Title: Methos' Children

Claim: Highlander: General Series

Fandom: Highlander/Supernatural

Characters/Pairing: Cassandra, Sam, Dean, Methos, Connor MacLeod

Prompt: Children

Word Count: 2739

Rating:

Author's Notes: written for crossovers100. 3rd of the Mortal Ties Arc.

Cassandra entered the coffee shop furious at Methos for making Duncan ask, furious at herself for agreeing. Connor MacLeod sat at the counter and nodded toward a booth in the back. Cassandra returned the nod and moved forward.

Duncan had asked. Begged.

That Methos had that power over the younger Highlander to get Duncan to beg for him yet again, as he had once pled for Methos' life--it was infuriating. She would bide her time and watch. Methos would show his true colors and she would be ready.

She'd had more than one prophecy about Duncan, and Methos was not going to interfere with any part of the Champion's destiny.

It was curiosity, and worry at what that vile beast had brought into Duncan's life that made her agree to see these two. Brothers who had lost their mother to a demon or spirit of some sort, one who first bled the victim while the victim was suspended up against the ceiling and then burned the house down. The younger brother's girlfriend had died the same way twenty three years later and over a thousand miles away from the house in which his mother died.

"You Cassandra?" the dark haired dark eyed young man asked. Anxious and skeptical.

"I was told there were two of you."

"Sammy's in the can. He'll be back in a minute."

"How do you know Duncan?"

"Don't know him really. Kinda think he's got a stick up his ass but doesn't seem like a bad guy."

Cassandra's eyes narrowed. "Such eloquence and manners"

Dean snorted. "Yeah, well way I understand it you aren't exactly from all that refined a mud hut yourself."

"Do you want help or not?"

"I don't know. Any dealing I've had with magic hasn't been really all that great. But any clue as to what might have happened to mom and Jess is better than nothing."

"DEAN!" a second young male voice came from behind Cassandra.

"What?" Dean asked.

It was then Cassandra noticed, they both had auras that were unnaturally dimmed, not bound but...shielded. She couldn't see anything in the air around them.

"I'll be right back," Cassandra said and stalked over to Connor.

"Coffee please, black and a cinnamon roll when I get back."

"Where you goin?"

"Just outside to make a phone call." she said to the clerk. "Connor, you have his number?"

"Aye,"

"He's near?"

"Aye"

Cassandra pursed her lips. It would be easier to get answers from the bastard himself if he actually knew them.

The waitress moved on.

"I can take you all back to my apartment if you promise no bloodshed."

Cassandra shook her head. "Have him meet us at St. Stephen's-- Can I get my coffee and roll to go?"

~*~*~

"So,"

"We're going to go talk to your friend."

"Come along, lads" Connor ordered.

Dean and Sam exchanged a look but followed, wary skepticism on their faces.

~*~*~*~

"Who bound them?" Cassandra demanded sliding into the pew behind Methos. She noted Dean sat next to the ancient, Sam stood, fists in his jacket pockets at the end of the pew. Connor moved to soothe the worried looking priest who noticed their arrival.

"They are not bound only shielded. And you're losing your touch if you couldn't see that."

"Who?"

"I did"

"Why?"

"Because Alice spent most of Jane's life in and out of institutions and committed suicide when Mary was only a year old. A seer, lost in visions. The last year of her life she sobbed about dark eyed baby boys."

"Explain it so it makes sense to me."

"Alice was their great-grandmother. Jane their grandmother, Mary their mother"

Cassandra gave him a sharp look. Methos spent four generations in contact with this family? That was beyond improbable. The man used and left and never looked back not caring the destruction left behind. Not to mention incredibly stupid, and Methos was far from stupid. On the contrary the piece of filth was far too clever for everyone's good.

"You will not harm them. They are mortal and they have no part in your hatred of me."

"You never told us that," Sam frowned.

"What was I supposed to say? By the way your great-grandmother was mad as a bloody hatter, yes she was a seer but she didn't have the training or the strength of mind to handle it and was a raving loon. She also was carrying on and crying about baby boys with dark eyes for a full year before she killed herself?"

"What? You know magic?" Dean accused.

"I've been wandering this planet for millenia, child." Methos glared at Dean. "I've seen plenty of things. I generally avoid magics and witches but I have learnt a thing or two even if I prefer not to use them. Bloody well wish Rebecca Darius or Ramirez still had their heads, we'd be dealing with them instead."

"Can you remove the shielding?" Cassandra asked impatiently, wanting done with this and as far from Methos as possible.

Methos frowned a moment.

"I swear I will not do anything to your--pets"

A pair of hazel eyes and two pairs of dark eyes narrowed at her. Methos' eyes shined with barely contained outrage and a feral protectiveness that made her shiver. It was much the same look he'd once given Caspian when he'd looked too long at Cassandra when she'd been Death's pet. The Ancient considered them his for whatever reason and would not be above anything to protect or avenge them.

The young mortals were simply pissed. The threat of their anger was not one to be shrugged off, there was something about the both of them. And they knew how to kill an Immortal most likely.

"Jealous?" Dean asked leaning close to Methos.

"We're in a church, brat," Methos snorted.

Sam rolled his eyes. "I'm going to shoot Methos, knock you out put you both in the damn trunk." he hissed at Dean. Sam, used to smoothing over Dean's bumbles that either his outrageous flirting or smart mouth caused. "He's our grandfather." Sam told her.

"What?" Cassandra blinked. That Methos had taken the pair of lovely boys as lovers was far easier to comprehend than that. Beautiful, young, and she did not mistake the capability for being dangerous in both of them. Both were immensely appealing and Methos was a greedy bastard...but grandsons?

"As in he married our grandmother when she was pregnant with our mom. Mom and Grandma both knew what he was. He left when a hunter kidnapped mom to get to him when she was just a kid. He kept an eye on us from a distance. It was an accident and another hunter that actually got him to tell us who he was."

Cassandra narrowed her eyes at Methos. The story getting more and more implausible from what she knew of the man who had been Death.

"They're mine." Methos said dangerously.

"Woof woof" Dean snorted.

"Woof" Sam agreed disgustedly with a glare at Methos.

"Shut up, brats"

Cassandra was shocked that neither of the young mortals seemed all that impressed by Methos threatening tone. In fact they merely rolled their eyes. Unlike most, these two weren't stupid, but maybe they were...uninformed. "Do you know how we met? Methos and I?"

"He killed you, kept you for a pet, kept Kronos away for a decade. Night after Kronos got done with you you ran, he put a false trail out so everyone searched the other way. Yep. Pale horse and all." Dean shrugged. "Sorry I'm more concerned with the here and now, and killing the evil bastard that killed mom and Jess, not the Bronze Age. I've got a gun and a butcher knife, know where he keeps his sword too if it comes to that. I'm good."

Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Taunting Bronze Age witches has to be in the top ten of stupid things you've done."

"Relax, Sammy" Dean said.

"Sam, my name is Sam." the younger of the mortals glared.

"Children" Methos snapped.

"The Shieldings?" Cassandra prodded.

"I don't have the things I need. I can't here." Methos said at last. "I can tell you what I know. Alice also gave me a trunk of diaries, Jane insisted I take them. That I'd make better use of them. The diaries went back to 1640, a daughter of a lord and a scullery maid, she'd gotten enough education to read and write well. Some she learned at her father's insistence until he had a legal heir that lived past three to replace her. The rest she traded on to get the knowledge. The reason that there are diaries is her. She taught her daughter and so on."

Cassandra nodded.

"We're going to get the diaries next. There might be something...some one crossed the wrong person or demon ages back. These two break the line though. "

"How?"

"They're the first male descendants since the little witch back in 1640 began keeping record. But...I don't remember anything that stood out when I glanced over those books or anything Alice said in her more coherent times. And really what I saw was simply as much old wisdom as anything else, more so than magic. Nothing but very simple wise women, with a sixth sense for healing for the most part. Only one other Seer to the extent of Alice. That was in about 1800 and she was as mad as Alice, it was her sister that kept the diary then and the only case of two born in one generation before these two. Janie had a sense about people, steered away from some on instinct, but never any reason why. Mary was the same. Janie had nightmares the week before her mother killed herself, and the week before Mary was abducted by the hunter after me. Nothing specific at all, nothing she remembered, other than waking up with a sense something wrong was going to happen soon. Really only two in three centuries that could really be said to have any real ability other than strong intuition and the occasional one who had knack with healing herbs."

"What? We're not like...the Charmed Ones or something?" Dean smirked, dark eyes at odds with the expression, those eyes were boring into Methos with a look that said You're going to be explaining a hell of a lot later.

Methos snorted. "The only real remarkable thing is that there are three centuries of diaries. That a baron's bastard daughter managed to learn how to read and keep the skill alive in her family through a couple centuries where it was not a common ability to have. Strong intuition and a knack with healing herbs hardly make a witch, nor are they that unusual of abilities, lost or ignored but not unusual."

"Still in the blood," Cassandra nodded slowly. "But hardly uncommon at that level. No more than the ability to overlook modern reason really. Was there anything that connected the --other than the deaths were the same way? What else? Time? Date?"

"Jess was above our bed. I--I'd gone with Dean for the week end got home. Flopped into bed, figured Jess would be back soon, it was like what 10:30? 11? Not too late. She had a school project she and her friend Nicole were working on. Figured she was at Nic's, they pulled some late nights on the project when they got the chance around their other course work. Didn't think anything of it. Something dripped on my forehead. I looked up and there was Jess above our bed."

"Mom was above Sam's crib" Dean whispered shakily. "I saw it. Dad handed me Sammy told me to get out and not look back. I mean, I wasn't quite four but I remember it so clear. Mom bleeding and burning above Sammy's crib."

"I didn't know that," Sam swallowed.

"Like Dad was going to say--"

"You're talking about the man who gave me a .45 when I saw a monster in my closet." Sam protested.

"You killed it in one shot." Dean said proudly.

"I was nine" Sam glared.

Dean grinned wider. "It was a good shot. Especially for a nine year old."

Cassandra raised an eyebrow. "Did you hand pick your son-in-law?"

"I only met him once. Mary was pregnant with Sammy then." Methos said.

"You knew?" she demanded

"About the weapons yes, the monsters in the closet, no."

"You would think it perfectly fine for him to--"

"You lived in the same world I did and you were the one who thought it fine to manipulate an innocent for four centuries to fulfill a prophecy." Methos cut her off.

"The prophecy had to be fulfilled. If Duncan hadn't defeated Arihmon..."

"The methods were what I questioned, Cassandra. Not the reasons." Methos shot back.

"Time out! Put both your antique asses in the corner if you don't play nicely" Dean hissed.

"Antique ass," Cassandra's eyes narrowed.

"It's a nice ass but it is an antique."

"Dean," Sam ground out.

Cassandra's eyes were mere slits.

Methos smirked. "They can't be influenced by your voice Cassandra. That's part of the shielding."

Her narrowed eyes turned on Methos.

"Not because I ever imagined they'd meet you. Merely to protect them from a similar talent."

She nodded appeased by that at least as far as her Voice, and if Methos claim of these being his grandchildren was true, he likely would not have wanted these two anywhere near her for fear of them learning the truth about what he really was. She had to concentrate on the business of the present, Methos in front of her too distracting when her sword was in reach. "I--I'll look into what I can, though none of that sounds familiar. Perhaps it is something personal, you should look more closely at those diaries."

Methos nodded. "I intend to."

"You think it's me?" Sam's voice cracked. His mom and Jess both dead because of him, after all it had been above his bed their blood dripped onto him both times. That was...if there was one thing he'd learned in his fucked up childhood coincidence like that didn't happen without a reason when it came to the supernatural.

"Not your fault, Sammy" Dean said in a sharp near belligerent tone. "Not your fault."

"A month?"

Methos nodded. "Mac's island is Holy Ground. I can remove and replace the shielding there without eyebrows raised."

"Bring the diaries."

Methos nodded again.

"I'm doing this for Duncan,"

"Cassandra, if I was on fire, I'd expect you'd throw gasoline on me before anything else. I asked Duncan for their sake."

Cassandra snorted. "As much for you."

"She was my daughter." Methos said simply.

"They deserve to know what we can find out, for their own protection if this isn't done with them. Duncan asked. You can burn in the deepest hell as far as I'm concerned" she glared, stood and was gone.

Dean and Sam ignored the immortals exchange. Dean was looking worriedly at his brother. "Not your fault, Sammy," he repeated again.

"Both times. Both of them" Sam whispered.

"Not. Your. Fault."

"He's right, Sammy, you didn't cause this. It isn't your fault." Methos insisted fiercely. "Let's go. The house the diaries are in is in Dallas. Get a few things from my apartment here."

Dean nodded, worried eyes on Sam.

Sam nodded slowly as well.

"Don't make me hug you," Dean grumbled.

Sam snorted softly with a half-hearted attempt at a smile.

"You are not to blame," Methos insisted.

~*~*~

Cassandra got several blocks from the church before she stopped and leaned against a building. Her palms itched to grab her sword and go back, take Methos' head the minute he stepped off Holy Ground, broad daylight or not. Hatred and rage burned in her gut, yet she'd agreed to see the bastard again.

The concept of Methos with a child, grandchildren...she didn't quite believe it.

Still Duncan had asked, and she could not turn down the broken eyes of the child who was now blaming himself for his mother's death and his lover's when both were far beyond his control, or his brother who had a thicker hide and a fouler mouth but no less hurt by this. She couldn't turn her back on helping those two children if she could, it was what she was. Had always been, even before she had come into her Immortality her entire life had been devoted to her gifts and using them as the Goddess intended. She could not turn away those mortal children--not even if they were Methos' children.