========================================================================= Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 04:49:05 -0500 Reply-To: Sandra1012@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Sandra McDonald Subject: Epilogue: Studies In Light 1/2 Author's Notes: Not my characters, series, royalties, copyrights, etc. I wrote this one because the end of "Studies in Light" always bothered me. Was Richie really hurt? How did Tessa or Duncan find him? Was Duncan specifically waiting for Greg in Linda's hospital room, or hiding behind the door because he just sensed another Immortal coming? Where did Greg go? So here's my take on it. Thanks to Janette92@aol.com for proofreading. Please let me know if you like it, hate it, spot goofs, think some other episode needs an epilogue . . . thanks! Epilogue: Studies in Light Sandra McDonald sandra1012@aol.com Tessa turned the hot water faucet off and reached for a dishtowel. She could have placed the dirty dishes in the automatic washer, but had needed the bubbles and scrubbing and hot water to distract her from the fact it was almost three o'clock in the morning, with no sign of Duncan. For a moment, as she peered into the darkness beyond the windows and listened to the deep silence all around, she imagined she was the only one in the city still awake, the only one in the entire world. She felt very tired, but she would wait for Duncan. She had to, to find out if he'd dealt with his friend Greg. Dealt with. Interesting euphemism. Dealt with, as in possibly killed. A soft sound caught her attention and she turned to see Richie propped groggily in the doorway, his bathrobe wrapped loosely over a pair of boxer shorts. His left forearm was still bandaged from his bike accident, and livid bruises marked his face and neck in stark relief to his pale complexion. "You're supposed to be in bed," Tessa scolded lightly. "I'm not sleepy," Richie insisted, although he sounded tired. He dropped into one of the kitchen table chairs and rested his head on his folded arms with his eyes closed. "Mac's not back, huh?" "Not yet. Do you want something to drink? Tea? Soup?" "Hot chocolate?" he asked hopefully. "We're all out. How about warm milk?" Richie started to shake his head, but from his wince he obviously thought better of it. "Yuck. I hated that stuff even when I was little." Tessa put the kettle on for herself and sat down to wait for it to boil. "How's your head?" "The mariachi band has ceded half-time to the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, although instead of the female cast of Baywatch they've hired big giant elephants this year." Tessa frowned. Richie's colorful expressions sometimes got past her idiomatic command of English. She'd once prided herself on being able to understand anyone in her second language, but that was before meeting this particular American teenager. Richie opened his eyes to gaze at her bleakly. "Do you think because Mac's not back, Greg might have gotten to him?" "No," Tessa answered firmly. She refused to entertain the thought that someone like Greg could beat her Duncan. At first she'd found Greg just annoying, but after he'd goaded Richie into a stupid bike stunt that could have killed him, she'd decided he was as cowardly as he was obnoxious and dangerous. "I don't think so, either," Richie confided. "He deserves to have his head chopped off, if you ask me." That was anger talking, but having an Immortal put his hands around your throat and threaten to kill you tended to be an anger- inspiring occasion. She'd come back from picking up some groceries to find the door half-open, and Richie unconscious on the floor. Before she could call for an ambulance he stirred awake, and although he was obviously disoriented he remembered enough for Tessa to call Linda Plager's room at the hospital. "Duncan," she said when he answered the phone. "Greg was here. He attacked Richie." "What? When?" "Just about ten minutes ago," Tessa said. "He might be on his way to see you." "How's Richie?" "Awake now, but he was out cold," Tessa reported. "He won't go the hospital." "Then call Dr. Francisco and ask him to make a house call," MacLeod said. "It's not too late, and he owes me a favor or two. Put Richie on the phone." Richie fumbled the receiver between his hands. "Mac," he complained. "Greg's nuts." "What happened?" "He said he couldn't feel anything," Richie said, massaging the back of his head. "He said . . . he destroyed everything. All the pictures and negatives and I don't know what." "I'm going to wait for Greg here," MacLeod said. "Just do what Tessa tells you, all right?" That had been nearly six hours ago. Tessa itched to call the hospital room again, but she was loath to disturb the dying woman. Linda presented an interesting paradox - the other woman, definitely, a woman Duncan still loved. A mortal, aged beyond him by over five decades, ravaged by time and disease. Her future self, if Tessa cared to consider it up close. She didn't care to at all. Visions of herself as a ninety year old crone with a young, vibrant Duncan helping her cross the street on her walker already flashed through her thoughts sometimes, worsening with every year. She sat with Richie in silence, waiting for the kettle. She was just dropping a herbal teabag into a cup of boiling water when they heard Duncan's key in the lock. He came in with a grim expression that might or might not have come from a Quickening. The front of his blue shirt was slashed open, although there was no blood and, of course, no wound. "I'm glad you're home!" Tessa said, giving him a hug. He returned it stiffly, his thoughts obviously preoccupied. Dark circles ringed his eyes. "I can't stay for long," he said in a dulled voice. "The doctors say it's just a matter of hours, now. I'd like to be there when . . . when she passes." Richie peered up from the table. "Where's Greg?" "Gone. He won't be bothering you anymore." Richie frowned. "Gone as in dead, with a big light show? Or gone as in hasta la vista?" "Gone. I took care of it," MacLeod said firmly. He turned to Tessa. "You should go to bed. There's no need for everyone to lose sleep tonight." "I was worried about you," she said softly. Although he probably didn't intend it to sound like a chastisement, she felt a mild sting just the same. He needed space, she knew. Space to deal with love and death, and the inexorable merger of the two in Linda Plager's failing body. "I'm all right," MacLeod said. "I'm going to bed," Richie announced. "See you guys later." Duncan, rummaging in the refrigerator as if he might actually be hungry, didn't see Richie's face suddenly reflect more pain than just his headache. Tessa did. Greg could have killed him, but Duncan was obviously not impressed. "Duncan . . . " she started. "Yes?" he asked, from the depths of the shelves, clearly in no mood for conversation. Tessa changed her mind about approaching the subject. "About Linda . . . " she substituted instead. "I'm sorry." He surfaced with a bottle of mineral water. "I know," he said, and kissed her forehead. "So am I." Linda died the next morning. Despite their parting words, the peace MacLeod had tried to forge for himself at her deathbed, he still found himself falling into a grayness of tired and depression afterwards. No one he'd ever met - not Connor, not Darius, not Amanda - had ever been able to explain the torment of Immortals marching outside the sweep and fall of time. No one could ever tell him why it was his fortune to watch loved ones die. But each death was like a ripping open the same old wound, rendering fresh blood each decade of his life. Tessa seemed to understand his mood, and didn't push him to talk about it. MacLeod was grateful for that. Richie's bruises healed, and the stitches came out of his arm. If he was uncharacteristically quiet in the days after Greg's attack, MacLeod didn't notice from his own withdrawn state. It therefore came to him as a surprise one morning when he retrieved the day's newspaper from Richie's bathroom and found it folded to the classifieds, with various apartment advertisements circled in ink.