MacLeod: Reforged: Problematic Reunion

She's crying. Revan could hear Kirina from the hallway, next to her door. Come on, Áinfean, just this once.

The voice of the Áinfean said nothing, but that was not a sign of clearance. Revan knew his opposite would attempt to harm Kirina again. It was as if he was asking permission.

"Revan or Áinfean?" the deep voice of James Holmes asked from the living room. "Which of you am I addressing?"

"It's Revan," he answered. "For now."

Revan undid the chest buckles of his coat as he walked into the living area of the apartment, above the Dust shop. He walked to the front door, where the coat and hat stand was, and removed his battle coat. Hanging it over his shoulder, he knelt down to where he had placed the duffel bags and searched through his.

As Revan retrieved his fez and removed his stetson to hang them, James sat in his chair, next to the ring of computer touchscreens, suspended by ceiling bolts and facing outwards.

He read Revan's movements and demeanor. In one word, Holmes could describe Revan's lack of action besides unpacking.

"Worried," Holmes said aloud.

"Sorry?" Revan asked, hanging his coat next to Holmes', looking at his friend. "What do ye mean 'worried'?

"I'm not worried," he lied. His lies never worked on The Detective.

"You're still a rubbish liar, Highlander," James began. "In the times I've seen you worried, you always do the same thing. Your eyebrows are midway between sad and angry, but you're trying to be careful with whatever is in your right hand. You walk like you're on tissue paper and your elbows are unusually close to your chest, like you're taking as little space as possible when you are typically flamboyant.

"What's more, is that you could hear Miss Hart cry, but you are not going to comfort her as you always do."

Holmes stood up and paced towards Revan. To which Revan simply stood, uncomfortably.

"You've always had a protective attitude to those weaker than you, so naturally, if she were in danger or feeling, you'd stay as close to her as you can.

"Taking all of that into consideration, you not being close to her now means one thing: You consider yourself the danger. More accurately, your Áinfean."

James and Revan simply stood, ten feet apart, and simply stared at each other for several seconds. Holmes could read hostility in MacLeod's right arm as it clenched its hand into a tight fist, but the rest of his body was simply nervously tense. It was Revan's eyes that gave him the look of sincere worry.

Revan was not sure what to think about James' early discovery. He knew James could read anyone like an open book in less than a moment, but like Ozpin, he missed very little in his issue. But Holmes had something else he needed to address. Otherwise, why did Holmes call him here?

"You..." Revan cleared his throat. "You wanted to talk to me aboot something?"

"I did," James confirmed as he turned back to the array of computers. "Come look at this." Revan followed James and looked at images of himself when the Áinfean took control of him.

And why would he have these? Áinfean wondered.

"I got bored," Holmes stated almost like an answer. "So I decided to dig about and see where I left my coding footprints and found these..."

James turned a screen towards Revan. On the screen were two sets of lines of confusing code that Revan could not understand.

"What is it?" he asked. "Your hackin' algorithms or somethin'?"

"Exactly. Precisely mine, which was used to track your security footage, months beforehand. Someone appears to have been using my hacking codes to track you. Even to Beacon.

"The IP addresses change, like mine, where the hacking originates, but that's simply another hack..."

Holmes typed a few commands on one of the screens and brought up a map of Vale City. Several points, colored blue, appeared from various WiFi hotspots around the city. One point, colored red, was connected to those WiFi points.

"And that's coming from Vale City Central Hospital." Revan processed this. "So someone at the hospital is interested in Áinfean?"

"It would appear so," James answered. "I haven't been able to find the source, it moves from computer to computer in no particular order."

"So what do we do?"

"Something," Holmes turned the monitors off. "But nothing at this moment. We have work to do tomorrow. Get some sleep."

"Aye."

At that point, Holmes went into his bedroom and Revan set up his hammock up in the living room, changed into shorts and a tank shirt, and went to bed, wondering about tomorrow.