========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 20:51:52 PDT Reply-To: Laura Meizel Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Laura Meizel Subject: Furthest Inward, Part 2 Furthest Inward by Laura Reeve Part Two: ******** "Richie?" No answer. Duncan moved quickly and grasped his friend's wrists with one strong hand, to hold him still in mid-lunge. He ignored the blood. Richie started to struggle and then froze, looking up with dazed and unfocused eyes. "Richie, enough." Duncan's words finally seemed to break through. "Hey, look at me, Rich." he said softly, and reached out to cup the side of the younger man's face in his free hand. "Mac?" Richie's voice was hoarse as he slowly focused on his mentor's face. "Yeah. Are you okay?" Duncan asked, hiding his own worry and pain under a deliberately even voice. "What...?" "You went over the edge during your workout. Anne called me when she saw." "Oh." Richie whispered, pupils dilated in shock. Then he noticed the blood on Duncan's shirt and glanced down. The sight of his own torn and blistered hands acted like a physical blow and Duncan caught him as his knees buckled. Easing him down onto the floor, Duncan let Richie rest his head the older immortal's shoulder. "Ahh...God, Mac. This hurts. Why couldn't I feel it before?" Richie murmured with a violent shudder of pain. Duncan tightened his arm around his protege's shoulders in comfort. "It was almost meditation - you did the same thing over and over until you couldn't see or feel anything else. Don't worry," Macleod added, calmly. "It'll heal in a couple of minutes, remember?" They sat that way until Richie's hands had flickered with blue, healing light, and then the younger man pulled away, staggering to his feet to grab a towel and head for the locker room. Duncan could hear him running water over his hands and face...he wanted with all his heart to follow Richie, but understood all too well his need to be alone to gather back his dignity and pride. He sat on the bench at the side of the dojo, picked up a stray towel and cleaned most of the blood off his hands. After a bit, the door opened and Richie came back in, joining Duncan on the bench. Neither man said anything for a while, but Duncan could see and feel his friend's turmoil and confusion. He waited patiently, knowing from long experience that Richie would talk when he was ready. "Mac..." Richie stared at the scuffed wood of the floor as he finally spoke. "I...ever since we found that guy, I...I see his face when I close my eyes, I see Tess... Everything..." He broke off what he was saying, but Duncan was pretty sure he knew what Richie was talking about, especially from the way his voice was shaking. ad he hadn't been there to remember. And he was suddenly glad that he hadn't been there to remember those details. The aftermath, he thought, was still vivid enough. "Damnit, Mac, I figured if I could push it, then I wouldn't have time to think about it, maybe tire myself out so I could get some decent sleep." Richie said, resting his head in his hands for a moment and then glancing over at Duncan tentatively. The older man shook his head with a faint smile. "I've tried that one myself a few times. Doesn't work too well, usually. Is this about what happened when you and Tessa died, or about yesterday?" pDrawing in a deep breath, Richie straightened up a little. "I swear, Mac, I was ready to drop him." "You didn't tell me yesterday. What made you stop?" Duncan asked softly. "Tessa." Richie said softly, his voice rough with unshed tears. "In the middle of everything I just...saw her face. Remembered. And I knew I couldn't do anything to him." Duncan went very still for a moment and then put a hand on Richie's shoulder. "Rich, she's always going to be with us." He gave his friend a slight smile. "To be honest," he added with a catch in his deeper voice. "Sometimes I find myself asking what she'd think about something. I can almost hear her voice." He stared at the floor in silence for a long moment. Richie took advantage of this to brush the tears from his face without Macleod seeing. "Mac?" "Yeah?" "Would it be...could I stay here tonight?" Richie asked, almost inaudibly. "Richie, you know this is home for you, too. We settled that a long time ago." Duncan ruffled the younger man's hair in his old, teasing gesture, to make him smile a bit. "C'mon, I'll make dinner and then you need some sleep." He stood and stretched, and then held out a hand to pull Richie to his feet. "Actually, I could use some sleep, too." An hour or so later, Macleod glanced over at Richie, who had finally fallen asleep on the couch. Duncan shook his head slightly, thinking that in sleep, the younger immortal looked like he had before...well, everything, when he'd first come to live with him and with Tessa. Deep sleep had erased the lines of pain and memory, making his face into an echo of the 17 year old kid, the one with that odd mixture of attitude and vulnerability that had driven them both so frequently crazy back then. Well, some things hadn't changed completely... Duncan got up and covered his friend with a light blanket and went to sit on the edge of his bed, taking a book with him. For some reason, he felt the need to keep watch for a while. Tessa, he thought, his throat tightening a little, thank you for watching over him, sweetheart. I know you're proud of him...I know I am. ******** The next morning, 10:15 a.m. Richie hovered as unobtrusively as he could in the corner by the nurse's station, watching the flow of people through the hallways. He remembered Tessa taking him here a couple of times when he'd gotten hurt. Well, that was something I won't have to go through again, he thought with a certain amount of irony. The only pain he felt now was inside, and it had somehow become more or less bearable after the previous day. He had awakened on Mac's couch a few hours ago to find his friend grading a new batch of research papers. Neither of them had said much, having said so much already before Richie had fallen asleep. Which was all right with Richie, since he was still trying to sort all of it out in his head. The older immortal had offered him breakfast, but he'd declined, saying he needed to see Anne first so she'd know he was okay. They agreed to meet for sparring practice later that afternoon. Anne finally came out of one of the operating rooms, taking off her mask and surgical cap and rubbing the small of her back with a wince. There was a tired smile on her face. Oh good. She didn't lose this one... Richie thought. He stepped into her line of sight as she stripped off the gown and threw it into the nearby bin, ruffling her fingers through her short, dark hair. Straightening up, she saw him and without a word, came over and took his hands in her smaller ones, turning them over to examine the unscarred but callused palms. "After everything," she said with a shake of her head. "It still amazes me sometimes. Anyway, I've been known to get too involved in what I was doing sometimes myself." She cocked her head to one side and looked at him for a moment. "Are you all right?" Richie stared at his feet for a moment and then met her concerned gaze. "Yeah, ...I mean I will be, eventually. I uh, don't really remember much about yesterday until Mac snapped me out of it." "Bad memories?" Anne asked gently. "Some. Not very good ones, anyway." Richie answered. He pulled his hands from her grasp, but only so he could give her a careful but heartfelt hug. "Thanks, Anne," he whispered at her ear, and just held on for a while. Then he moved back a little, blue eyes wide and startled. "Wait a minute! I actually felt her move in there!" he said in wonder. "Yeah, she was trying to do cartwheels just before surgery started...I'm just glad she decided to take a nap so I could do my work!" She laughed and took his hand to move it to the curve of her abdomen so he could feel the baby kicking. One of the nurses came over to hand her a clipboard to sign, and he stepped back to wait for her to finish. He touched her arm and she turned back to him. "Anne?" he ventured a little shyly. "Mmm-hmm?" "Mac...well, when I said I was coming over here this morning, he said to ask you...something about nightmares and breakfast? I'm not sure that makes any sense." Anne smiled wistfully and then slipped an arm around his waist. "Actually, it makes perfect sense. C'mon, I have a break coming to me right about now. I'll buy you breakfast." She nodded to the nurse behind the desk and signed out. "Nah," Richie said, grabbing his leather jacket from the chair he had draped it over. "I'm buying. For both of you." He grinned at her and looked her up and down with one eyebrow raised, until she had to laugh. And they walked out of the dim hospital corridors and into the sunshine. Fin ******** Laura Reeve aeron@deeptht.armory.com, aeron@gorn.evolve.com Journeyman Bard, Teacher, Believer in Unicorns, Cat-Person. ******** "Around here, the fantasy "There is nothing so wrong in this always wins..." world that a sensible woman -Jim Henson can't set it right in the course of an afternoon..." -Countess Aurelia, The Madwoman of Chaillot