========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Apr 1996 15:55:35 -0400 Reply-To: LC Krakowka Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: LC Krakowka Subject: Nothing Gold Can Stay 2/6 Nothing Gold Can Stay LC Krakowka hck1@cornell.edu copywrite-1996. [part 2] Connor was nursing his fourth cup of steaming black coffee when Richie entered the loft. The young immortal seemed a bit shocked to find him sitting in his underwear at Duncan's table, but managed to pull off a casual hello. "You look like hell," he added. Connor grunted and emptied the cup. Duncan came out of the bathroom wearing his robe and toweling his hair. "Morning Richie," he said. "Hiya Mac. Got any cereal?" Duncan nodded and pointed to the top of the refrigerator. "More coffee, Connor?" The elder MacLeod shook his head and turned the cup upside down, still trying to piece together the previous night's events. He vaguely remembered being dumped rather unceremoniously into the lift by a skinny Englishman. "Who's the Brit?" He asked. Duncan shot him a look of confusion. "Who?" "The Brit...Adam something or another." "Oh, Adam Pierson," Richie said. "That's it." Connor pointed at him. "He and Sarah are together?" "You know Sarah?" Richie asked. "Old drinking buddies," Connor grumbled. "Is there like some secret club for you Highlanders?" "Adam and Sarah are old friends," Duncan said with a smile in Richie's direction. "And newly together." Connor snickered. "He doesn't have much of a sense of humor." "I suspect he was a bit put off by *you*," Duncan poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down across the table from him. "Ordinarily he's got a pretty good one." The elder MacLeod snickered again. That skinny Englishman seemed awfully tame for the Sarah MacGreggor he knew. "Be nice to Adam," Duncan said. "He's not what he seems." "What's that supposed to mean?" Duncan shrugged enigmatically and changed the subject. "I hear you met Joe Dawson last night." "Nice guy, for a Watcher." *** Linna stepped up to the door and checked the slip of paper Joe had given her one last time. This was the place. She knocked three times and stepped back, waiting for Adam Pierson to answer. Instead, a young woman came to the door, wearing a heavy cashmere trench coat and carrying a leather satchel. She looked a bit harried. "Can I help you?" Linna studied her for a moment, there was something familiar about this woman. Red hair, muted Scottish accent...beneath a woolen scarf, Linna could just see the seam of a scar under the woman's chin. "Can I help you?" Sarah repeated. "I'm um...I'm looking for Adam Pierson," Linna responded, still trying to place the face. The hair was wrong. But the moss green eyes and that scar... "Oh, he's not here. Is there something I can do for you?" Sarah MacGreggor. The name came to her in a flash. Sixteen years ago she had traded stories with Sarah's Watcher in a cafe in France. And now the Lady Highlander was in Adam Pierson's apartment. Linna wondered if Joe knew about Pierson's transgression. Or her own, for that matter. "I'm Linna Wolfram...Adam was going to give me some books." Sarah looked down at the middle aged woman, making a mental note of the glimpse of a Watcher tattoo that showed at her wrist. "I'm sorry, I don't know anything about it." "Adam and I were going to share some research," Linna offered. "We're in a class together at the university." "I'd love to help you, really, but I'm late. I have a class to teach in about three minutes," Sarah stepped outside the apartment and closed the door firmly behind her. "Well, could you tell him I was here?" Linna fished in her pocket for a scrap of paper and scrawled a number on it. "This is my number, could you ask him to call me?" Sarah nodded and shoved the paper into her briefcase. "Will do. He should be home this evening." Linna thanked her and watched the immortal dash down the hallway. Adam Pierson and Sarah MacGreggor? How did a mere researcher manage to get involved with an immortal like her? And would Horton's men want to know about this? She filed it away on the back of her mind. It was very likely that Mitch Jacobs and his crew of Hunters would learn she was in town. This might prove to be a good card to hold. *** "What are you doing here?" Connor looked around the small office, taking stock of the stacks of Norton Anthologies, the shelves of textbooks and novels, the ivy plant climbing up the window, and the long sword hanging on the wall above the desk where Adam was sitting. "I came to see Sarah," he answered. "She's got class until three," Adam responded. "Nice sword," Connor grunted, pointing. Adam looked up and nodded. "That's the one she was carrying when I met her. She had a lighter weight one that she was using, but she never went anywhere without that thing strapped across her back. Quite a sight really," he laughed. "Some guy tried to take it from her once, saying women shouldn't carry swords. She broke his jaw in three places. I don't think the Kurgan ever got over that." Adam smiled at the image and gestured to the leather chair across from the desk. "Have a seat?" Connor flopped into the chair and thumbed through a copy of "My Antonia" that was sitting on the corner of the desk, then looked up at Adam and smiled. "She looks good as a red head." "I think so." "Now, if you could just talk her into divorcing me, you might have a fair chance with her." Adam was slightly taken aback, but managed to find some words. "She's not your wife." "She didn't tell you? We were married in Glasgow, in 1680. Lovely ceremony. Lovely honeymoon in Burgundy," he wagged his eyebrows expressively. Adam frowned. "She told me you were just drinking buddies." "Well now, don't you agree that all the great romances start off as friendships?" "So you've been married to each other for three hundred and sixteen years? Sounds like you have a wonderful marriage...considering she's sleeping with me." Connor snickered. "We have a very...*open* relationship." "Yes, well, ours is rather closed, so don't get any ideas." Adam slammed the journal he had been writing in shut and glared across the desk. Connor snickered again. Duncan was wrong, this skinny Englishman had no sense of humor what so ever. And he was very sensitive about Sarah. This could provide hours of entertainment. They both looked up as Duncan's buzz hit, followed shortly by his arrival in the office. He took in the scene with a hint of a frown and was about to say something that he hoped would diffuse the tension and let Adam know that he was being toyed with, but Sarah arrived before he could open his mouth. "Well, aren't I the popular one today?" She asked with a smile. "What can I do for you gentlemen?" "I came to take you to dinner. We had a date, remember?" Adam said. "I came to see if you wanted to go out for drinks later," Connor added. "I thought we could talk about the old times." Sarah turned expectantly to Duncan. He shrugged. "I just came to borrow some chalk." *** "So you're just going to let this woman have a gander at the Methos Chronicles?" Sarah asked, her eyes wide with shock. Adam shrugged. "Sure. She's a friend of Joe's and a Watcher. And she'll only know me as Adam Pierson." Sarah scowled. "Well, I think it's a bit risky." He sat down next to her on the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table, resting them on top of the two large leather-bound books and accidentally knocking over the smaller pile of notebooks next to them. "I'm not going to let her see my journals. Just the official Chronicles, which are very vague and cryptic." "Do you have any idea what would happen if someone figured out who you are?" She restacked the books and sighed contentedly as he snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. "Of course I do. But really, Sarie, you worry too much." "Petey, I came to Seacouver to have some semblance of a normal life. I really don't want to have to deal with every immortal in creation coming for your head. And we won't even mention the Hunters that are undoubtedly lurking in the shadows." "Relax, I've managed to stay alive this long, I have a few more years in me. And all the motivation in the world to stay alive is sitting here on the couch with me." Sarah sighed again and looked down at his arm. Her left hand was laced through his fingers, but she used her right to pull up the sleeve of his sweater and examine the tattoo. "Just what is your connection to the Watchers anyway? And what's the story with this? Is it real?" "Of course it's real. Do you think I have it drawn on after every shower?" Sarah chuckled. "So? What's the story? Richie thinks you started the Watchers as a means to keep track of fellow immortals." "It's a long story. And very boring. Tell me about you and Connor." She rolled her head back to look at him, recognizing that to be a cue to drop the subject. "There isn't anything to be jealous of, we're really just pals." "Then how do you know he snores?" "What? And every time you and I shared a blanket we had sex?" She shifted in his arms so she could see his face. "I wish. We have about five hundred and sixty seven years to catch up on still, if I haven't lost my count." Sarah laughed. Amanda had been right in her guess about his many years lending to an enhanced knowledge of the female body. The past seven months reminded her of the first year of her marriage to Alan MacGreggor, when they had made love at every chance, desperately trying to have a baby. Only this time there was no heartbreak over a child she could never bear. Just long afternoons spent under down comforters in front of the fire. It was almost too good to be true. "What are you thinking about?" He asked. "You look sad all of a sudden." "Alan...if we had had a son, he would have ruled the clan." Adam wrapped his other arm around her and squeezed her tightly. "If you and Alan had been able to have a son, we never would have met. And then where would I be, with you dead some nine hundred years?" **** "What is this Adam Pierson like?" Linna asked. Joe chuckled and leaned back in his chair. "He's a bit enigmatic, but he has a wicked sense of humor. You'll like him." "And there are no repercussions for his involvement with Sarah MacGreggor?" Joe looked up from his drink, wondering how Linna had obtained that piece of information. "Relax. I stopped by his apartment today and the Lady Highlander opened the door. I assumed they were involved." He shrugged noncommittally. "They're friends. And you're one to talk about Watchers getting involved with immortals, Mrs. Paul Wolfram." Linna looked down at her lap. If Joe knew, that meant the Hunters most likely did too. Why hadn't they come for Paul? "Here's your chance now," Joe said, waving a hand in the air to attract attention to their corner table. Linna followed his gaze across the moderately crowded room to the door. Sarah MacGreggor was walking in; holding the hand of a man she knew quite well. Or maybe it was his father that she knew well. Or a brother. An uncle perhaps. There was no way that Alan Rosen could have aged so well. Near the bar, Adam stopped in his tracks, then spun quickly on a heel and headed for the door, yanking Sarah along and muttering a string of curses that would have made a merchant marine blush. "What was that all about?" Sarah asked as the door shut behind them. Adam paced a circle around her and continued to swear. "Petey? Hello?" "Go in there...tell them I got sick. Or dropped a contact or something," he said. "What? Why?" "I know her. We met in Paris about sixteen years ago. Except she thinks I'm just a Watcher." "And now she's come looking for Methos..." Sarah trailed off, muttering a string of curses herself. Adam nodded. His face lit up as Richie pulled up in a beat up Chevy. Before it was even turned off, Adam was yanking Richie by the sleeve and urging him out of the car. "*What* is your problem?" Richie snapped, straightening his coat and slamming the door. "Give me your keys," Adam responded. "What? No way." Adam looked to Sarah in a mute appeal. "Give him your keys, Richie. I'll explain later," she said. Richie shook his head in confusion, but handed Adam the keys. "Help him out. He's got to be me," Adam said, jumping into the car and speeding off. "What's going on here?" Richie asked. The door opened and Joe and Linna stepped outside. Sarah threw her arm around Richie's waist and steered him for them, mumbling that he should just play along until she could explain. Joe was about to open his mouth, but Sarah beat him to it. "Linna Wolfram, right? I'd like you to meet Adam Pierson. Adam, this is the woman who stopped by the other day." Linna offered a hand in confusion, then turned to Sarah. "Didn't you just walk into the bar with another man? A tall man with dark hair?" Sarah nodded. "That was a student of mine who was going to join us, but he suddenly felt very ill and decided to go home." Joe put an arm around Linna's shoulders, not really knowing what was going on, but used to the strange situations that sometimes arose when dealing with immortals. "Come on, let's all go inside out of this snow," he said. *** "Do you think she bought it?" Richie asked. "I don't know. It depends on how good a look she got at Petey," Sarah answered, watching Adam pace a slow circle around her living room. "You're not still going to give her the Chronicles, are you?" He stopped at the fireplace and examined a cobalt blue vase on the mantle. "I have to." "So, wait a minute, you agreed to let some woman you had never seen take a gander at the Methos Chronicles?" Richie asked incredulously. "Are you crazy?" Sarah smirked at Adam and got up to get herself a glass of water. "Yes. To both," Adam answered. "And don't you tell me that you told me so either, Sarie." She shook her head from the kitchen and leaned out through the window that linked the two rooms. "Not a word." "Why not just take the books and get the hell out of town?" Richie asked. "Because that would raise suspicion. What I have to do now is smooth this all over. The only way to do that is for you to give her the books and for me to lie low until she leaves." Richie nodded. "She's just a researcher, how much damage could she do?" Adam said, not sure if he was trying to convince himself or the others. [end pt 2] -- LC Krakowka/ hck1@cornell.edu |CIT Lab WebMistress/LTC Team ***MFW Cavalry--We're tougher than we look.*** The host is riding from Knocknarea /And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare; Caoilte tossing his burning hair, /And Niamh calling Away, come away: Empty your heart of its mortal dream. -Yeats