========================================================================= Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 00:57:07 -0800 Reply-To: Selma McCrory Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Selma McCrory Subject: With Human Blood, 4/6 X-To: tpfict@xmission.com I was going to send this tomorrow evening, but I found out yesterday that I'm going to be out of town for a job interview tomorrow. So, everyone gets it a day earlier than planned. It's the shortest part, so I hope I don't overtax everyone's mailboxes! Part 5 will not be posted any sooner than Friday the 15th. -------------------------- With Human Blood and Human Tears by Selma McCrory copyright 1996 part 4 "Could it be possible that he is just interested in the history?" "Possibly. That's one of the reasons I'm hesitating. The other one being that he seems older than me, and I'm not too hot as a fighter." "You're interested in history, too," Adam observed. In fact, he had never seen anyone quite as interested in history. Maybe she never got it all quite right, but she always looked to the past. "We observe, we record, but we never interfere," Greer said thoughtfully. "Huh?" Adam said succinctly. _I know this, why are you saying it?_ "I'm a recorder of history as it happens. A chronicler," she said, ignoring him. "You're quite right, he might not be interested in winning the game that way, just chronicling. He might even be like me, a Watcher who became Immortal and didn't want to leave what he knew. Wish I'd had the chance." Adam thought he understood. "The 'what-if' situation," he said quietly. "You can't return to what you were. Maybe he doesn't understand either." "*If* he's really a displaced Watcher, not someone out to use the Watchers for gain," Greer said. "I'm not even sure I can trace him to ask." "Maybe you're not supposed to." "True," Greer said. "Well, maybe I'll figure out what to do." "You will." Suddenly, Lisa appeared, holding two mugs of hot chocolate. "Did I miss anything?" "Oh, just the usual heart-to-heart discussion," Greer said airily. "That for me?" "No, it's for Michael, actually. Do you want me to get another mug?" "No thanks. But next time you come by, remind me I need to get cocoa." "Will do. I'm going to talk to Michael for a minute, see you both later." "'Kay," Greer said. As Lisa left, she stared at Adam. "I'll tell her," he said resignedly. "You should. They depend on you, you know. They don't depend on me, or Michael, or Lisa. You're the one everyone looks up to, including me." Adam blushed. "For goodness sake, you haven't noticed that? None of us has ever seen you really down." "I know," he said miserably. "Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way," she said out loud. "You can't be without your powers because we need you. I need you. I need you sane and whole so that I can stop worrying about you while I deal with this other problem." "Maybe you are going about this the wrong way," Michael replied from the doorway. "Let me try." "Go ahead. Where's Lisa, by the way?" "Oh, I asked her something and she went home to get some stuff for me." "Well, at least she's getting the practice," Adam said. Greer waved her husband to a chair, wondering what he was up to. He nodded, sat down, and got comfortable. "Let me tell you about something. A few months before Greer and I met up again in Sacramento, I was assigned to do a minor supervisorial role there. During that time, one of my people was murdered. She'd been assigned to this particular female Immortal. A lot of other Watchers who were observing this particular immortal had also been killed. The first was my aunt, two decades before." "I'm sorry," Adam said. Greer nodded. She'd never been told this particular story and was fascinated, especially since there was little about Michael's past that she didn't know about. "Thanks. Well, I got the bright idea that I needed to talk to her. I did. We ended up pooling resources. Turns out that this businessman had a fascination for swordfights, especially deadly ones, and he'd fastened on her as a way of providing entertainment. So, in his twisted mind, he decided that he had to protect her from arrest, and so he killed every witness to the fight. Which happened to be the Watchers assigned to her and her opponents." "We - this lady, her paramour, and I, went to confront him. He confessed to what he'd done." "What happened to him?" Greer asked. "I don't know. I was all set to kill him, and next thing I knew, her paramour, another Immortal named Fitzcairn who is now dead, God save his soul, was hauling me far away. They told me later that it was settled, but since she didn't want to deal with me again, she told me to let it be. I did. I didn't want to really deal with a pair of enraged, armed Immortals. And I was grateful for it later." "Why?" Adam asked. "Because you didn't do something you would have regretted?" "Yeah. Well, I realized what had happened could never change. Neither my aunt nor my friend would be brought back to life. That's the important thing, you know. You can't change the past, but you can go on in life." "But what if you made a mistake, and it affected thousands of beings? What if you could be responsible for killing a large population?" "I don't know, Adam," Michael said. "I'd have to live with it, even learn to put it behind me. It wouldn't be easy, of course, but I would try." "Michael's right," Greer said. "What you do matters of course, but sometimes you've got to learn to forgive yourself." "I hope you're right," Adam replied. * * * Adam looked out the window of Greer's flat. For the moment, everyone else was out: Michael to do some repairing of a computer somewhere, Greer out running errands, and Lisa to goodness knew where. _Funny_, he thought. _That my misfortune would cause Lisa to use her powers again._ Lisa was the most phobic of the group, and had pretty much isolated herself from the rest of them. While her assignments in the Watchers had stabilized her life, she must have decided to act like a Watcher, suspending her powers in order to live a more "normal" life. But this crisis had pushed her into thinking like a Tomorrow Person again, instead of what she was not. Greer had done some genuine good in sending Lisa off; she was wiser than she thought, and more insightful than she believed. He wondered what advice to give her, what could work to calm her fears. The door opened, and Greer walked in, nodding to Adam and moving to the kitchen to put her packages down. Once done, she came back in. "How's everything?" "I told her, as you suggested. She talked to the others. I'm the only one without my powers." "You mean, neither Megabyte nor Jade was affected?" "No. Why should they be? I was responsible." "Megabyte was responsible too, yet he has his." "He's not the one expected to be responsible." Greer sighed, throwing her hands up. "Joy. Not this 'divine retribution' thing again. I feel like I'm talking to a telepathic ghost. You're not listening to anything I'm saying." "It's happened. As your husband said, I can't change what I did. And I can't regain what was lost." Greer was toying around with part of her coat. "Just so you don't kill yourself. I suppose now you could do it, hang yourself or overdose or something like that." "How? I don't think I could do any of those things, even now," Adam said. "Good question. I suppose not being able to kill precludes suicide, if you still have that instinct. Even if you're able to kill off parts of yourself." "Yes, I do, and I think it does." "Okay," Greer said thoughtfully. She gazed at him, blinked, and then continued, "But if you still can't kill, you still might be a Tomorrow Person." Adam looked momentarily away, squeezing his eyes shut. _Why can't she understand?_ "You've been given a gift! Something that so many people would love to have. Just with your instincts left, you're forced to be more peaceful than most people would ever dream of." Adam groaned. "It didn't help, did it? I hundreds, thousands of intelligent beings. My instinct was not enough to save their lives." "They're parasites!" Greer exclaimed. "So what?" Adam said miserably. "They were intelligent, thinking beings. Just because they weren't human and invaded people didn't mean that I had the right to kill them." "Adam, your powers didn't make you any less human! You still hate, you still love. You still get angry. Are either of us less than human because we have these feelings? No. Being human, we have both the capacity for good, and the capacity for evil. It's just that we have abilities most people don't." Adam looked into Greer's hazel eyes. The Immortal was gazing at him sadly, her hands folded on the table in front of her. They both were silent for a minute, and then Adam said, "I just don't rate this gift anymore. I had a responsibility, and I fouled it up." "And what are you going to do as a mere mortal, Adam? Turn to crime? Lisa's been pretty much living without her powers, you can too without turning into a self-pitying quivering idiot! You're moaning, and you still have to go on with the future whether you've got your powers or not." Adam looked at an increasingly upset Greer. He couldn't find a way to express what he felt, and he sincerely wished he had his powers back so that he could make her understand. She was fiddling with her coat, which she had left on. He stared down at the table, barely noticing when Greer stood up. His inward discussion was interrupted by a loud . He looked around to see Greer's rapier slightly imbedded in the table in front of him. "Greer, what-" "I'm tired of hearing you moan on about something that you want everyone to feel sorry about! It's no bed of roses on my end, may I say." He had risen up from the chair, and was backing away slowly, holding his hands out. "Greer, wait-" But it was no use. The maddened Immortal was swinging at him again. He backed away even further. She kept sweeping her sword at him. He started running towards the door. "That's not an out, Adam! You've got to own up to what you've done and go on with your life." "But I don't have my powers-" Adam said, desperately seeking something to hide behind. Greer swiped at him as he tried to get behind his chair. He could tell that she'd narrowly missed him, but had gotten his clothing. He ducked, and grabbed the chair, trying to hit her with it and knock her out so that she didn't harm him or herself. She glared at him, and then said. "Live with it, Adam!" He tried to hit her, but she deflected the blow and got possession of the chair, tossing it away from her. Adam kept jogging around the room, narrowly escaping Greer's sword. Finally, Greer had him backed up to a corner. He looked at the maddened look in her eyes, closed his own, and waited for the fatal blow. And then, suddenly, there wasn't a corner anymore. Water didn't have corners. * * * Selma McCrory "Maybe what this world needs smccrory@calweb.com are more Selmas." selmamc@aol.com -Darien Lambert, Time Trax