Date: Mon, 31 Oct 1994 03:44:43 -0500 Reply-To: Highlander TV show stories Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Samantha Lynn Subject: "Sins of the Fathers" 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 12345678 This is not exactly finished but since I can't think what else to do to it I'll throw it to you for suggestions. It's a sequel to UNDER THE HILL, which is scheduled to appear in Mysti Frank's "Who Wants To Live Forever II" this November (if she ever turns up ). SINS OF THE FATHERS copyright 1994 by Samantha Lynn _Seattle, 2013_ She sat outside in her car for a long time after she turned off the ignition. **Maybe he's not home.** **He's home.** **Maybe he won't know.** **He knows.** **Maybe I don't want to.** Silence. At last, she opened the car door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. She thought, for a moment, that she could _feel_ the scribbled address burning through purse and coat and skirt. She squared her shoulders and faced the house resolutely. **Even if they weren't my real parents, they didn't raise no cowards.** Three stone steps up to the porch, carefully mended. A medium-big pumpkin presiding cheerfully over a fiefdom of flowerpots on the railing. A doorbell. **Maybe he won't want me.** The doorbell chimed, muffled through the door. Deeper in the house a man's voice called, "Coming!" **There's still time.** The door opened. Her first, frozen thought was, **he's too young!** "Yes?" he asked pleasantly. "Duncan MacLeod?" "Yes." His bright smile was fading as he watched her struggling for her words. "Is there something I can do for you?" he prompted gently after a moment. She drew in a deep breath. **It's the right house. It's the right man. But is it the right me?** "Mister MacLeod. My name is Tessa Peterson." Hard swallow. "I have reason to believe that you're my father." ### "So am I -- what you had expected?" Duncan asked as he brought the young woman coffee. She took the cup gingerly, hands trembling, and looked him up and down as he sat down at the table across from her. "Well, for starters, you're white." Tessa examined him curiously. "I mean, I always kind of suspected, but... It's still a surprise, all right?" "And you're still... sure, about -- that I'm --" Tessa fumbled through her purse for The Paper, the one that had led her here. She smoothed it out and laid it on the table, but he made no move to take it. "It's this new law they've got now, that they can't keep adoption records sealed after you turn eighteen. I mean -- my parents were good to me, but -- you want to know, you know?" "I know," Duncan whispered. "So I looked, as soon as I could. I had to go all the way to France for some of my records, you know that? But they all turned up. Eventually. "They said that this was my original birth certificate." Tessa pushed the folded and folded paper across the table at him. "I don't --" Duncan found his voice betraying him, and stopped. "I've seen it. It says -- it says, 'Tessa Marie MacLeod'." Tessa let out a strangled breath. "It _is_ true. God. I never..." Hesitantly, Duncan reached across the table and took her hand. At his touch Tessa burst into sudden sobs. "Oh, it's all right, it's all right, Tessa," he murmured, coming to gather her into his arms. "I'm here now." Presently Tessa stopped crying and pushed away from Duncan. "I didn't come here," she said thickly, scrubbing furiously at her cheeks, "to make you feel guilty, or to try to get you to be my father, or anything like that. I just came because I want to know." "You mean, why we gave you up?" "Yeah. Something like that." Duncan considered his words carefully before he spoke. "We were... very young," he began. "Yeah, I guessed _that_. How old are you now, thirty-five?" Duncan winced. "Let's say old enough to know better. But... we were in high school, we thought we knew everything... and it turned out we didn't." "And you really couldn't keep me." "I know what it must sound like to you," he admitted. "We tried, Tessa, we did try. But your mother was fifteen. One day she left you with me, and I never saw her again. I didn't know what to do with a baby. I went to live with my parents, in Paris, and they made me give you up." He allowed himself a small, rueful smile. "They said they'd been there already." "Hah. Sounds like my parents. The Petersons, I mean, the ones who adopted me." Tessa paused. "I think they'd have liked you." "'Would have'? You mean..." "They died. In a car crash. Last year. That's part of why I came looking for you now, I guess; they would have wanted me to know. Momma said... Momma said, if I ever found you, I should thank you. For -- for giving them the chance to know me, you know? Shit, I think I'm gonna start crying again --" ### Later, Tessa calmed somewhat, they went into the living room. "You... collect swords?" she remarked hesitantly. "Something like that," Duncan admitted wryly. "And do you know how to use them?" Tessa stopped just short of touching a Roman gladius on the wall beside the fireplace. "I like to think I know a little about it, yeah. Go ahead, it won't bite you, at least that end won't." Carefully Tessa lifted the gladius from its brackets. "It's funny, but I've always had this thing for swords," she said, and brought it up into a guard position. "Momma wouldn't let me near them, though." "That's a pity; you look like a natural." **If she_ were _my daughter** -- "Where do you live?" he asked impulsively. "Maybe I could give you a few lessons." But Tessa shook her head. "St. Louis; I only came here to -- to find you. I have to leave tonight to be back to work Monday." "Come out into the back yard, then," Duncan said. "I can still show you a few things." "You sure?" "You never know when it could come in handy," he grinned, and went to fetch his katana from the umbrella stand where he'd left it when he answered the door. "Momma would _not_ have liked to see that," Tessa commented. "Can't be too careful these days." Duncan shrugged. Tessa considered. "Yeah, even in St. Louis I guess there's been times I could have used one of those by _my_ door." "Take the gladius with you, then." Tessa began to protest. "No, I -- I want you to have it. To... remember me by." Tessa looked at him, and at the sword, and smiled wistfully. "I wish you _had_ been able to keep me," she murmured. "There's nothing I've ever wanted more," Duncan said. ### When Amanda came home she found Duncan sitting on the sofa, his keepsake box in his lap, weeping silently over the contents. "What is it?" she asked gently. Duncan reached into the box and fingered the forged birth certificate. "My past, coming back to haunt me," he said. "She _found_ me, Amanda. That little baby I told you about -- she's grown, and she came and _found_ me." "And you had to tell her... what? That she made a mistake?" "It wasn't that long ago, this time. I told her... what she wanted to hear. I think." "The 'we were young and stupid' story," Amanda nodded. "I always kind of liked that one." "So what was I supposed to tell her? That I found her in a basket on my doorstep and wouldn't keep her? Or would you rather I'd told her the _truth_?" Duncan closed the box and set it on the coffee table. "Let her think her father loved her enough to do what was right." "He did," Amanda said softly. the end