Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 13:17:14 -0600 Reply-To: Highlander TV show stories Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Jennifer Lynn Hedberg Subject: OtGDY Ch7 revisions :: COMPLETE!!!!! [Author's note : all Tessa fans be warned--- the author does NOT like Tessa, and has always thought her too weak for Duncan. If you will go into coniptions if author does something REALLY mean to her, read no further] OtGDY CH7 revisions, but Tessa still gets the boot by Gwen Vohs It was two in the morning. Tessa and Richie had long since gone to bed. Duncan brooded over his fight with Eleni in private. Over and over, he cursed himself. How could he have been so blind? How could he have cared do litle about her life after all she'd done for him? Duncan guessed that Dawson knew...it would have been on of the first questions he asked. That made it all the more frustrating. A perfect stranger knew more about the woman he loved that he did! Intolerable! The woman he loved? Duncan pushed the thought away, looking towards their bedroom door. No, Tessa was the one he loved. And yet it was too late. In a moment, he'd tricked himself into acknowledging the feelings that had put him on edge since Eleni'd come to take Natalie off his hands. But was it love or just sympathy for the frustrated passion he'd seen in her eyes that night? Duncan comforted himself with the thought that it must be the latter and smiled. He paced the floor telling himself it had to be pity. Nothing else made sense! After all, he'd never been shy when it came to women. If he loved her surely he'd have done something about it before now! Poor Eleni! Suffering for him all those years! He saw images of her pouring over her books seeking refuge from her sorrow. Maybe even taking a lover or two that reminded her of him. But these were dangerous thoughts. Before long he saw himself drinking to forget her voice, remembering the way her soft footsteps followed him through every library, bookstore, or museum, her voice detailing the merits and faults of this or that novel or sculpture. Why wasn't it Darius's voice? Or Rebecca's? Thoughts of Darius made him sadder, but but gave him another escape from his confusion. Sympathy may not always be enough to counterfeit love, but sympathy and nostalgia almost certainly were. He missed Darius and saw him in Eleni! Old Rome and the New!!! Yes, she was born a Greek but she had the heart of a Byzantine for sure. Duncan nearlly laughed out loud with rel- lief. But this made so sense in the end. She was Greek, plain and simple. She'd been through hell in Constantinople....a loveless violent marriage, war, plauge. What would she care for the Old Rome or the New??? These arguements spun his head around until five in the morning, when he finally succeeded in drownding his confusion in a bottle of Glenmorangie. Tessa fouund him sleping fitfully on the couch the next morning. She woke him with a tender carress on the brow. he jerked awake and winced at the aftereffects of last night's binge. Grogily he wished her a good morning. "Good morning to you too. Mind telling me what this is about?" "Hmmmmm....?" "The drinking, the moods.....I'm worried about you." He tried to smile. "Don't worry...there's nothing wrong. She was just very upset last night and I can't bear to see her hurting." "Are you sure it's her past that's upsetting her?" "Hmmm...? What do you mean by that?" "Duncan, I'm not a fool. I ssee the way she looks at you." Duncan responded sarcastically."Tessa, alot of women look at me. just like alot of men look at you." She was getting aggivated by his deliberate obtuseness. "It's not the same!! She's in love with you and you know it! The only question is what are you going to do about it?" Duncans eyes flashed a feircer warning that she'd ever seen there. "are you ordering me to stay away from her? She's been my friend since before your grandfather's grandfather was even though of!" As much as Tessa would have like to have said "yes", she knew that would have been the worst possible mistake. "no, but talk to her. Make it clear where your heart lies. Make her understand you're mine." "she knows that, Tessa! Why do you think she's so unhappy here?" Tessa nodded but wouldn't relent. "Talk to her, Duncan. Today." Duncan sighed. "If you insist." Around noon, Duncan knocked on her hotel suite door. Eleni answered reluctantly. "Hello, Highlander." Natalie waved in greeting as well, but her mouth was full of the soup she was having for lunch. "May I please come in?" "Suit yourself." She ushered him in like an inevitable pest. "Cut the dramatics, okay? I came to make peace." Natalie dutifully took this as her cue to absent herself from the room. Once the door closed behind their foster daughter, Eleni found her tounge and gave vent to her wounded pride. "Peace? I didn't know we were at war." "Could have fool me the way you slammed tyhe door in my face last n night." "What should I have done? Should I have pampered your emotional vanityu and humiliated myself further? Not until a hot January in Warsaw, friend. You want absolution for ignoring me, for treating me like nothing all these years, go to church because you're not going to her it here." Duncan swallowed her venom evenly, realizing it came more from pain than malice. He was determined to work this out. "I wasn't ignoring you...I just always thought you were too good for me. I still do." She came very close to scratching his eyes out until she realized he was speaking the truth. Instead she simply said, "don't do this to me." "Do what?" "Make me hope when we both know you're going home to Tessa. You will never leave her, so this conversation is irrelevant." "IRRELEVANT?! haven't you heard a word I've said?" "Apparently not. What are you saying?" "I'm saying don't leave." "Don't leave? the hotel?" "The city. At least not until I've had a some time to think." Her heart sipped a few beats."Think about what?" "Eleni, you don't throw away twelve years overnight. Not even in lives as long as ours." She laughed bitterly. "Fine. I'll play the fool for you. but on one condition." "Anything." "You lay a hand on her before you give me your answer one way or the other, I'll kill you." Duncan nodded solemnly."agreed." End part 7 =========================================================================