remember." Sue rebutted.

"I don't know. You don't know. But when you meet him next time, watch your head. If he is Death, he is one of the oldest Headhunters ever. No wonder he is looking for Methos. Imagine if he could kill that one. That alone might give him enough of an edge to win the Game. Pray that he does not, for whatever the Prize, there is enough to believe that it would give him the power to rule the world, and a world ruled by Death is one no one would WANT to live in."

With that, Eadgils rose from the table, and headed back to the door he had come from, stepping through, and pulling it closed behind him.

========================== ==========================