Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 16:29:59 -0500 Reply-To: LGreeneyes@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Laura Schomberg Subject: New: First Time Out part 3 All the usual disclaimers apply. Let me know how you like it. LGreeneyes@aol.com ***************************************************************** *********** First Time Out Part 3 By Laura Schomberg Duncan's Loft 12:00 pm Richie had long since finished telling Duncan, Joe, and Adam Ellie's tale about Danka. The four men sat quietly eating the lunch that Adam had made. Luckily for Adam, Richie had done some grocery shopping for Duncan the day before. Finally Joe broke the silence, "Richie, did she tell you why she was here?" Richie shook his head, "She has to be in trouble, though." "Why do you say that?" Duncan asked. "She was dressed all in black, at least in dark clothes. The clothes were full of bullet holes and covered in blood." "I wonder if she found him," Adam said. The three remaining men turned towards Adam. Their faces ran the spectrum from confusion to dawning awareness. "Hamann was..is one of us also," Richie stated. "Yes." "Is that really...." Joe started to say when Ellie came out of the bathroom. All eyes turned to her. Richie's eyes ran up her body. Her feet were bare and just barely poked out of his rolled up jeans. Her right hand had a handful of the waistband and was holding it tightly against her waist. He had given her a green print button down shirt which she had tied in front of her and then buttoned up only enough to cover her breasts. She now looked like she was only a little older than Richie. Her auburn hair, still slightly damp, was brushed behind her shoulders. "What happened?" Richie gasped. Ellie turned and regarded him with a confused look. "What do you mean?" "Your hair was black." Duncan and Adam looked from Richie's confused face to Ellie and burst out laughing. Adam was the first one to regain enough composure to speak. "When I last saw her in Paris it was blond." "In Georgia it was brown," Duncan added. "I ran into her at Woodstock and it was a flaming red." "Black. It was black the first time I met her." Ellie glared at the two chuckling immortals, "I don't need any help from the peanut gallery." The two immortals tried unsuccessfully to stifle their laughter. "Duncan, do you have something I can use to hold these pants up?" Duncan got up and walked over to his closet. He opened that door and considered the ties before pulling one out. It was a colorful number that reminded Ellie of something worn by a large, loud man on some show who didn't seem to like women who thought for themselves. She had discovered him one day a few months ago when she was in Florida and was surfing channels in a hotel room while she waited for Janek to arrive. "Here. Try this," Duncan said as he handed the tie over to Ellie. "Are you sure?" "Yes. I never liked that tie anyway." "Hey! I gave you that!" Duncan turned to Richie, "Sorry, Rich". Ellie grinned and threaded the tie thru the belt loops of Richie's pants before tying it into a knot. "That's much better," she said as she headed over to join the other men. "Richie, I had put some stuff in my hair to keep lights from reflecting off of it. That's why it took so long for me to take a shower, I was having trouble getting it out." "Oh. I was beginning to think that maybe Mac was looking for a change," Richie said with a grin. "Ellie, this is Joe. You spoke to him this morning." "Nice to meet you in person," Ellie said, holding her hand out. Joe reached up to shake her hand. "I put the package that Janek sent over there," Joe said, pointing to the long package that had been placed on table in the kitchen area. "Damn!" Ellie exclaimed. "I forgot to call Janek." Ellie turned around and headed over to the phone. She picked up the phone, dialed something and then asked for an international operator. After waiting a few seconds she said "Israel" and gave the operator a string of numbers. After a few moments she started talking while the others listened to the one sided conversation. "May I speak to Janek Stern, please?" "Miriam Rosner. Who is this?" "Officer? Has something happened to Janek?" "I'm the granddaughter of someone he was in the camps with. He was supposed to call me about two hours ago." "Washington state. In the United States of America." "10 years. He's dead isn't he?" "I don't think you would ask me how I knew him or where I lived if he weren't dead." "When did it happen?" "H...how?" "Who?" "No. Thank-you. I'll call his son." Ellie looked stricken as she slowly put the phone back in its place. She turned and went over to the package Janek had sent. She took off the lid and pulled out a sword and long knife. The weapons were placed to the side as she reached into the box and brought out a letter. Ellie crumpled the letter after reading it and shoved it into a pocket. Without a word she turned around and left the loft. "Richie, go after her," Adam commanded. "Why me?" "Look, Richie. She's told you more about herself in a matter of hours than she has told me in centuries! And she's mad at me. She won't talk to me but she might talk to you." Richie didn't look like he thought that she would talk to him but took off after her anyway. He stopped only long enough to grab her weapons and his jacket. As he left the loft Adam turned to the two other men left in the room. Both mortal and immortal looked like they would wait only so long for an explanation. Adam simply shrugged. Finally Duncan said, "Well?" "We ran into each other in Paris. Just after that bit with Kalas. I told her what happened. And about the disc." "That explains why she's mad at you." Adam turned from Duncan to Joe. Joe had already gotten up and headed to the phone. "Get comfortable. This may take a while." Adam turned back to Duncan, shrugged and sat back. Duncan looked from Adam to Joe and then finally decided to sit down on the sofa. ***************************************************************** *********** Richie's footsteps echoed through the empty dojo. He came out of the stairway in time to see Ellie go out the dojo entrance. He followed her outside and was surprised to find that she had stopped. Her back was to him when she said, "Why are you following me?" Richie stopped on the top step and replied, "Adam told me to." Ellie turned and glared at Richie. The look on her face scared Richie. "Do you do everything that Adam tells you to do?" "Actually, this is the first time. Adam thought you might talk to me." "I wasn't planning to," Ellie said and she stood on the sidewalk below him. She seemed to be considering her options as Richie came down the steps to join her. Ellie turned to look at Richie and then at the vehicles parked beside the building. "Is the bike yours?" "Yes." "Can I borrow it?" "Only if you'll let me come with you. Besides, I have your, um, tools." "Whatever." "I only have one helmet." "I don't need one." Richie shrugged and decided not to bring up the issue of helmet laws. Ellie braided her hair as they headed over to Richie's bike. She made quick work of it and then tied the hair into a knot at the bottom while Richie picked up his helmet and put it on. "Let me drive." Richie pulled the keys out of his pocket and handed them to Ellie. She got on the bike first and then waited for Richie. Richie looked back at the dojo before getting on the bike. he thought as he climbed on behind Ellie. Ellie turned to look back at Richie as she started the bike. "Hold on." Richie grabbed her around the waist just as she barrelled out of the parking spot. For the first time in his life Richie closed his eyes and prayed that the ride would soon end. ***************************************************************** *********** It took Joe about 30 minutes to get the information he was looking for. He finally hung up the phone and came back to sit down next to Duncan. "Tell me about Janek, Adam." "What haven't you been able to figure out?" "Why did he become a Watcher?" Adam sighed. "Ellie met Janek in Stutthof. I think they were lovers. She never told me much about him. I think that they arranged for her watcher back in 1948 to see them together as a way to get Janek introduced to the Watchers. You probably know the rest." "Yeah. Janek and Ellie supposedly run into each other and Janek 'recognizes' her and creates a scene before Ellie can get away from him. Her watcher sees the whole thing and introduces Janek Stern to the Watchers." "How did he get picked to watch Ellie?" Duncan interrupted. "We bent some rules. Ellie had 5 different watchers during Janek's training. She was very good at spotting them and then losing them. She also reestablished, or at least that's what we thought, her relationship with Janek. We decided that as long as Janek never told her what he was he could be her watcher. He didn't get a tattoo so she wouldn't see it and become suspicious." "Ellie asked Janek to become a watcher to help her find Hamann." "She told you that?" Adam looked slightly uncomfortable. "No, not really. I ran into both of them in '47. She told me that he had a stake in finding Hamann. I didn't know for sure who her watcher was until I was working on the data base. When I saw that Janek was her watcher everything sort of fell into place." "Who's Hamann watcher?" Duncan asked. Now it was Joe's turn to look uncomfortable, "He didn't have one. Until toady we weren't even suspicious that he was immortal." "Then how did Ellie find him?" "I don't think she did. Janek filled a report just after he got off the phone with me. In that report he stated that he had received a call from Ellie saying that she was taking two mortals into Peru to bring out the man who gave the orders at Stutthof to shot all stragglers. Two days later Janek received a call from a woman named Rebeka Horowitz who said that Ellie had told her to call him if anything happened to her. Rebeka told Janek that everything was going as planned when for no reason Ellie stood up and gave away their position." "Hamann?" "That's my thought, Duncan. Rebeka told Janek that Ellie looked like she had seen a ghost and then she was shot several time by one of the guards. Rebeka and the other member of the group, a Jacob Dresner, dragged Ellie's body back to their car and dumped her in a ditch about 5 miles from the nearest town." "So she didn't expect to find him there?" Adam answered, "No. Janek sent her sword here remember? And when I saw her in Paris she told me that she hoped that this man would tell her something that would lead her to Hamann." "She was hunting?" Duncan asked. That didn't seem like the Ellianna that he knew. "I know. I tried to tell her that she didn't have any experience hunting but she wouldn't listen." "You mean Ellianna has never gone hunting before?" "Yes, Joe. She always told me that it was easier to let immortals out hunting come to her. She said that they always misjudged her abilities because she was female and, well not very tall." "Joe, why did Janek file that report?" "I don't know, Mac. Unless he thought that something had gone so wrong that Ellianna might not get out of Peru alive. Janek's report goes on to state that he was called by the authorities in Peru about 30 hours later. They informed him that Jacob Dresner and Rebeka Horowitz had been found. They had been tortured and then beheaded. The authorities called Janek because Rebeka had his number in one of her pockets. His report ends there. There is no mention of Ellianna trying to contact him after she got shot." No one spoke for a moment as Janek's report sunk in. Finally Joe shifted uncomfortably and then continued telling the immortals what he had discovered. "The Watcher outfit in Israel said that Janek was killed about three hours ago. He wasn't tortured but he was beheaded, just like Jacob and Rebeka. At first they thought that Ellianna had committed the crime, even though she had never killed a watcher before. That opinion changed after the authorities reported that a witness saw a tall blonde man leaving Janek's home about the time of death. The man was seen throwing a bloody rag into the bushes." "Hamann," Duncan spat. "That's what I thought," Joe said as he looked at the two immortals. "That's all I could find out. So now what do we do?" No one answered Joe for a few minutes. Both immortals seemed lost in thought. For a moment Joe thought that another immortal was present. Finally Adam shook his head and stood up to walk over to a window. "It will take Hamann a while to get here. There is nothing else to do until then. We wait." End of part three