Date:         Tue, 23 Aug 1994 20:50:45 EDT
Reply-To:     Highlander TV show stories <HLFIC-L@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
Sender:       Highlander TV show stories <HLFIC-L@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
From:         "(Nancy Cleveland)" <NancySSCH@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Aloha Chapter 2 (p 85-90)

<My name is Duncan MacLeod. Of the Clan MacLeod. I am 400 years old. I am an
Immortal.> All his past that he had shared with Richie, told him stories of,
all the intersecting moments he had spent with the other Immortals from whom
Richie had won the memories and knowledge, from Mako, from countless others
Mako had defeated, before him, all that was there, for him, for this moment.

<But would it be there, when they parted?>  Or would it all fade away, like
his own memory of his past, like his knowlege and skill?

Duncan.....he savored the name...the identity, fitting his shoulders like a
cloak, enfolding, comforting, protection from the cold empty uncertainty he'd
been grappling with for so long.  He felt his consciousness quiver, as if he
stood on the edge of a vast precipice, the new found knowledge pushing him
closer and closer to the edge.

<What lay on the other side? His memories? His life? His identity? Or
insanity?>

He wasn't willing to take the risk, to find out.

He clasped Richie to him, briefly, hugging him, reaffirming his love, his
caring. Then let go. Pulled away. Broke the connection between them.

He had seen enough, learned enough, for the moment. Shared enough. He knew
the boy better now. Knew they shared the same heritage, the same fate. Knew
enough to trust him. But he hadn't wanted to share everything. Especially not
his memories of the white room. Not that.

"Duncan...." Richie looked at him, pity in his eyes, concern.

<I do not need your pity, boy. I am still strong, still alive.>

"You thought I was going to kill you. Really kill you. Forever.

"I'm sorry, man. I just didn't know. Didn't realize...." His voice trailed
off, as he looked Duncan in the face, his lower lip trembling a bit., his
brow furrowed.

"I wondered what was wrong with you. I figured it was just..." Richie groped
for the words, pausing,  "Stress,  or something....

"But when we fought, it was like you had no idea who I was, like you forgot
everything you ever taught me. I had you down, I never could have done that,
before..."

Amazement tinged his voice, the wonder, the flush of triumph that had turned
to concern, flashing in his eyes again, briefly. Duncan could almost senes
the boy's emotions, see them, as they replayed in Richie's mind, on his face.


"So then I knew something really bad had happened.  I guess I deserved what
 I got, letting my guard down like that."

Richie  rubbed his chest, grimacing slightly at the memory of the unexpected
thrust, the stabbing pain that had ushered him out of one lifetime, and into
another. "You always said I was too quick to stop, that I had to fight every
moment like my life depended on it...I see what you mean, now. " He looked
down, looked away, embarassed.

"But I should have said something, should have spoken up, earlier. I'm sorry.
I didn't know." The boy's expression turned inside, disgusted with himself,
punishing himself.

<This is absurd. I can't expect him to read my mind.>

"Richie, I'm the one who didn't trust you. I'm the one who should have
talked, asked questions, let you know what was going on. Don't apologize to
me. I've been the  fool, here."

Duncan stalked around the room, nervous energy making him irritable. He still
knew almost nothing about this....Raven....this half glimpsed image of a man
from Richie's memories, from his own....all he knew was that this man was the
key, the person and circumstance that had created this whole situation. The
key to how  to resolve it.

Huge gaps lingered in his memory, and the images he had now from Richie were
ghostly, superimposed from outside, some fit, some didn't. feel...right.

<I suppose others have heard things about me that weren't accurate, as I've
heard rumors about them, distorted in the telling and retelling. I need to
take all this information with a grain of salt. It may not even be true. >

It was a depressing thought. Trying to reconstruct his identity on false
information could lead to problems. Complications. Tragedy.

But he had nothing else to go on, right now. And he desperately needed to...
be....to rediscover...himself. To understand how he had become who he
was....and what he had to do.....

He paused, looked at Richie. They both felt it. The distinctive buzz of
another Immortal,  somewhere near.

Outside.

 *  *  *  *  *

"Are they in there?"

Vulcan looked at him, anger still in his eyes, his face.

"Of course. Do you think I'm as incompetent as..." He broke off, biting back
the words. Staring at Jonathan, mute hostility radiating from every pore,
every muscle in his body tense, with repressed rage, sublimated grief.
Jonathan could compete the sentence, knew exactly what Vulcan was thinking.

Jonathan paused. Considered. Glanced at the innocuous frame house, the closed
garage door, glowing white in the strong midday light. MacLeod was in there,
or some other Immortal...he couldn't tell who it was, for sure. Not from
here.

The street was empty, except for a few parked cars, some filled garbage cans
sitting by the curbs, waiting to be picked up. No obvious sign of
surveillance. No sign that the Agency had tracked their prey, located the
target of their current all-points search. So what held him back, what kept
him from going in? Nothing....nothing  but shame...

<I'm acting like a child, a schoolboy caught in a lie. I have nothing to
hide, nothing to apologize for....>

But he did. He knew it. His honor was impugned. He had brought MacLeod into
his battle, and run, left him to fight it for him.  He seemed to bring grief
to all those around him. He had too many enemies, too many people who wanted
him dead.

 <It's dangerous to be near me, dangerous to be my friend. My lover.> He
swallowed the grief that surged in his heart, grief for Andrea, for Jari, for
Aki.....everyone he loved, or could have loved, taken away.

<I'm poison. I need to run far far away from anyone who can be hurt by
contact with me.....

Jonathan thought back to the scene in the elevator, in Andy's apartment.

<Vulcan could have killed me, right there.>

He reexamined everything he had done, again, for the thousandth time,
wondering how he could have known, how he could have anticipated that the
Agency had flushed Vulcan from his lair, his anonymous existence in Spain,
discovered he was still alive despite the Director's attempt to have him
killed, and Raven's collusion in saying he was dead, had discovered the lie,
and had come after him, set Vulcan running across Europe, across the world,
back to where they both had been made what they were today.

<He knows they came for him, not for me. That's the only reason we're
talking, instead of one of us lying dead right now.>

It was still no excuse.

 <I should have anticipated, prepared, avoided this... I never should have
taken her home, never should have fallen in love....> It had made him
careless, that heady intoxication. Relaxed him, left him slow, clumsy, a
fool.

Bitter, bitter regret, mingled with longing and loss as he remembered, again
his last moments with Andy, her shining hair falling like a soft veil over
her face, hiding in part the empty cold gleam of her open eyes, softening her
blank, dead stare.

He had reemerged to consciousness to find Vulcan sitting at his side, his
expression closed, his eyes burning like twin blue suns, fueled by anger,
rage, grief, love.

Vulcan held Andy's head in his lap, smoothing her clenched fist, her touseled
hair. Tracks of moisture gleamed on Vulcan's cheeks, and a single tear made
its way down his stony visage as the his face swam into focus for Jonathan.
His eyes tracked the tear's slow, inexorable descent as he gathered his wits,
came to the moment, saw, understood, and grieved, as well.

<We owed each other our lives. Now we owe each other a death.>

Vulcan had looked at him, his face a skeletal mask. Always slender, he'd lost
even more weight.

<Probably from the chemotherapy.>

Jonathan wondered if he'd ever seen a doctor, tried to agressively fight the
disease that was eating him from the inside, chewing at his vitaltiy, his
life. The disease whose existence he'd tried to keep a secret from the
Agency, until they found out, secretly, and then ordered him to kill a woman
under Jonathan's protection, knowing, hoping that Jonathan would kill him,
instead.

<Did he get treatment?>

Or did he just run, and hide, grateful for a few more months of life, away
from the Agency and its endless games of deceit and death?

Vulcan stared at Andy's face, looking at infinity, peering beyond life, into
a different future, one that now would never be.  He stirred, looked at
Jonathan, acknowledging his presence, his existence.

"They found me." He spoke slowly, as if trying to remember what words were
for.

There were only four of them." He paused, reflecting.

"They never learn, do they?" He smiled, a flash of teeth, a shark savoring a
past meal.

"It was time to move on. I was coming to see her. To offer to take her with
me." His voice was soft, to avoid distubing the sleeping, the dead.

"I thought she'd be safer,  not knowing I was alive. Better off mourning me
than knowing the truth and dead."  As he spoke,  his hands continued
smoothing her hair, smoothing her clenched fingers, over and over.

"They were waiting for me. Here. Once they flushed me, they guessed I'd run
to her. I spotted them, outside, waited for my chance. When I saw you go in
with her, I thought you'd decided to sell me out.  I though you were with
them, were in on the whole deal. I was ready to kill you right there,
Jonathan. To kill both of you." Vulcan closed his eyes, a bitter grin curling
across his lips.

"I'm fine, you see." He glared again at Jonathan, the hidden tensions coming
out in his voice,  the rage at the injustice, at the world.

"I'm going to live. We had a future, now." He barked, a short, dry, humorless
laugh, then gently laid Andy's head and shoulders back on the carpet. He
knelt, leaned over and kissed her lips, brushing her tangled hair away,
framing her face with his hands, one last, tender goodbye. An endless moment
passed.

He turned, rose, and offered Jonathan a hand, to get up.

HIs eyes seared Jonathan's soul, his conscience. Jonathan looked down, looked
away, feeling warm blood rushing to his face, feeling shame, embarassment,
his personal honor and professional competence both called into question,
both failing the test..

<I did't know. But it doesn't make any difference. Not to me. Not to him.>

"Vulcan. I'm sorry." The words were inadequate, but there was nothing else he
could say. He forced himself to look up, to meet Vulcan's burning stare.

"It doesn't matter." The man's voice was quiet, but rage crackled underneath.


"I have a few details to clear up. Do you want to come along?" The invitation
was pro forma. Jonathan owed this man, now. Owed him more than his own life.

"Yes. I think we have the same goals. So we work together again." Jonathan
assayed a small, tense smile, putting the best face on the tragic farce they
shared.

"Can you stand? Are you badly hurt?" Professional interest flickered in
Vulcan's eyes, as he  stood, hand extended, waiting.

<Hurt? No, they just killed my heart, that's all.> Jonathan rolled off his
stomach and hunched over, pulling his feet under him, feeling his muscles
twinge, fighting a surge of dizziness, lightheadedness. He ran his fingers
along his head, feeling his hair, stiff with blood, feeling the new baby skin
that had mended the jagged rip where the last bullet had glanced off his
skull.

His arm was fine, tingling a bit where the first bullet had cut through
muscle and bone, but functional. He tested it, putting his weight on it. It
held. His side still ached, from the second shot deep in his guts, but the
hole was closed, no blood seeped out.

<It would do.>

 The third shot, the one he'd been unable to find, had pierced his wrist, his
left arm already numb, he hadn't noticed, hadn't cared. Now, only two pink
round spots of skin marked the passage of the bullet, in, and out.

"I'm fine. Just a crease. Messy, but no permanent damge."

 <I hope Vulcan doesn't look too closely at this place, too closely at the
blood on my clothes, on the floor. At the hole in my shirt. >

Jonathan grasped Vulcan's proffered hand, feeling the hard muscle, the wiry
strength behind it, and pulled himself up. He stood, inconspicuosly
rearranging his clothing to hide the bullet hole in his shirt, pressing his
elbow along his side.

Vulcan looked at him, stared deep into his eyes, hard, sharp,
questioning...seeking and finding confirmation of his suspicion as Jonathan
dropped his eyes, blushed again, looked away.

"You....she...." Vulcan blinked, and shook his head, incredulity mingling
with his grief. His body seemed to shrink within itself, as he stepped back,
almost as if he'd received a physical blow.

"She thought you were dead. I had no idea..." Jonathan trailed off, searching
for something, anything to say. "She still loved you, cherished your memory.
I only reminded her of you." It was little enough, but better than nothing.

"We have to go. Say your goodbyes." Vulcan straightened, gathered his
composure, turned and disappeared into the apartment.

<Searching the bodies of the agents,>  Jonathan supposed, or giving him
privacy to show his own grief, complete his own mourning. He stepped to
Andy's body, looked for the last time on her face.

<You will be avenged. I swear it.> There was no other purpose in his life,
now, except revenge. She could have been his refuge, her love could have
tipped the balance in his soul, but now,  all she had been, all she had meant
to him, all the possibilities they could have shared, weighed down on the
other side.  On the side of vengeance.

She stared back, unseeing. Unhearing. Beyond caring.

<I do this for myself, for all that I've lost.

<I dedicate my actions, to you. To your memory, sweet angel. Sweet Andrea.>

Jonathan reached down and closed her eyes, brushed the lids shut, gave her
final expression the semblance of peace, of rest. He could still smell her
scent on his fingers, on his clothes, the subtle vanilla fragrance mingled
with the musky flavor of sex and the bitter smell of ashes.

Jonathan came back to the present, to the car, to the quiet street. He lifted
the door handle, then paused, Vulcan's hand resting on his wrist,
restraining, cautioning him. Vulcan slouched low in the seat, pulled down the
sun visor, and surrpetitously put the ignition key back in the switch, his
fingers resting on it, ready to go on an instant's notice.

 A lone white van was coming down the street. It had a "Bell" logo on its
side panel, tinted windows. From the other direction, a garbage truck
trundled slowly up the street. A clean garbage truck, gleaming. One that
didn't stop to pick up trash from the overflowing containers lining the
street.

<The Agency.

<Here.

<Now.>
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