Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1995 04:03:04 -0600 Reply-To: Ninianne Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Ninianne Subject: Daddy's Little Girl part 16/21 Hello people, This may be the last post before X-mas, I still have 3 finals left to take. Right now I'm hoping for lots of curves, both in the grades and in letters the grades are given in. Then I can look forward to the 3 hour drive home in the mighty Mustang, hehehehe. And yes, it really is 4AM, and I have 2 tests Wednesday, scary! SAC Daddy's Little Girl Samantha Copeland copelasa@vuse.vanderbilt.edu ******Part 16****** The weary Immortals put away their bags and prepared to go to bed. They had a long day ahead of them. Between the long drive and the canoeing they would have to do to get to the cabin, they would have their work cut out for them. They debated about where each of them should sleep. There was only the bed and the pull-out couch. Since it was Mac's bed, he got to sleep in it. Out of chivalrous deference, Chris did too. Richie and Andrew were stuck on the pull-out bed. "Gee, I hope you don't have cold feet." Richie joked. "Well if I do, you'll be the first to know." Andrew replied with a laugh. Chris escaped the joking by slipping into the bathroom and took her time changing into her pajamas. This time however, it was a dark green T-shirt and a pair of flannel boxer shorts. She put on a pair of her socks, she had a tendency toward cold feet and didn't want to put MacLeod out any more than he already was. she emerged and made her way over to the bed. Things had quieted down in her absence, everyone was in bed except for her. She slipped under the covers and curled up. This was definitely better that the couch, she pitied her dad and Richie. They had a lumpy, small, pull out dofa to deal with and she was in a nice squishy bed. Her thoughts drifted, becoming fuzzy, then finally fell into a much needed sleep. She had been running off of pure adrenaline, she needed a rest, and for the first time since this caper had begun, she felt safe. The next morning, Chris awoke to find her father sitting on the stairs, watching her. He had a look of amusement on his face. Chris couldn't think of why he would have that expression on his face, then it hit her. In their sleep, she and MacLeod had gotten quite close, and Mac had draped an arm around her. She extricated herself from him. * He must do a lot of "entertaining" to have done that in his sleep. * Her movement woke Mac. He did his best to just roll over and ignore what happened. Andrew wasn't going to let him. He had a grin on his face. "Well, well. I'm sure many fathers over the years have wanted to ask you this question. Just what are your intentions toward my daughter?" Mac sat up, looked at Andrew, realized what had happened, and shrugged it off, "Oh, _please_ Andrew." Chris let out an exasperated, "Dad." "I didn't mean anything by it, it just seemed funny to me. I just wanted to keep you on your toes." Chris, upset by the inference pleaded, "Daddy, Why do you have to make jokes about things like that? I'm sick of them!" She got up and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Duncan shot Andrew a dark look, which told Andrew that it really was in poor taste. Andrew caught the hint. "Sorry Duncan, you know me. I always make jokes to relieve tension. I just don't always have the best judgement when it comes to going to far." "Yeah, I know, I understand, but you shouldn't be telling me, you should be telling that to her." Andrew went over to the door and knocked. He was greeted by the reply, "Go away." he continued to knock. She go sick of his persistent knocking and finally asked, "What do you want?" "I want to tell you I'm sorry." She opened the door and stepped out. She couldn't believe it, after years of his his joke making, he was actually apologizing for it. It shocked her a little too. "Why?" "Well for starters, it's kind of a dumb thing for us to become divided over, second of all, I don't fancy having two people after my head at once." "O.K. I know I shouldn't take things so seriously too... Wait a sec, what do you mean two?" "Well you and that Alexander guy." "I thought he was after me." "Well originally he was after me, but that may well have changed now. At this point though I think he'll take either one of us." "It always gets back to that doesn't it?" "Yes, it does." Duncan interjected. He continued, "I'll make breakfast, then we'll load up and go." "Did I hear someone say food? What's on the menu?" inquired Richie, who was almost awake. "I don't know yet. I'll have to check on what I have in stock." Mac poked around in the kitchen area, looking for something to fix. During the search, he puts some coffee on. By the time the coffee is ready, he had found something to fix. Between a few potatoes, eggs, bacon, and cheese, he had the makings of a Spanish omelet. the food disapeared as soon as it was cool enough to eat, and some of it just before. They took the gear down to Mac's car, loading it up for their little expedition. As MacLeod closed the trunk, a strawberry Neon drove up. Chris, recognizing the car, clambered out of the back seat she was crammed into. Grace parked the car and got out. MacLeod leaned against the trunk of his car, crossing his arms. "To what do we owe the pleasure?" He inquired. "I heard about your trip, I wanna come along." "Uh, Grace are you sure that's such a good idea?" Chris asked. "Well a girl's gotta start somewhere, I figure that this is as good a place as any." Andrew, not knowing what was going on, quietly asked Richie to fill him in. Richie leaned forward from the back seat to tell him. Richie explained what little he knew about the Watchers. Andrew appeared not to like the notion of a society of mortals that know of the existence of Immortals. Richie told him that yes, there had been a problem with a small faction of them, but they had been disbanded, or so he'd been led to believe. He told him about Joe and how he managed to help Mac out now and then. That seemed to make him less agitated, realizing that some of them try to help from the sidelines. MacLeod was none to happy at Grace's request to tag along, she might get in the way or something unforseen could happen. But he relented, seeing that she was determined to follow, regardless of permission. So Duncan observed an onld piece of wisdom, 'Better the evil you know than the evil you don't', she was allowed to come along, provided that if her presence caused a problem, she would leave without causing one. As there wasn't enough room for a fifth passenger in the T-bird, she volunteered to follow in her car. To keep her company on the long drive into the middle of nowhere, Chris rode along with her, keeping her other reason to herself. That she needed some space in order to think clearly, something that she wasn't able to do very well around the others. She had been surrounded by at least one other Immortal since the day before, and it was beginning to get to her, almost like a sort of claustrophobia. "So what's MacLeod like?" asked Grace. "He's not exactly easy to describe. He wants to help and he's doing a good job of it, but he's so damn protective!" "And the others?" "Well Richie wants to help, but whether from lack of experience or a little immaturity, maybe it's a little of both, he seems a little lost in this. He takes cues from Mac pretty well though... My dad is a little different though. Maybe it's because I've known him all my life that I can't quite figure him out, either that or I can't quite separate the father and the teacher in him. Maybe it's because he can't either. Anyway, we've got a bit of a rocky start. We're both going to have to adjust to the situation, something I am beginning to become very familiar with." The conversation droped off after this, Grace because of concentration on her driving, and Chris because she wanted to be alone with her thoughts. They drove on in silence, with not even the sound of the radio to interrupt their thoughts. After quite a while of twisting back roads, they reached the clearing near a dam. This was the "parking lot" for the island. They pull a pair of canoes off of a rack and set them on the shore. They loaded the gear in the canoe that Mac and Andrew were to be in. Grace rode in the canoe with Richie and Chris. Since Richie knew the way, as soon as Mac's canoe was loaded, his launched. It took a few more minutes to situate Grace in the canoe. She ended up just riding in the middle. They caught sight of Mac and Andrew fairly quickly, at that time a wild idea popped into Chris's head. Though she was lazy by habit, she was competitive by nature. Canoe race. "Oh Richie." She said with just a hint of mischeviousness in her voice. "Yeah?" "How'd you like to show those guys up a little?" "O.K. but how?" "We race 'em." "Sounds good to me, let's go!" They took off, making good time. As Mac and Andrew were oblivious to the fact that there was a race, they kept their leisurely pace. As they drew nearer, they did take notice however. Grace smiled at them and waved, doing her best to assume a reclining and relaxed posture. The kind of thing that just screamed "eat dust!" Andrew and Mac weren't going to take that, so they began to take stronger strokes, keeping a few lengths behind them. There was no real time to make up the distance however, by the time that Chris's canoe had passed them, they were more than half way across the lake. In minute or two they landed on the shore of the island. Mac and Andrew followed close behind them. When Mac's canoe neared shore, he called out to them where they were beaching the canoe. "If we had known you were going to race, we would've waited." "It was sort of a last minute decision. Like it would have mattered, _you_ had a head start," Chris responded. "Well whatever. Now before you guys go off and have a victory party, come over here and get your stuff." The three victors waited on the shore for the canoe. After it was brought up onto the beach, they retrieved their gear. They followed Mac up to the cabin, he unlocked the padlock on the door, admitting them to the simple interior. Inside was a simply furnished room, a few hand wrought chairs and a table in the main room. There were two other doors in the room, both closed. They put the gear on the floor in random heaps, each staking out a place to put their bedroll on, preferably close to the fireplace. Mac on the other hand, opened one of the doors and set his gear inside, it being the only bedroom he had first dibs as this was his cabin. Richie seated himself at the table, Andrew circled the room, checking it out. Chris looked out a window with a good view of the lake, studying the landscape, Grace just stood near the door, watching and wondering if this had been such a good idea. She decided to go outside and check out the surrounding area after all, it wasn't likely that many mortals had ever been there, much less Watchers. Mac returned to the main room to see if everyone was situated. He then went into the other room, a storage room. In there was the supplies, canned and dried food as well as the lanterns they would be needing that night. He set some of the supplies out ready for use. He returned to the main room to find that Chris has also left. She also wanted to check out what else was on the island. Mac went over to the mantle, retrieved a box of matches, and lit the logs that had been left there since his last visit. Within minutes the November chill in the air was replaced by the warmth of the fire. _________________________________________________________________________ For those of you with dirty minds, just keeeeeep dreaming! Oh, and if you haven't been reading the Irelander stories, I think you might just want to go and start, there's a few ever so brief crossovers in there. Previous parts can be found at my web page, either in seperate parts, or as a single Word 6.0 PC ZIP file. http://www.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/~copelasa/ copelasa@vuse.vanderbilt.edu Samantha =========================================================================