========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Apr 1996 10:27:31 -0400 Reply-To: Jill Marie Spetoskey Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Jill Marie Spetoskey Subject: Mortals 8/14 (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: k s gritten Subject: Mortals 8/14 Mortals 8/14 "So McKenzie must have heard from someone that the Raven was a good place to meet vampires," Nick mused as he and Richie approached the precinct. "I suppose that he was lucky, in a way. Somebody might have actually given him what he wanted." Richie snorted. Nick glared at him, but he merely shrugged. "Hey, I've always wondered why Watchers do what they do. I didn't have a choice about becoming an Immortal--I just am. But Watchers know that they are tracking somebody who has lived longer than they, and will be around long after they're gone. I'm not surprised that more of them don't go a little crazy." Nick thought about Natalie, and Tracy, who knew that Vachon was a vampire. Did it eat away at them, knowing that their friends would probably outlive them? Nick thought with regret that it was too late to undo the damage for Nat--if they did not find a cure, a way to bring him back across, he would have to leave her someday too. Could he watch her grow old? Could he watch her die? "Did you have a choice?" Richie's question interrupted his reverie. He knew that the boy--Immortal or not, he was still several centuries younger than Nick himself--was referring to the point at which he became a vampire. "Yes," he said slowly, "I suppose that I did, in a way." He thought of Janette, enticing and seductive. He thought about his own doubts, his disenchantment with his life, his loss of faith. He remembered LaCroix's burning eyes. "Well I didn't," Richie continued. "Sure, I probably would have broken my neck at some point on my motorcycle, and that would have done the trick. But instead I was shot by a punk for no reason. And Tessa--my friend--she was shot too. But she didn't wake up. She was just a normal human being, in the wrong place at the wrong time." Nick thought about Alyssa, his pretty, unsuspecting wife. She had not awakened either. Would Nat, if he took her blood? Richie stopped for a moment as they entered the police station. "Does Tracy know?" Nick shook his head. "No. Let's keep it that way." ****** "Did you already know about vampires?" Nat shifted a little, trying to find a comfortable position against the bare wall and hard floor, and heard, rather than saw, Joe shake his head. The thin slice of light which had shown beneath the door had been extinguished, leaving them in a blanket of darkness. "I'd heard rumors," he answered from across the room. He had moved back to the opposite wall, ostensibly to give her room to stretch out, but she knew that it was also simply to give her space, in more ways than one. Telling him about Nick had been difficult--she had too long had to guard her speech against unwitting revelations. Still, she found herself unwilling to hide her secrets from him, particularly after he had revealed his. "When you record the history of Immortals," Joe continued, "stories do tend to circulate. I'm not surprised that more Immortals and vampires don't know each other. I've noticed that Immortals have a knack for running into their own kind. Surprising, really, that after running into the same people for a few centuries, they wouldn't notice." Nat could hear the joking tone, but she answered the comment seriously. "Maybe they did. Do. But vampires have a very closed community. It's possible that Immortals have kept their secret. Normal people who find out are often killed." "And what about you? Why are you still alive?" Natalie shrugged a little before she remembered that he could not see her. It was a question that she herself had puzzled over before. LaCroix had not killed her, yet. Janette had not told the Enforcers. Vachon had even come to her for help when Screed was sick. "Very few people--vampires--know that I exist, I guess. Those that do keep quiet, or protect me." "Like Nick Knight?" "Yes," she acknowledged. "Like Nick." He was quiet for a moment. In the darkness she could not see his face, so she was not expecting his next question. "Do you still love him?" he asked. She was startled, and she knew that he could hear it in her sharp intake of breath. She could almost hear him shrug. "After years of watching people, you get pretty good at observation. Besides, it makes sense. You've been covering up for his kind, haven't you?" "Yes, I have been covering up for him. For them. And I don't know if I love him anymore." She tried to change the subject. "So how many times has Richie 'died'?" "Not very many times. He's still young--very young, for an Immortal. Besides, he takes pretty good care of himself. He could be around for a long time, if you want him to be." She caught the underlying questions easily, and chuckled. "You don't think that Richie and I...? Immortal or not, he's still a bit young." "Sorry." He sounded sheepish. "When you answered the phone, I jumped to the wrong conclusion." "He spent the night. Or rather the morning. On the couch." Natalie was not sure why she was explaining it to him, or for that matter, why she continued, "Richard was my brother's name. He died, and I got Nick to bring him across. It was a mistake." The pain still cut her deeply, framed against a dull backdrop of regret for all of them--her dead brother, Nick, herself--and their hopes. "I'm sorry," Joe said simply, apologizing for an episode of which he had no knowledge, an event which he had never seen. Still, she found it comforting. It had been too long since she had a chance to talk to somebody about Richard, about Nick, all of them. It had been too long since she had really talked to another human being. The thought saddened her. "Joe?" "Hm?" "I'm glad that you're here."