Date: Sat, 25 Mar 1995 23:55:00 +0200 Reply-To: Marina Bailey Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Marina Bailey Organization: CDS OnLine BBS, Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA Subject: Loving a Watcher, 2 of 4 The girl told Duncan everything she could remember, which wasn't much. But Richie could tell by the look in MacLeod's eyes that he was still very suspicious. "Why try to kill yourself?" asked Duncan. This was the question that had been bothering Richie for two days. The girl looked down. "I don't know... I felt it would be better." "Better than what?" "Better than falling prey to... to... I don't know! I can't remember! You have to believe me! I just don't remember." "You say you're a Watcher, but you don't know what the Watchers are?" Duncan asked disbelievingly. Beth nodded. "Richie told me I'm a Watcher. That's what this tattoo is, to identify me with them. But I don't know anything else! I don't even know what the Watchers watch!" Duncan looked at Richie. "You didn't tell her that part?" "Mac, it's pretty unbelievable as it is. When she gets her memory back, she'll know it all anyway." Duncan didn't seem impressed. "Maybe you should tell her now." He got up to go. "Sorry to have bothered you two so late." "So, you believe me? About not knowing?" the girl asked. "Yeah." Duncan indicated to Richie, who walked outside with him. "I think Dawson's right, Rich. An Immortal tried to kill her. Which means there's an Immortal out there who's looking for her. And if he finds her, her finds you." "Mac, I can..." "Take care of yourself. I know. Just be careful." "Sure." Richie went back inside, to the girl. "Duncan said we have to be careful, that someone's probably looking for you." "An Immortal," said the girl. "Yeah, an... how did you know?" "I... I don't know, it just came to me. That's who tried to kill me, Richie! An Immortal!" "Do you remember anything else?" "Not who I am, but... Immortals! They're... they... are you a Watcher? You know about them." Richie held up his wrist. "Nope." "Then, what..." It dawned on her. "You're one of them, aren't you? You're an Immortal." He nodded. "Yeah. I'm an Immortal." "And you knew what I was. More and more Immortals these days are... are... I don't remember!" She looked up at Richie beseechingly. "What's an Immortal? Tell me, please!" Richie sighed, sat down next to her. At least he wouldn't have to try to break it to her gently now. "What do you think?" "Someone who can't die." "Unless?" "Someone chops their head off." Her eyes widened as she remembered seeing one of those duels. "And then... lightning." "It's called the Quickening." Richie smiled. "Your memory's coming back." She nodded, then started to cry. "I'm happy, Richie. I'll know who I am, I..." She stopped, remembering the other important fact about this whole thing. "Watchers watch Immortals." "Yeah. Watchers watch us." "We... we... we don't interfere, we just... watch. My parents call us historical voyeurs." Richie pounced. "Do you remember their names?" "No, I... no, but... It's coming back. Hold me." And she put her arms around him and held on tight, feeling his warmth again. She wanted more this time, and it didn't matter how short a time they had known each other: she felt as if they'd known each other forever. "Kiss me, Richie." This was too much for Richie, even though every nerve in his body told him to do it. He pulled away instead. "No. Not again." "Again?" "I helped someone, once. Someone who... an Immortal was following her. We... she... She became important to me and I just had to help her. But the Immortal killed her. I don't want that to happen to you." Laura. Every day he still thought about that whole incident. When he'd killed Mako, that had been his first Quickening. He was different now, and he knew it. In some ways he regretted doing it, but he still didn't know what else he could have done. He was a fully-fledged Immortal now and had to make his own choices. This time he chose to remain at a distance. It was best for them both. But the girl didn't have access to all that knowledge. "I won't get killed if I can just remember who I am and what to do, Richie. Please be with me, I need you." Richie's resolve started to weaken. He knew that this was a pattern of his, helping girls in trouble. And because of him they usually ended up in even more. 'It isn't limited to your Immortality,' he thought to himself. Perhaps he should have left Beth with Duncan. It was all him, he reasoned. Laura had been killed, Maja would have died because of his stupidity had Duncan not saved her, and Donna... Donna and the baby might very well have died too. Maybe there was still time to take her to Duncan. "I think you'd be safer at MacLeod's," he finally said. "No! I'm not going! You're the only person who makes me feel safe. I don't want to be anywhere else." "Safety is an illusion," said Richie, "especially with me. I don't want anything to happen to you." As he said it he knew she wasn't going to listen. They stared into each others' eyes for a long time, neither one wanting to give way. Finally, Richie did give in. "Okay, you win. You can stay. So go in there and go to sleep. You need rest. I think that the more rest you get, the faster your memory will return. You've already remembered the important things." "Except my name and where I live. Who I was watching. All the important things, right." "I'll be here," said Richie. "You get some sleep." "Okay." In sleep the dream came again: a sword was coming at her. But this time she saw someone grab the arm holding the sword, and pull. The flat side of the sword impacted with her head, and it went blank. Beth sat up in the bed, shaking. It wasn't a dream, it was a memory. She tried to go back into it, to see what had happened. And then it came. She was standing on a corner, near an alley, unobtrusively. A lot of lightning came from the alley, and when she tried to step further away, to make it look as though she hadn't seen anything, a tall, dark-haired man grabbed her from behind. Watchers were, of course, trained in what to do in these situations. Usually, playing innocent worked. "Look, I don't have any money on me," she had said. "I do have a chain, just take it, okay?" The man didn't listen; instead he grabbed her wrist. "I know about you. You people are not going to kill me!" Okay, so playing innocent had not worked. "You know we'd never tell anyone." "No, you just kill us." "What?" The man took out his sword. It was one of the most menacing swords she'd ever seen, much like the Kurgan's. "I'll kill you first," the man said, and just as he came at her, two teenagers who were passing rushed to the scene. "Hey! Leave her alone!" One of them grabbed the Immortal's arm, deflecting the angle of the blow, and the sword impacted with her head instead. Beth was not to know that a club a block away had just closed its doors, releasing teenage ravers into the night. And that the flood of people bringing up the rear had scared the Immortal away. The two who'd saved her hadn't been quite sure what to do - they hadn't wanted to take her the hospital in case the police tried to connect them with the case. So they had taken her to the hotel instead. All Beth could remember was the Immortal's face, and the sword hitting her. She didn't know who he was, but now she remembered what she had been doing there: she had followed *her* Immortal from her home, right up until he (or she? The girl couldn't tell) had gone into that alley. And gotten decapitated for his (or her?) trouble. She didn't remember her Immortal's name, or her own for that matter, but now she had somewhere to start. And for some insane reason that even she could not puzzle out, the first person she thought to tell was... "Richie!" She shook him awake. "Yeah, what?" he asked, still half asleep. "I remember now! I came all the way from Florida! I followed my Immortal here." "Your Immortal?" Something told her not to explain. "Yeah, and he, or she - I think it could have been a woman - met another one in this city, and lost." "'Your' Immortal got her head chopped off, and the guy who did it tried to kill you?" It sounded plausible, Richie guessed. "Yes! Somebody saved me, I don't know who." "You were lucky," Richie said. Mortals who got into altercations with Immortals hardly ever lasted very long. Meddling in Immortal affairs had gotten more than one person killed for their trouble. The girl sank onto the couch next to Richie. "I know. All I got were a few scrambled brain cells. I could have been dead." On impulse, she hugged him. "I have somewhere to start, now." Richie hugged her back, trying to keep it platonic. "Good." He'd resolved not to get involved, but it wasn't working. It had been a useless resolve anyway, he knew. He did like Beth a whole lot. And he wanted her a whole lot, too. She was saying, "And, see, I don't feel helpless anymore. I'm okay. And I really like you, Richie." "Don't confuse gratefulness with liking me," he said, but only half-heartedly. "I'm not. I do like you." Richie tried to say something more, but she interrupted. "Kiss me, you fool." All she wanted was for him to kiss her, and touch her, and make her feel safe. So, she kissed him first. "Wha..mfff," was about all Richie could get out before she kissed him, and he couldn't help but return the kiss. As he kissed her, the young Immortal knew that it could not work, that it would have to end. He could feel it, but he ignored the feeling. She was here, now, wearing nothing but a thin T-shirt... and soon even that was gone. Joe Dawson was startled to find Richie at the door when he opened the bar the next day. "Gee, you're here early." Richie, with Beth in tow, came in. "Yeah. Dawson! We found out where she's from! Florida!" "Florida? Where in Florida?" "I seem to... I get a picture of a planet... it must be a key... Jupiter! That's it, Jupiter, Florida!" She smiled in triumph. "So, you'll be able to find out who she is now, won't you?" asked Richie anxiously. "I don't see why not," Joe replied. "I'll have to check the database." He turned back to Beth. "You're a long way from home." "I followed my Immortal here. She - I think it was a woman - was killed the other night in an alley, and the guy who did it tried to kill me." Joe was about to lecture the girl on the importance of being unobtrusive, but then thought better of it. Her memory had not yet fully returned. Instead he said, "And that's when Richie found you." She shook her head. "No, somehow I landed up in a hotel. It was when I left there that I ended up jumping in front of Richie's car." "Why?" "The Watchers I know... they program you... I feel it, somehow. Rather die than be captured and tortured by one of the bad Immortals. An evil enough person could destroy the Watchers, and we can't let that happen." "You remember all this, but not who you are?" Joe was alarmed by the apparent programming to die rather than be forced to give up information. That was a tactic used by the Hunters. Could the Hunters possibly be using the girl to get to the Immortals in other parts of the country? The girl was twisting her hair nervously. "I know myself, inside. What kind of a person I am. But my name isn't there. All I do know is, it's not Beth." When he had seen Richie and the girl off, Dawson checked the database for Watchers in Florida, and came up with a family who were all Watchers. There was a man, his wife, their daughter, and a brother-in-law, all of whom did a little Watching. Their current assignment had been to watch a woman named Elizabeth Pierce, a fairly new Immortal as these things went. Joe called the number provided. "Joe Dawson?" asked the man at the other end of the line when Joe called. "Of course I know who you are. What did we do to get a call from one of the higher-ups?" "A... friend of mine met a girl who says she has lost her memory. All she knows is that she's from Jupiter and followed her Immortal here." "And you're still watching Duncan MacLeod up there in Washington?" "Yeah." "That's our daughter," the man replied. "She followed her Immortal up there." They talked for a long while, not just about the girl, but about Immortals, Watching, and ethics. At the end Joe was satisfied that these people were not a group of renegades. He was immensely relieved. Joe went over to Richie's place the minute he put down the phone. He found the two of them holding hands, even when Richie opened the door. "Good news?" Richie asked. "Yeah. We found out who you are," he said to the girl. "I just had to check our records and make a call." The girl put her arm around Richie, but continued to look at Joe. "So, who am I?" "Your name is Lily Thompson, you work in a music shop in Jupiter, as you thought. It's right across the street from where your Immortal worked. You've been missing for three weeks. Apparently your check-ins became irregular, and finally stopped." "I kept hearing 'Beth' in my head," said Lily. "But I knew it wasn't my name." "Well, you were right there. It's the name of your Immortal. Elizabeth Pierce. Her latest interest in life was aerobics and karate classes." "Yeah, I... I seem to recall now... she hadn't been Immortal very long...40 years or something." "42, yeah," said Dawson. "Such a short time, and now she's dead." It was a sad thing. Lily knew that one shouldn't get attached to one's Immortal, but it often happened. After the scandal with Rita, Watchers had to be extra careful. The scandal with Rita?!! Another piece fell into place. "Well, now we can put that in our records," Joe was saying. He hadn't really known much about Beth Pierce, so it was hard to miss her. "Do you know who killed her?" "I didn't, but now... It was Nicholas Crawford." His name came as she was speaking. The look in Joe's eyes when she said the name told her all she'd need to know about Nicholas Crawford. "Well, who's Nicholas Crawford?" prompted Richie. "Not someone you wanna mess with," said Joe - firmly. "I'm serious, Rich. This guy's dangerous." "And he's here," finished Lily. Richie and Joe shared a look. Richie was not yet well-known as an Immortal, so Crawford could only be here for Duncan, unless Beth Pierce had been his target. But if so, what was Crawford still doing in the city? Joe turned to the girl. "I think you should go home to Florida. Staying here's dangerous." Lily looked at Richie. "I... don't know if I wanna go back." "Your father told me you could take care of yourself." "My... yes! My parents... they're also Watchers!" As she said it, their names came to mind. "Your father told me to tell you they miss you." "I'll give them a call," she said, still looking at Richie. - Marina. \\ "I don't care about their different thoughts; ||>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> // // different thoughts are good for me." || R I C H I E >> \\ \\ - Tanita Tikaram; Twist in my Sobriety ||>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> // //======tmar@cds.Alt.ZA=======Marina Bailey======|| \\ \\=============Chief Flag Waver and Defender of Richie==============// ... A naked American man stole my balloons. --- Blue Wave/RA v2.12 [NR] =========================================================================