Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 13:02:05 +0000 Reply-To: Vasna.Zago@COLORADO.EDU Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Vasna.Zago@COLORADO.EDU Subject: The Gift 1/4 The Gift by Vasna Zago Notes: Last summer I lost a co-worker in a horrible car accident, and, as is often the case, began wondering a lot about death. This fall, I 'discovered' Highlander: The Series. I was thrilled to find a show that deals with important subjects like death and loss in such a personal manner. Somewhere along the way, this story began to bubble in my unconscious until it finally spilled out on paper. It was born of a desire not only to work through my fears and questions about death, but also to place the morally resplendent Duncan MacLeod in a situation where the lines between good and evil aren't so clearly drawn. The story is set at the beginning of the fourth season, after the first two episodes and before the advent of Amanda. Many thanks to my dear friend Elizabeth Thompson for being the other half of my brain, for making me think and for shaking the little details out of my head, as well as for not laughing *too* hard when I go wild over Duncan MacLeod. Disclaimer: The following is a work of fiction. The characters are borrowed without permission from the television show Highlander: The Series. Rated PG 13 for adult themes. Thoughts/comments/flames should be directed to email: Vasna.Zago@Colorado.edu. Copyright: October 20, 1995. With a snap of his head, Duncan MacLeod startled awake, wondering if a clap of thunder from the storm was what had woken him up. Muddled from the nap, it took him a few moments to become aware of his surroundings. He'd fallen asleep at the library; again. Damn this infernal pacific Northwest weather; it always made him so sleepy. The gentle rumbling of thunder and the soft splashing of the rain was almost too soothing. He sighed, tired and bored. It was only the middle of January, but Duncan felt like it had been raining all of his 403 years. Normally he'd be reading at home, but for some reason, maybe because of the storm, today he felt like having people around. Not to actually talk to, mind you, but to have them rustling around in the background where he could hear them. The echo of the library was comforting in a hollow way, the smell of the ink, paper and leather of the books pleasing. As he closed the copy of Don Quixote which lay sprawled in his lap, he felt his senses heighten and knew what really had awoken him. There was another immortal nearby. Suddenly, all drowsiness left him and he was sharply alert. Glancing over the dozens of people in the library who were reading, browsing, and whispering to each other, he tried to pick out the one. His gaze finally settled on a woman seated at a table opposite. Medium-length brown hair with wise green eyes, she was trim, athletic, and looking directly at him. When their eyes met, she grinned. "Greetings, Highlander," she leaned forward and whispered across the table. "Somehow I knew I'd find you reading Cervantes. Still struggling to find the noble among the mundane?" "It's getting harder to find," he responded, "but it's there. You just have to look for it." "I've got a secret for you Duncan," she said. "The mundane *is* nobility." "Get over yourself, Marie," he smiled. *************** "So, this is your new house. I think you got taken," Marie Darrow said as she stood on the sidewalk, thoughtfully assessing Duncan's recent purchase. Holding her hands over her head in an ineffectual effort to ward off the rain, she cocked her head. "It's going to take you at least 100 years to fix it up," she smiled. "I've got the time, haven't I? C'mon inside, though, you're getting soaked!" he said, taking her arm as a peal of thunder rumbled across the sky. They ran across the lawn and up the steps to stand, breathless, on the front porch while he fumbled with the key. She shook each arm and leg separately, flinging water in every direction, and scraped her damp hair off her face. "Let me show you what I've been up to," he continued, pleased to be able to show off his current project. He glanced at her briefly, hoping she wasn't going to make the same comments everyone else did. She stopped dead in the doorway. "You're *living* here?" she asked, astonished, viewing the piles of construction materials. Her gaze took in the drifts of sawdust, stacked planks, assorted tools and debris scattered around the room. Broken bits of glass and chunks of wood were carelessly swept into corners. He gave her a disgusted look. "Yes and no," he replied, trying not to sound offended. "I still have my apartment, but I stay here sometimes when I'm in the mood or I'm working late. I kind of like it. But come over here and look at the treatment I'm giving this bank of windows." "My first hovel was better than this," she muttered, putting on an interested face and trying to avoid some cinder blocks as he dragged her into the house, his face eager with pride. After Marie had shown the proper amount of enthusiasm for his remodeling project, Duncan retired to the kitchen to make some coffee. He struggled with the cappuccino machine while she watched in idle amusement. Cursing, he slopped coffee on the counter and she burst into laughter. "I never met anyone who so enjoys making a contest out of everything! Why don't you simply buy a machine you don't have to skirmish with?" "I don't know what you're talking about," Duncan replied, a slow blush creeping up his neck. "It's just that this machine is a little complex, that's all." He managed to strain two cups of coffee from the pot and led Marie to the living room. She moved a hammer and some pieces of wood onto the floor before settling on the sofa. He looked at her fondly. "I meant it when I said it was good to see you," Duncan said. "How long has it been? The last time we saw each other was..." "One hundred and thirty years ago and you're changing the subject," she replied, blowing on her coffee to cool it. "I meant it when I said you make everything a contest. I've watched you over the years, Duncan. I'm concerned about you. You're turning into a morose loner and you think everyone and everything is your enemy. Even your own thoughts and feelings are something to be conquered. You've been a warrior too long." "I can take care of myself," Duncan replied. "My point exactly," Marie muttered. "I've done very well up to now," Duncan continued as if he hadn't heard her. "But now I really am going to change the subject. Catch me up! This is a new look for you, isn't it?" he said, indicating her worn jeans and long-sleeved tweedy sweater. "Well, this may be news to you, Duncan, but hoop skirts did go out of style a couple of years ago," she answered. "I thought I'd catch up with the times." "That's not exactly what I meant," he said, a frown creasing his brow. "I've never seen you looking this, um, casual." She laughed and tossed her head carelessly. "Oh! You mean I look like a slob. Well, I guess I do, but it's comfortable and I don't care anymore how I look. Besides, it's not like I'm trying to catch a man, you know." He chuckled. "Point taken." "You're looking well, Duncan." She gazed at him thoughtfully, intimately. Under her close scrutiny, he fought down a sudden urge to squirm. "What's new with you?" she asked. "Anyone special in your life right now?" "Not right now," he answered. "I was seeing a doctor for a while last year. And before that..." he shrugged as his voice trailed off. He didn't want to go into the details yet again. It always sounded so flat when he talked about it. He knew he should be over her. Hell, he'd even attempted another relationship, but somehow that particular kernel of grief had burrowed down deep into his heart and rooted there. Marie continued to eye him impassionately, watching as his face changed from warmth to sadness to bitterness. "Before that there was Tessa, wasn't there?" she supplied softly. "How do you know about her?" he asked, suddenly suspicious. "I told you, I've been observing you. You'd be surprised, Duncan, I know quite a bit about you," she said. "Practically everything that you've been doing for the past century. You're not the only one who has Watcher friends, you know." Stunned into silence, his mind began to race, trying to figure out what her game was this time. He'd been so happy to see an old familiar face that he'd forgotten all those things she'd done to him over the years. He'd even forgotten that he was still mad at her about that incident during the Civil War. He looked at her and she returned his gaze placidly, her face unreadable. "All right, Marie, what's up? You always have an ulterior motive." "Okay, so I do have a request of you, Duncan," Marie said, as she set down her coffee cup. "Actually I have two requests. The first one is for you to sit down and stop pacing! One would think I made you nervous or something," she said with a secret smile. "I've looked you up for a purpose." "I knew it!" Duncan said triumphantly. "There's always a catch, isn't there?" "With you, yes," she answered with an innocent smile. "But before I tell you what I want, you have to promise to listen to the whole thing with an open mind. I want to tell you my entire story from start to finish, so that you'll understand my need before I ask my favor. I never went into much detail with you, and it's only been in the past few decades that it has started to make sense to me. Indulge me this one time!" she pleaded as he began to scowl. He weighed the request in his mind. "Okay," he finally conceded, sighing and pulling up a chair. "This sounds harmless enough so far. Actually," he said, realizing after a moment's pause that this might not be so bad, "I've always been curious but didn't want to pry. Take your time, Marie." "We do tend to be a secretive lot, don't we? Part of our charm, I think," she said with a smile. "Part of our survival, you mean," Duncan commented. "But begin your story!" "Well, you remember that I was born some time in the middle of the 12th century?" Duncan nodded. "You know what amuses me about dates?" she said, already on a tangent. "Historians are always so careful to put the exact dates on the past - this happened in 842 and that happened in 913, when in reality, you never found a peasant who woke up in the morning and flipped the page on her calendar. How do you know you were born in 1592? Which illiterate clansman of yours wrote it down?" she teased. Duncan opened his mouth for a retort, but instead shook his head, rolled his eyes and grinned. "Anyway," she said, "it was only after I became immortal and learned my letters and sums that I managed to work backwards and figure out approximately when I was born." Marie's mind drifted back to her early life as a peasant, scratching in the French mud for a living. The couple who had brought her up were kind, decent folk, treating her as if she were their own daughter. They had raised her strictly but with love, as was expected, and gave her only a little more leniency than the other children in the village received when they disobeyed. "You were a spirited child," her mother told her right before she died, toothless and grey, old at 38. "You brought me much joy. But take care, Marie. You have too much pride, it will bring you great unhappiness one day." She wept bitterly, feeling the stinging truth of the words as the woman gently patted her hand. "Don't go, Mama," Marie begged. "Stay with us, for a little while." But the old woman shook her head, closed her eyes and breathed her last. She clasped her mother's limp hand in both of hers and caressed it, stabbed suddenly with the depth of her loss. For some reason, the work worn hand reminded her of a dead bird she had found in the forest the week before. Marie shuddered as the memory cleared. She scrubbed her hands as if the filth, the poverty and disease still lingered there. How dreary, how flat, how *mortal,* it had been, she thought. But, some things remained the same. Life was then as it is now; an endless struggle against the inevitability of death, a struggle in which there is no winner. Sometimes she just wanted to rise up and scream against it. "My first death occurred when I was about 25, during one of those frequent skirmishes that went on between villages," she told Duncan. "Trying to run away, I got in the way of a man looting our hut, and well, it wasn't pretty." "Define 'not pretty' for me," he asked softly. She had refused to tell him about it in the past when he had asked, and he wasn't sure how she would take the question now. She hesitated. Even after all these years, she still didn't like to talk about it. It was odd how time couldn't dull certain pains. "Infer what you like," she shrugged, hoping she was acting more nonchalant than she felt. "Let's just say it put me off men for a long time. But you remember those kinds of fights, Duncan; they were still going on in your time." He nodded, remembering all too well what they were like, too many rocks, clubs, dirt, blood and the cries of wailing women. Sometimes, the echoes of them still rang in his head and woke him up at night. The cacophony of sound rose in his ears, the screaming of the horses, the dull thudding of flung rocks as they buried themselves in the mud, the clanging of iron swords, the peculiar glubbing sounds of fluttering chickens as people ran back and forth in aimless terror. He felt the scorching heat of the fire as it snapped at a nearby thatched hut; the metallic taste of fear coating his tongue as he stared, stomach churning, at what was left of a young woman who had been horribly raped and slaughtered. Duncan shook his head to clear the memory, deciding he didn't really need to hear the details. He knew very well what they were. "Anyway," Marie continued, "when I woke up, I was immortal. I left my village, knowing somehow that I was suddenly and eternally different, and wandered around totally clueless for the first few decades of my immortality. I think the only reason I survived was pure luck." She thought back, remembering that immortal she had run across once in the forest outside of Giverny. She could still see his contemptuous face as he looked down at her from horseback before bursting into laughter. She hadn't even known what she was, didn't understand what he meant when he told her she was 'too small for catching.' She had been glad when he wheeled his horse and rode off. There was something in his eyes that had disturbed her, something filled with darkness and desire. She'd seen that look in many pairs of immortal eyes since, and it was much to her shame that she had seen it more than once in her own. "Do you remember your first buzz?" She asked him. "Mine is as clear after 800 years as if it were yesterday. I thought I was having a stroke or something!" she said with a laugh. "Yes, it was rather unsettling. Fortunately, mine was with Connor. He taught me right away what they were for." "The only thing they taught me was to run away," she said, shaking her head. "You know, Duncan, sometimes I wonder not that so many of us don't live beyond our first years, but that so many of us do. " "The lucky ones find mentors." he answered. Marie looked at him. "Are they really the lucky ones?" "Stop being so cryptic and tell me about Anna," he said, leaning forward in his chair. "That's the part I've always wanted to hear." "There's really not much to tell." A sad smile curved Marie's lips as she remembered her mentor. "It wasn't like the earth shook or anything. It was the beginning of the 13th century and I was starving, so I stole some food from her garden. She caught me, of course. I was terrified she was going to kill me, but, for some reason, she took me in. She was always collecting strays. I suppose I was just another one; someone to take care of, to train, to sculpt. She explained what I was, taught me to read, to use a sword and instructed me in the rules of the Game. A whole world of philosophy, literature and science opened up to me. It was so wonderful, Duncan!" The memory of those beautiful, endless days rushed in upon Marie. Days spent reading, writing, questioning. Anna would come in and close the book Marie was reading, forcing her to rest, chiding her gently for not taking better care of herself. Chastised, Marie would crawl into the fur covered bed, dragging Anna with her, and the two immortal women would sleep, curled around each other for warmth, while the fire glowed and crackled on the hearth. Anna would sometimes wake in the middle of the night to find Marie gazing at her, her face full of wonder. Catching her hand, Anna would pull Marie back under the furs. "Sleep now," Anna would say, stroking her hair, and Marie would dream of whirling with the hissing stars, falling and tumbling in the sky as she rode a pony whose mane was laced with fire. "It was like a fever burning in my mind," she told Duncan. "I couldn't get enough knowledge. Anna and I debated endlessly; any topic was enough to start us off, from what kind of beverage was best in the mornings to the nature of God. I was fascinated by the things I was discovering; between the books and Anna's knowledge of the world my mind was constantly spinning with amazement. I had never known such wonders existed! Other lands, other peoples, different thought systems, different religions, different gods. I adored talking with her, we could discuss anything. We spent several years just arguing the merits of different breeds of horses; we loved exploring thoughts together." Duncan nodded, remembering that feeling of wonder, the high that accompanied the onslaught of knowledge, the feeling of omnipotence. He had gloried in his immortality in the beginning too. They all did. And why not? The reality set in soon enough. "Did you ever smuggle into the monasteries at night and read the books, Duncan? No? I guess that was before your time. I think by the time you became interested in literature it was more widely available. Anna and I often did." "Most of what the monks kept back then was ecclesiastical, wasn't it?" he interjected and she nodded. "I imagine that everything you found only fueled your debates," Duncan said with a knowing grin. "I never met anyone who likes to argue as much as you." "Duncan!" she said, feigning offense. "It's not argument, it's *discussion*." "Yeah, right." "You know," she smiled, ignoring him, "I think the monks thought we were ghosts. We'd crawl up into these dank and crumbly towers, light our candles and read and laugh and talk. The books! They were so beautiful! Those illuminated manuscripts with the intricate pictures of fantastic beasts. The little letters marvelously traced with gold. Those were some of my favorite times. I had forgotten how much I like the warm intimacy of a library; finding you among the books today brought it back to me." Marie shook herself. "Sorry, I'm off on a tangent again. Really, Duncan," she said with sly smile, "you need to keep me more focused. You know I could talk for days. Anyway, Anna and I were inseparable! Being with her was like drinking from a bottomless well of peace and contentment. My happiness was complete when we became lovers early in the 14th century. I think it was inevitable; Fate held us in her hand. For the first time in my life I felt free and safe." Marie's face became dreamy as the sound of galloping hooves began to thunder in her head. She was taken back to a time when she and Anna had been wandering in Eastern Europe. She felt the rhythm of the horses as they pounded, side by side, across the steppes of Russia. The land around them was bleak with winter, the grasses brown, dry and crunchy beneath the feet of the mares. They were riding so close to one another that the wind whipped their long hair together and twisted it into light and dark strands. Anna was laughing with exhilaration at the speed of their Spanish horses, urging them faster. She had never been more beautiful, Marie thought; her own heart had never felt so full. If it hadn't been for the Game perhaps they would still be together, and she wouldn't be here in this house, trying to gather enough nerve to complete her task. Duncan was quiet, watching the play of emotions across Marie's face, drawn into the silent memory, a little jealous of her devotion. Marie's face changed; she looked pensive. "We didn't agree about the Game. Our discussions took a deeper tone when we talked about it. It seemed fairly pointless to me, and the more I examined it the angrier I became. I felt that we were being manipulated by a higher being for some unknown purpose. Anna was a proponent of not fighting at all. She believed the game would stop if we simply refused to fight. Once I saw her actually talk her way out of a encounter! It was amazing. She was amazing. I, of course, was headstrong and willful and was not about to let anyone just have my head, or hers either, so I fought the battles for the both of us." "You? Headstrong?" Duncan said. "I can hardly believe it! What was that you were saying earlier about how much *I* like contests?" Marie shifted uneasily. "We are talking about a long time ago, you know. People can change." Duncan narrowed his eyes at her and cocked an eyebrow. "Fine. Don't believe me," she said defensively. End of Part 1 =========================================================================