Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 08:34:17 -0500 Reply-To: Mike Breen Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Mike Breen Subject: REVENGE AND REBIRTH II - Towards Future and Past, Part 2 BOSTON, MASS, UNITED STATES - NOVEMBER, 1995 Patrick took a large draw from his beer mug. Then he looked up at the door and said, "Oh my ghods. It can't be... it can't..." Connor turned, not feeling any other Immortals aside from Patrick and looked at the person Patrick saw. Sighing, he said, "I believe it is. And I believe she's seen us." "Terrific," Patrick said, burying himself in his beer. "Hello, Patrick." Patrick looked up and said, "Michelle! What are you doing here?" "Working for a new software company, CardinalSoft, temporarily. Hello, Connor." Connor nodded at Michelle. Patrick glanced down, and noticed her swelling belly. He couldn't help himself, he stared. "Con... congratulations," he said. "Thanks." "Why don't I leave you two alone," Connor said. "It seems you both have a _lot_ to catch up on." He laughed and gathered his coat. "Connor..." Patrick said. But Connor had already left and Michelle took his seat. "So..." Patrick said. "So..." Michelle said. "Well..." "Well..." "Yeah..." "Yeah..." The awkward silence was deafining. "So, I'm married," Patrick said, indicating his wedding ring. "So am I," Michelle said, rubbing her belly. Patrick felt a momentary surge of jealousy. Never, not _ever_ would he see a child of his _own_. He had adopted Yi's daughter, Tai, and she had _become_ his daughter, but that was different than seeing your own seed spring to life within the body of someone you loved. He and Rebecca were fated to an eternal childless limbo... NO! He mustn't think like _that_. He was happy. And besides, even if he _were_ to marry a mortal again, he _still_ was sterile. The price. He decided he was going to end the little charade and said, "Michelle, what the hell are you doing here?" "I told you, I'm working..." "Yes yes yes, for Cardinal Software or something like that. No, what are you doing _here_?" "Can't a girl get a drink in her favorite bar in a city she knows?" Patrick looked at her sideways. "Ok _ok_," Michelle said. "I was looking for you." "You _were_?" Patrick said. "Yup." "Why? Last time we talked..." BOSTON, MASS, UNITED STATES - JANUARY, 1995 Patrick came home to find Michelle packing a suitcase. She turned and said, "I was really hoping you'd still be in school when I left." "You're leaving?" he said. She nodded and said, "It's not you at _all_. _Please_ understand that. I just..." she turned away from him and said, "I could love an 800 year old man who can't die. I could even love him if part of that life was killing other Immortals in sword fights. And despite _everything_ that was said the other night, I still love you and was ready to fix whatever had gone wrong and make it right again. But last night... that... that energy that came from Highsmith and went into you..." "The Quickening," Patrick said. "Yes. The Quickening. I can't... I _really_ can't... It _frightened_ me, Patrick. I can't tell you how much. It frightened me more than the thought of either of us being killed by Highsmith. And then when you got up, there was a look in your eyes... like you _enjoyed_ it. And I can't..." her voice broke. Patrick made no move to comfort her. She had made up her mind. And she was right. The Quickening _was_ horrible. And wonderful. And how would he explain that to her? It wasn't something that a mortal could _ever_ understand, unless they, too, became Immortal and basked in the fire of the Quickening. How could he explain that to her except in vague terms like "It's a kind of magic?" She turned back to him, tears streaming and said, "Microsoft has been after me to take a job there for months now. I took it this morning. I'll be leaving for Seattle tonight. I love you dearly, Patrick, but..." Patrick said, "I understand." BOSTON, MASS, UNITED STATES, NOVEMBER, 1995 "Did you really, Patrick?" Michelle said. "Did you really _understand_?" "I thought so," Patrick said. "For a while I told myself that you had been scared by the Quickening. Then... I realized that our relationship was doomed from the start. Why do you think I waited seven years to tell you what I was?" "I wondered that," Michelle said. "My last two wives had been used by Immortals. Yi was raped, tortured, and killed. Sarah had been captured three times on three separate occasions until we kept our marriage secret from even Immortals. You had only just found out my secret and _already_ you had been used once." "But that wasn't so bad..." "But it _still_ happened, and it would have happened again and again, and would have been worse and worse. My Teacher, Ramirez told me that one of the greatest pains in the world was watching a mortal love die. After Sarah died I decided I had seen enough of that, and I would leave mortals alone. Any relationship I had was either with Rebecca, or a brief dalliance." "So that's it," Michelle said. "I was a 'brief dalliance.'" Patrick said, "At first you were, I'm not gonna lie to you. Then I fell in love with you and broke my vow." "But if you were so in love with me, then _why_ did you marry _her_?" Patrick paused, not _really_ knowing the answer himself. He said, "A number of reasons. After you left, I went through a number of stages. The first was a depression that was only held at bay because I had found a young Immortal who did not even know what she was yet. I helped her through it, and that focused my thoughts away from you. The next stage was a kind of anger, and that's when I contacted Rebecca, who had just lost a mortal husband herself. We vented our anger and cried on eachother's shoulders, but the old passion was always there." BOSTON, MASS, UNITED STATES - JANUARY, 1995 Patrick said, "What makes you think she's staying here in the first place?" Nancy walked over to the refrigerator to get the half and half for the coffee and said, "We haven't known eachother for long, but we have been together pretty much twenty-four hours a day for the past three weeks. I think I can safely say I know you. The way you both look at eachother..." Patrick blushed slightly and said, "Is it that obvious?" "Yes. Very. And I'm happy for you. But why do you bother with mortal women like Michelle when Rebecca is here, century after century?" "Simply because if we pledged our lives to eachother in marriage, we'd probably get bored with eachother after a century or so. We'll be together for a while, between a few months or a few decades, while we lick our wounds. Then we'll move on, until we need eachother again. Maybe it's love. I don't know, and I don't question it. All I do know is that we need eachother right now." BOSTON, MASS, UNITED STATES, NOVEMBER, 1995 "Eventually we both snapped out of that and settled into our usual routines," Patrick said. "Which are..?" "Well... sort of like a family. Rebecca and I were the parents and Nancy, the young Immortal, became like our child." "Patrick, how _old_ is this Nancy?" "Twenty-three." "Isn't she old enough to be an adult?" "If she were mortal, absolutely. But you, of _all_ people, should know what I do. It takes _time_ to train a mind and body to understand, accept, and finally use that gift, or curse, however you want to look at it." "It takes time to learn to kill, doesn't it?" Michelle said. Patrick nodded and said, "Usually. Even for me. It's different to kill an impersonal face on a battlefield than it is to see his face looking up at you waiting for your sword to crash down onto his neck. And these days, even for someone who's _been_ in a war, it's even harder. Mechanized war has made it too easy to kill your opponent. It's become passionless and painless. You should not be able to take your enemy's life unless you can look into his eyes and know what he feels. Death should not be bereft of passion." "That almost sounds Japanese." "It is. It's something my Sensi told me long ago." "When... when did you decide you loved her?" Michelle said, changing the subject back to Rebecca. "I guess I always loved her. But we had gone to Ireland to hide because there was a very real threat that we were going to be exposed to the world. Connor joined us, and kind of voiced my thoughts for me and pushed me ever-so-slightly towards what I had already been thinking." IRELAND, COUNTY CORK - JUNE, 1995 Connor said, "Why don't you marry her, Patrick?" Patrick shrugged and said, "I don't know. We've been together..." "More or less eight centuries, just not all at once, is the phrase I think you use. Why _don't_ you marry her?" "Ramirez. He told me not to. He said that pledging your life to someone for eternity is one thing if you're mortal. Quite a different thing when you're literally talking about eternity. Then there's the Gathering..." "Bull. Didn't you two pledge to eachother to _never_ take the other's head?" Patrick nodded and said, "Back in 1500 or so." "_If_ you are the last two, then what better way to end Immortal history but with the two of you together forever? What better Prize is there than that?" "But if we're not..." "Then you're not. You've buried how many wives?" "Four." "And I've buried _my_ share of wives too. Death of a spouse is, unfortunately, nothing new to _either_ of you. To _any_ of us. I wished so _many_ times that Heather or Brenda or Alex were Immortal. Then I wouldn't loose them. I wish there _were_ an Immortal I loved that much. You _do_ love her, don't you?" "Of course. I have since I first laid eyes on her." "You've _posed_ as eachother's spouses enough. What's stopping you from making it official?" "Eternal life is, Connor. We've gotten tired of eachother before." "And what do you do?" "Separate for a few decades or so." "Patrick, there's plenty of mortal marriages that do the same thing. Many of them are saved because of that. Personally, I think you're just being afraid. And stubborn." Patrick laughed and said, "_Afraid_?" Connor said, "Absolutely. You're afraid _not_ of your death or her's, or the Gathering, or any of that. You're afraid of commitment. Of taking that _last_ step. Sure, you say Ramirez told you not to marry her, but when have _either_ of us followed his advice regarding love? He was bittered by the death of Shikiko." "Probably Aoife's death too," Patrick said. "He _said_ he didn't love her..." "He did," Connor said. "Make no mistake about that. If he could have gotten her off of Holy Ground, they'd have traveled together. He was bittered by her death, and perhaps that's part of why he told you what he did." Patrick was silent, contemplating all the Connor had just said. He _had_ been thinking much the same thing ever since Rebecca arrived in Boston back in January. Connor had just vocalized his thoughts for him. And he was absolutely right. Patrick stared at Rebecca long and hard after the night's lovemaking. So many things were changing. Immortals could become exposed, witch hunts would begin... and here he was contemplating the future when there may not _be_ any. Why not? What was stopping him? "What are you _staring_ at, O'Brien?" Rebecca said. "Do I have a piece of food in my teeth?" "Why don't we get married?" Patrick said. Rebecca laughed and said, "You _can't_ be serious!" Then she looked at him again and said, "You _are_ serious." Patrick propped himself up on one elbow and said, "What's _really_ stopping us, Rebecca? How many times have we constructed lives _together_, and how many times have we _posed_ as husband and wife?" "I don't know... what if we get tired of eachother again?" "Then we do what we always do. Rebecca, don't you think it's _way_ past time we made it official?" "Are you _actually_ suggesting marriage _seriously_? Or because our world's about to end?" "I've been thinking about this a _long_ time. This... crisis, and being back home, plus some things that Connor said have all pushed me towards this. But I'd have asked you eventually." Now it was Rebecca's turn to stare at him. The man she had loved since she first saw him, a scruffy, smelly, long-haired, kilted Irelander. The man she had spent probably over half of her eight centuries with. The man she _continued_ to come back to. And she found herself saying, "Yes." Patrick smiled and looked for all the world like the proverbial cat that ate the canary. BOSTON, MASS, UNITED STATES, NOVEMBER, 1995 A single tear slid down Michelle's cheek. She said, "So that's it, then. _She_ is the love of your life, _not_ me, or any of your other mortal wives." Patrick suddenly realized the truth. Even since he and Rebecca married five months ago, he still considered Yi and Michelle to be the loves of his life. He had told Connor that Michelle would have been the one he would have married in Ireland had she not left and had Rebecca not come to Boston. Now he wasn't so sure. "It's not surprising, really," Michelle said. "Even if I had known from the start that you were Immortal, you could never _really_ open up to me, completely and totally, it's impossible. I can't know what it's like to live so long, or to kill, or the Quickening, or see nations rise and fall. And maybe that was why I left, because there was a _big_ part of you that I could never _ever_ know completely. I could never know the pain, nor the joy, of Immortality. But with _her_... you can be _yourself_ totally. Perhaps she is the only woman you _can_ be yourself with. You don't have to be on guard all the time, and she doesn't need protection." No, he didn't have to protect Rebecca, not in the slightest. She, herself, was a formidable swordswoman who could best better than the average Immortal in combat. And yes, she _was_ the only woman in history who he could completely and without reservation be _himself_ with. The other mortal women, as Michelle said, could never completely empathize, no matter how hard they tried. And the other Immortal women he knew were either hundreds of years older or hundreds of years younger than he. But Rebecca... There was not even one _decade_ between the two of them. And when an Immortal has lived so long that he or she is less than two centuries away from a melinium, eight years may as well be eight days. But although Rebecca was the one woman, the one Immortal, male _or_ female, that he had the strongest connection with, he _had_ loved all his wives, Gwenna, Katherine, Yi, and Sarah. He'd loved Michelle as well. Hadn't he? He had told himself time and again that living with Rebecca was what he did with himself between mortal loves. But could he honestly say that mortal loves _weren't_ simply what he did with himself between living with Rebecca? If that were the case, though, why did he _marry_ three times after he had met her, and nearly four? Katherine, he could see. He had assumed he would never see Rebecca again after she had left him in Scotland. Yi, he had become another person entirely, and at the time would have wanted to never see Rebecca, or the West, again. It was entirely possible that had Joe not convinced him to be true to himself, that he would still be somewhere in the Far East. Then what about Sarah and Michelle? Rebecca had found him in Japan and had told him that Ramirez had died, something he had already known. She convinced him that his time in the Orient was over and that he should return to Europe. They stayed together for more than a century and a quarter, until he expressed a desire to see the new world. That was a desire she did not share at the time, so Patrick had left and settled in Boston. He had met Sarah soon after that. They fell in love and were married. But he _knew_ that he would see Rebecca again. Knew it both instinctively and logically. And that was proven true when Sundra Kastigere had his party to celebrate England's recognition of the Untied State's Independence. Rebecca had been there, and so had Sarah. And despite Sarah's hurt at what she assumed was the re-kindling of old passions, he hadn't left Sarah for Rebecca. Then why..? The explanation was simple, really. He took Michelle's hand and said, "Maybe Rebecca _is_ the love of my life, I don't know. But all of my mortal loves have made my life so much richer. They remind me of how precious life is, how fragile it is. You have _all_ given me things that Rebecca could never hope to, freshness. But not only that, you all remind me that life isn't worth less or more because of its length. You remind me of how special love can be, and what it would be like to _really_ grow old and die with someone at your side, because when each mortal love dies, a piece of me dies as well. Sarah is buried in the Grannery ground on Beacon Hill, near the townhouse, and my name is there as well. Partly it was because I had to start another life and end that one, but partly it was because I _had_ died with her. Even though I remain outwardly young, when Sarah died an old woman, I felt like an old man. Part of me aged with her, and died with her. Rebecca can never give me something that precious." "Then _why_ marry her?" "Because..." Patrick paused and said, "because maybe now I'm ready to _really_ be Immortal, with no more disguises. Your leaving made that happen faster, but it would have happened after you died." Michelle nodded and said, "I understand now." Patrick nodded as well and said, "You still haven't told me why you're here." Michelle was silent, contemplating how to say what she was about to say, after her hopes had been completely dashed. She decided the best way was to come right out and say it. She said, "I was hoping that somehow we'd get back together." "Michelle, you're married..." "I know." "Marriage, now that the middle ages are over, _usually_ means you love the person you're married to _before_ you pledge your lives to eachother." "I..." "Good ghods, Michelle, please tell me you love him." "Not really, no," Michelle whispered. Then, louder, she said, "I _like_ him, and he's a _good_ friend, a _very_ good friend. He's like a roommate who I... just _happen_ to have sex with. He had gone through a divorce and you and I had just split when we met. We both know that the only reason we married was for the child." "Michelle..." "Let me finish. We _are_ very good friends, possibly the best friend I ever had. He would be easy to fall in love with and grow old with, but as for right _now_..." "Yeah," Patrick said. "I wanted you to know that I had _never_ stopped loving you, Patrick, and that leaving was the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm sorry for everything. It was all my fault." Patrick _could_ have gotten mad at her. For destroying his happiness until even after Rebecca had come. For leaving. For marrying another man and carrying his child. For now expecting him to just up and leave Rebecca. But he didn't. He said, "No, _I'm_ sorry, Michelle. For you." He tossed a bill on the table and got up to leave. "Patrick... Could we at least be friends?" "Not now." "But..." "It has nothing to do with you, Michelle. It's just not safe right now to be my friend." "Why?" "Because an Immortal who had been after me since the 1200's is in town. He's already killed one mortal friend, and I wouldn't want you on his list." "Patrick, don't be silly. I'll take care of myself." Patrick sat back down. He really _really_ hoped he wouldn't regret this, but they could both do with some closure. He said, "Ok." Michelle smiled slightly, then said, "What's she like?" "Rebecca?" She nodded. "She's... tall, fair, funny, beautiful, talented..." "I'd like to meet her." Patrick nodded and said, "Yeah, that might not be such a bad idea." Boy _that_ was stupid, Patrick thought as he let himself into the townhouse. VonHoffer was breathing down his neck, Michelle had just confessed her undieing love nearly a year after she had left him, and she was coming over the next evening to "meet Rebecca." What a BAD idea. At least, he assumed, her life was safe. Dispite everything else, VonHoffer was still a priest at heart, and believed in the sanctity of innocent life. He would _never_ take the life of an _unborn_ child. On more than one occasion he had said that the only innocence that still existed in the world existed in the womb. Had Michelle's child been born, however, neither of them would be safe, but since she was still carrying the child, she was still safe. What a flimsy foundation to gamble a life on. "Connor MacLeod?!" Simon Jamerson said on VonHoffer's speakerphone. "Connor MacLeod," VonHoffer said. "But... Connor MacLeod is one of the _best_" "Simon, I need your services, so you have a choice. Either Connor MacLeod or Patrick O'Brien." "Honestly? Neither of them." "Yes, I know MacLeod and O'Brien are among the best, but so am I. Remember that." An audible sigh came from the speakerphone. "You don't even have to _really_ take his head," VonHoffer said. "If you find he's beating you, get him in front of people and stab him. Destroying his life will be just as effective as taking his head for my plans." "Very well," Jamerson said, "but this will cost you. A _lot_." "Of course," VonHoffer said and hung up. "He doesn't stand a chance and he knows it," McKinley said. "Of course not, but for fear of me he will still fight. Fear is a marvelous thing, John. Jamerson will challenge MacLeod as soon as he finds him. We just have to make sure that his body is found in our friend's precinct." The Boston head hunter was nearing a dead end. No other bodies had turned up since late October, and they were no closer to a solution than they had been when the body had been discovered in the Garden. Detective Frank D'Gornio cleared the case files off of his desk and placed them into the "open cases" file in the squadroom. But he had a bad feeling that those files would return to his desk soon. Very soon. <<>> (c) 1995 Mabnesswords =========================================================================