Date: Sun, 24 Dec 1995 12:58:27 -0500 Reply-To: Mike Breen Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Mike Breen Subject: REVENGE AND REBIRTH - Second Interlude I know the last part of "R&RII" said "To be continued," but as I began writing the next installment, I realized that it's more of a separate story in the cycle than a continuation of R&RII. So I went back and wrote an interlude, and here it is. BOSTON, MA, UNITED STATES - NOVEMBER, 1995 Nancy lay on her bed, staring into space. Stink's memories were easily kept under control, his weak Quickening easily merging with her somewhat stronger one, stronger due to her possession of Joshua Nabbis' life force. _That_ had been quite different. She had spent most of the ride back from Maine in deep concentration, keeping the torrent of two centuries of lawless living at bay. Eventually, she had won that battle. Weather or not that was a testament to a strong soul on her part or simply the fact that she was alive and he was dead, she had no idea. No, Stink's Quickening, nor his memories, bothered her. What bothered her was precisely the fact that it _wasn't_ a struggle. Stink had lived a horrible life. He had been found in the streets of the North End by an old childless Italian couple who were strict disciplinarians. Given a different set of circumstances, Stink may have actually turned out fine, but Stink had fallen in with the wrong crowd early. He cut school constantly, shoplifted as a habit, got into drugs, and finally got into the gang. It was at this time that he had left home and completely dropped out of school. He got the nickname "Stink" both from his bad body odor and from his less-than-spectacular prowess with weapons. He practiced constantly, though, and eventually rose to the head of the gang when he killed the leader. It was at around this time that his parents' store had been raided by a rival gang from South Boston, in an effort to smoke Stink out. Both his parents were killed in the raid, and Stink had taken the gang into South Boston in retaliation. Many of his friends were killed, but the ones who had killed his parents were dead as well, and that was all that mattered to Stink. This was when detective Frank D'Gornio had begun to notice him. And so it went for another two years, until Mario Ramus had found him and brought him to Kurdt VonHoffer's office. VonHoffer had shot him, then explained to him his Immortality, leaving out several key points, the Game, for instance. He had given him Nancy as a target, and as his plans had begun to fall apart, had moved up the schedule. They had their fateful meeting the previous night, into the early hours of the morning. Stink had, of course, lost the encounter. And his memories did _not_ haunt her. All the death, all the depravity, _should_, she thought, at least _bother_ her. She had lived a perfectly normal suburban life until last January. She had been adopted at age two, in fact, her first memory was of her parents coming to pick her up at the adoption agency. They would go on to have two more children of their own. All of the Peters children were sent to parochial school and received the best education money could buy. Her sister was currently attending Columbia, and her brother was finishing up High School. She, herself, had gone on to Harvard. She had never, _really_ had many close friends aside from her sister. She wasn't even that close to her brother. The last time she had seen her brother was three years ago when her parents had died in a car crash. She had stayed in touch with her sister for some time after that, and had gone to New York several times to see her. But since that day last January, when she had died for the first time, she hadn't even called her on the phone to tell her she was alive. Patrick had said it would be better if she thought she was dead. Now she wasn't so sure. After last night, she was _really_, truly, alone. And yet, Stinks memories still would not bother her. She decided that the grown woman could wait another few hours. The scared young girl could exist for a little while longer. She got up, and quietly left her room, heading towards Patrick and Rebecca's bed room. As soon as she opened the door, she felt him, not in his own bedroom, but in the living room. She walked over and sat on the couch next to him, tucking her feet beneath her nightshirt. "I can't sleep," she said. "Neither can I," he said. "Wanna talk about it?" She nodded and said, "Stink's memories." "They bother you?" "No, that's just it. They don't. They should... shouldn't they?" "Maybe," Patrick said. "Maybe not. They certainly would if you hadn't already taken Nabbis' head. These days, only the most evil Immortals Quickenings bother me beyond the initial onslaught." "Why?" "Survival. If the memories of each evil Immortal you defeat affected you, you'd either become evil yourself, or you would become paralyzed with fear and guilt." Nancy put her head down and said, "That's what I'm afraid of... becoming evil. I'm afraid that since Stink's memories _aren't_ bothering me that I _am_ becoming evil." "Nancy, I'm gonna tell you something that Ramirez told me a long time ago. If you are worried that you're becoming evil, you can rest assured that you're not." Nancy said, "That doesn't change the fact that all the death that Stink has seen and caused isn't bothering me." "Did it bother him?" "No." "Ok, then. You have no memory of _his_ guilt, therefore you have no basis of feeling guilty." Nancy smiled then, and scooted closer to Patrick. She placed her arms around his neck and said, "Thanks." Then she buried her face in his chest, and began to cry, quietly, like the scared young girl she once was, she still was. Patrick held her and rocked her back and forth. He made little "shh-ing" sounds and said things like "it'll be Ok," much like those first few days, back in January when everything that had happened came crashing down on her at once. When she stopped crying, she didn't pull away, and Patrick continued to hold her. Eyes closed, she said quietly, "What's gonna happen to me?" "I don't know," he said. "You'll establish your own life somewhere else. You'll see things and go places..." "I don't _care_ about all that. Why did this have to happen to me? I didn't _ask_ to be Immortal." "You didn't ask to be human, either. But you _are_ human, and you _are_ Immortal. You just have to take what fate's handed you and run with it. After Gwenna died, I thought I wouldn't be able to go on. My last tie with my pre-Immortal life had been taken from me. But I decided I wouldn't let that stop me. I was Immortal and though I thought I'd never love any woman ever again, I decided then and there that I would face life, however long it would become, head on. I wouldn't _let_ Immortality beat me. I would play the Game and follow its Rules, but on my _own_ terms. I wasn't going to become a slave to it, like the Kurgan." "Or like VonHoffer." "Exactly." "Thanks, Patrick," Nancy said as she sat up. "I think it's time I started packing." <<>> (c) 1995 Mabnesswords Revenge And Rebirth will continue in part 3, "Cast The First Stone." The rest of the Irelander saga can be found at: http://www.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/~copelasa/ireland.htm =========================================================================