She cocked her head, inquisitively, waiting for him to go on. When he didn't, she grinned.
"Well, let me spread it on, then. You figured out who I am, and you know who he is. And you decided to be here--where we--the old folks..." and here she stuck out her tongue, "are gathering...quite against the stupid rules of some twisted bar bet amongst the handful of us...ahem...Immortals."
She said the word "Immortals" with such irony that Nick found himself staring at her. Only recently Immortal,he had, nonetheless, accepted it as being his condition, and not a strange word coined to describe only a possibility in re: his soul.
"What rules of...ahem, Immortals?" he demanded, sarcastically.
"The ones that say there can be only one--believe that, and meet me, and Anath-Sin, in the alley. Do you believe I have her in me? Or Akkasur--her student--the guy who started this mess? Eight thou...four thou...and then me...did I suck it up? Those Quickenings--me. What do you think?"
He stared, and then was about to speak, but she cut in.
"I am, in all honesty, seven years in the Game. No more, no less. You are two years in. That's why I'm busting your stones. Screw what you've heard. I am Genevieve, like you said. And Methos--he doesn't know this, but he's really...not so far from his apparent age. Part of him is still the thirty-year old schmuck whose village must have gotten whacked with him in it, circa three thou B.C. And Amanda?"
Amanda nodded, knowing the point Genevieve was about to come to, and dreading it even as she knew it was true--she was still the theif who died during the plague--still the poor thing Rebecca found.
"I think...I'm still short of thirty. I never really gave it thought--but...I never did get older. Or more mature. Nick...somethings...never change. What we were when we..."
"I don't want to hear this," Nick said suddenly. "I don't think I need to...I'm not the same."
"NO...but...listen, just this once?" Amanda asked, her voice breaking.
"Please, Nick, it explains a lot," Genevieve whispered.
"The worst thing is it doesn't get worse," Amanda finally admitted. "You won't feel older. You won't feel more mature, or like you're changing. Or like you see... things differently. I'm who I am. And you...are so good, so wonderful. Why?" She bit her lip, on the verge of tears. "Why don't you see that it's a good thing? To be alive? To know you don't change...to know who you are now is..."
"It's not the same! I'm not the same man, Amanda! I'm..."
"You killed your first," Genevieve said, softly. "How was it? Was there only one?"
"I killed two," he said, bitterly.
"You did it as a mortal, too," Amanda commented.
"It wasn't the same."
"Nick-elah," Genevieve began. "It's the same. The same. The total exact same. Who should live, who should die. Who is good, who isn't. You are, they weren't. No matter what you want to believe, good is still good, bad still sucks. It's rotten, but there it is. If you were...Amanda...let me off the hook."
Amanda looked at her friend, concerned for what she was trying to say. Genevieve never considered herself good--there was her problem. She shook her head.
"Nothing changes--life is good. Tio live, love...be who you are?"
And there she stopped. Cassandra appeared in the doorway, and before her, she felt unable to speak.