========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 21:38:58 -0500 Reply-To: Sandra1012@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Sandra McDonald Subject: Epicenter 1/4 Author's notes: Not my characters. Not my television show. No profit earned. Thank you, Rysher Entertainment et al! This story is rated PG-13 only because there's a little gruesome part that Methos wouldn't let me take out. And because he doesn't have any clothes on in the first paragraph. Alternative universe details are in evidence (see end notes for further details.) Thank you very much to Janette92 for proofing this story and offering great suggestions. Questions, comments, concerns, canon, onions, orchards - all to me. I hope people enjoy. Epicenter by Sandra McDonald sandra1012@aol.com The faint but distinct rumbling of an earthquake woke Methos from sleep. He opened his eyes to his small, sunlit bedroom, caught by a not infrequent moment in which he couldn't remember where he was, who he was, what moment of time he was in. The smell of automobile exhaust through the open window, the sounds of children and parents speaking in English as they passed on the street below, and the pulsing thump-thump of rock music from someone else's apartment gave him the external cues he needed. The earthquake, a mild murmur of earth in spring, was already abating. Content that the world as he knew it was not coming to an end, he turned over on his stomach, the warm spring air gentle on his bare body, and wrapped his arms around his pillow. He drifted back to dreams of Thira as its newly awakened volcano blew it out of the sea. Time had blessedly dimmed his nightmares to faded, dusky images that no longer hurt, no longer frightened. The blackened skies and hail of fire came gently, with soft touches of sadness. Lately, in the last few centuries, his dreams focused on the white flowers Arete wore twined in her hair, and the touch of her hand on his face as they lay on the shores of the bright, glittering Mediterranean. She came to him now, her face lit with an inner light he'd searched for in every woman since, and whispered of the Odyssey in his ear. When he woke again it was mid-morning, and he remembered the earthquake with only the vaguest thoughts. He showered, ate buttered toast and sweet, crunchy cereal for breakfast, and spent some time on-line, researching a new book he was planning. The calendar marked the day as the first of May. The ways of counting and commemorating days had changed drastically in Methos' life, but May 1st had once been Beltain, meant to mark the beginning of the unpredictable summer season. To celebrate it properly he should wait until nightfall, build a bonfire atop a great hill, find a sacred grove, cook a pancake from the last grains of the previous year, and sacrifice a Druid. But he hadn't seen any true Druids since 324 AD. Instead, as a private joke he didn't intend to share, he invited his favorite Celtic descendent to have lunch with him in a very nice restaurant at the park. Duncan MacLeod looked well. He'd been dating a lovely mortal woman, and wore a healthy tan of equal parts sun and infatuation. Spring had always been the summer of love. In the spring of 596 B.C., Methos had met and wooed a priestess named Melishika as a citizen of an empire long past. He remembered strolling with her among the budding flowers of hanging gardens built like a mountain in the most magnificent city of its time. Duncan MacLeod, who'd been born far too late to remember or care about Babylon, blushed when Methos pointed out that he was in love. "Don't be afraid of love," Methos chided fondly, as Melishika had once chided him. "I'm not afraid of love," MacLeod protested with a smile. "I know." Beyond MacLeod sat an elderly man and woman dining at a corner table. They ate in almost perfect silence, bound by an endearment and love stronger than time. Methos tried to imagine himself and Melishika in their place, but couldn't. The Priestess was dead, and the Immortal would never look that old. He turned his attention back to the Highlander. "You're afraid of loss." MacLeod's smiled faded from his mouth but not his eyes. He was in too good of a mood to be dampened by Methos' probing philosophies. "Perhaps," he agreed, and sipped from his freshly squeezed lemonade. "Perhaps it's an occupational hazard." A faint rumble distracted Methos from his reply. "Must be an aftershock," he murmured. "Aftershock?" "Didn't you feel the earthquake this morning?" ""I didn't notice." MacLeod studied the glasses, plates and silverware scattered on the white tablecloth. Nothing moved. "I don't feel anything now." "Are you sure?" Methos asked. He placed his fingertips on the edge of the table. Although he could still feel the rumbling in his head, his physical senses gave him no proof. Methos frowned and concentrated on what he felt inside. The odd sensation at the base of his brain was not entirely unlike the buzz he felt when encountering other Immortals. The resonance was different, but the prickling sensation up his spine - MacLeod leaned forward. "What is it?" The aftershocks faded, like an echo lost in jagged canyons. Like the roar of Thira's destruction had finally faded from his conscious memory, and Arete's touch from his skin. "Nothing," Methos said. MacLeod didn't look convinced, but he didn't argue. The waiter brought the bill, and Methos paid in the currency of the day. Beltain, it seemed, had given him the gift of something new, and he mulled over the interesting and troubling implications of earthquakes only he could feel. *** The dojo was empty that Sunday morning, which made Richie Ryan happy. When he was boxing or lifting, he liked other people around - for the camaraderie and conversation mostly, but sometimes just a delight in showing off. Swordfighting was different. Swordfighting drew too much curiosity and attention. And it was too important to his plans for an extended life to be frivolous or flippant about. He practiced his parries and thrusts with his rapier, working against an imaginary opponent of immense strength and skill. Kern, maybe, who was now dead but who'd managed to scare Richie quite badly once. Martin Hyde, who should have been his kill. Mako, if need be, but Richie usually tried not to think about his first kill. He preferred real opponents over his imagination or memory, and was waiting for MacLeod to come back from lunch with Methos so they could put in a few hours of solid practice. Richie hoped Methos didn't come back with MacLeod. Since discovering the fictitious Adam Pierson's true identity, Richie felt shy and awkward in the ancient Immortal's presence. Twenty two years weighed against five thousand ones left little room for things in common, and he always felt as if Methos had no time for someone he must consider a baby. Richie worked himself into a good sweat, muscles loose, breathing easy, and then stopped when he sensed the approach of another Immortal. And sensed something else. A warmth of unnatural origin flushed in the back of his head. Then the warmth notched up into a thousand degrees of burning, and a spotlight of agony blasted from the back of his skull forward so that his eyes nearly burst out their sockets. Dimly he felt his rapier clatter to the hardwood floor from the lifeless fingers of his right hand. An overwhelming demand, unvoiced but understood by every atom in his body, led him to immediately cede control of his will and body before the agony fractured his sanity. A tiny, frantic part of his mind clung to consciousness as someone else moved his body into the dojo's office. He stopped against the window, and felt his hands go up to splay widely against the glass. His body could have flung itself forward, beheading itself on jagged spears of glass, and he would not have been able to stop it. He might have been breathing - he couldn't tell - but it too was a function of his body wrenched from him, and he had no control over it, either. Richie focused on two figure standing on the corner down the street, because one of the figures willed him to. The woman was short and round, with olive skin, dark brown hair, and eyes that seemed enormously black and huge in his distorted vision. Beside her was a man with nut-brown skin, and short, brownish-red hair. He wasn't tall, but to Richie he towered into the sky. He couldn't have weighed more than Richie did, but his mental weight crushed his will like a five ton press on the red grapes of summer. Looking into that man's eyes, Richie saw fleeting impressions of trees like gods, a green river rushing through a valley of lush greenery, an arrow letting loose into the damp, dark confines of a mountain cave. Richie's vision dimmed to grayness punctuated by black stars, but he thought the woman gave him a nod of both approval and malice. He crashed to darkness and the floor. Fifteen minutes later, Methos and MacLeod returned from lunch. They could feel an Immortal's presence on their way into the dojo, but there was no sign of Richie. MacLeod frowned when he saw his former student's rapier on the floor, bright and abandoned in a narrow streak of sunlight. "Richie?" he called out. After a brief search, they found the young Immortal dead on the office floor. Methos saw no obvious wounds, but as MacLeod gently examined his protege, Richie's head lolled sideways to reveal dark blood trailing from his left ear. "What could have happened?" MacLeod asked tightly. Methos took hold of Richie's ankles, thanking the twentieth century for the concept of elevators. "We'll find out soon," he said pragmatically. They carried Richie upstairs and settled him on MacLeod's bed. Methos saw no reason to doubt that Richie would recover, but it did take almost two hours before Richie stirred beneath the brown blanket MacLeod had lain atop him. Richie woke with the unnerving sensation of being stared at. He dragged his eyelids open to see Methos standing above him. The older Immortal smiled. "You're awake." "Mmm," Richie managed, as agreement. He couldn't remember why he was laying down, or why Methos would be staring at him. His head felt like an overripe, swollen piece of fruit, and the pulse of his own heartbeat was like a jungle drum threatening to split that fruit wide open. MacLeod appeared beside Methos. "How do you feel?" "Terrible," Richie said. His neck was stiff, and his left ear ached. MacLeod helped him sit up, and then went to fetch him a glass of water. Methos sat on the edge of the bed, watching him with same calm equanimity that seemed to mark everything he ever did. "Do you remember what happened?" MacLeod asked when he returned. Richie started to shake his head, then thought better of it. He swallowed the water. In his mortal days he would have swallowed aspirin as well, but already he was feeling better. "I was working out, waiting for you," he said slowly. "Then - I don't know. I woke up here." MacLeod explained to him how they'd found him. "I've been studying a lot for my final exams next week," Richie admitted, "but I didn't think so hard that my brain would explode." MacLeod didn't think it was funny. He looked at Methos. "Could that have happened? An aneurysm, cerebral hemorrhage, something like that?" Methos shrugged. "I don't know. I've never seen it happen. Richie, you're sure you weren't attacked? You didn't fight anyone?" Richie gently rolled his head left to right. His headache was gone, and his neck no longer felt as if it would snap into two. "I'm not sure of anything. I don't remember." The two older Immortals studied him. Richie began to flush. "I'm not lying," he said hotly. "Of course not," MacLeod soothed. "How do you feel now?" Methos knew it was hard for a mentor to let go of a student, but he was glad that MacLeod still cared about the boy. The Watcher files had told Methos all about Duncan MacLeod and Tessa Noel's informal and mostly unspoken adoption of Richie before he became Immortal. MacLeod had told a few, rare stories. For one wistful moment Methos wished he could remember his first mentor as anything but fleeting impressions, images too dulled by time to ever be properly recalled. A man in a vast, battle-scarred plain. A dawn of hope and promise. A promise made. "Fine," Richie was saying. "A little confused." MacLeod's gaze narrowed. "You want to practice?" "Not that fine," Richie said wanly. "I think I'm going to go home. I've got a ton of studying to do." "Are you all right to drive yourself home?" "Fine. Wish me luck on American history." MacLeod smiled faintly. "Good luck," he said, but when Richie was gone the smile went too. Doubt rang in his voice as he asked, "You think he'll be all right?" Methos replied, "I think we'll find out." Over a week later Methos came home from shopping with two bags of groceries and a rental science fiction movie about aliens exiled to earth. That he could get vegetables, meat, bread, cakes, ale, post office stamps, newspapers, cameras, and movies all in one store amazed him. The people of the twentieth century demanded convenience, but they didn't appreciate it. Methos set the sagging bags on the counter and checked the time. Nearly four o'clock and time for one of his favorite shows. He turned on the television and flipped through the channels, stopping at a documentary about the harsh desert sands of Egypt. "I remember when it rained in that desert," Methos told the television's faceless commentator. Great sheets of rain, dropping from the ancient skies, whipping on winds born across the settled and unsettled lands. He'd taken one of his first Quickenings under one of those storms in the year 2530 B.C., in a spot where his friend the pharaoh would later build the Great Sphinx as tribute. The television paid him no notice. The documentary, like so much else about history, went about its way spreading misinformation and mistakes. Methos put away the groceries and sat down to watch the modern hero MacGuyver build a hanglider out of a pair of ski's, three kites, and duct tape. Just as the warm breeze and late afternoon sunlight were prompting him to take a stroll, MacLeod called with bad news. "Richie's disappeared," he said. Richie's address was in a small, neat neighborhood of three and four story apartment buildings. He'd lived on the west side for awhile, but this neighborhood was closer to the university. Judging from the multiple layers of labels that marked the mailbox slots inside the doorway, most of the apartments had multiple and frequently transitory residents. Richie lived alone, in a studio under the eaves, with escape routes out to a fire escape and up to the roof if challenged by an Immortal. Methos had fond memories of universities all over the world, and even more fond memories of life as a student. Richie's studio brought some of them back to him. Milk crates for bookcases, worn furniture only a step away from total disrepair, movie and travel posters. A world map with red pins highlighted his travels - limited by Methos' standards, but Richie had centuries to fix that if he didn't lose his head first. Richie's stereo speakers were larger than his refrigerator, an extravagance Methos saw quite often in the young. His desk by the window was piled high with textbooks, notebooks and papers, all testifying to a heavy schedule of studying or cramming. His computer had been left on, and his screen saver played a repeating series of Dilbert cartoons. MacLeod indicated a paper cup filled with dark swirls of melted ice cream and syrup. "I came by yesterday noon and made Richie take a study break. On the way back from the matinee we bought ice cream." The paper cup had turned soggy overnight, and was leaking across a set of now blurred ink notes. Methos decided he was missing the significance of melted vanilla ice cream. Or maybe it was butter pecan. "He's not exactly a stellar housekeeper, Duncan. That's not necessarily a cause for alarm, is it?" MacLeod's frown deepened. "I came by today because we were supposed to run in the park. His door was unlocked. His keys, wallet and sword were all left here. I called his history professor, and he missed his final exam this morning." "Has he had any problems like last week?" MacLeod shook his head. "No lost consciousness, no memory gaps. But he still doesn't remember what happened at the dojo last Sunday." "And now you think someone's taken his head?" "I'm not sure what to think." The sense of an approaching Immortal caught them both at the same time. MacLeod's hand went to the hilt of his sword. Richie let himself in, whistling and unharmed, and then nearly jumped in surprise when he saw them standing by the window. "Geez, Mac!" he complained. "Give a guy a heart attack, why don't you?" Relief and irritation washed into MacLeod's voice. "Richie, where have you been?" Richie gazed at them in perfect bewilderment. "Out. Why, what's wrong?" "Out where?" Methos asked gently. Richie opened his mouth, but didn't say anything. His bewilderment deepened and flowered wide. He couldn't remember, and he told them so. He sank to his sofa in concern. "How long did I . . . go away for?" he asked faintly. "You remember coming back from the movie?" MacLeod asked. "Yes. You made me see . . . something in French." "That was well over twenty four hours ago," MacLeod said. Richie rubbed his eyes. "What's happening to me?" "I don't know," MacLeod confessed, and looked to Methos for explanation. Methos thought back through the centuries. "I can't say. Perhaps it's some odd medical problem your body hasn't fixed yet. Perhaps it's psychological." "You mean, I'm flipping out?" Richie demanded. "I don't know," Methos answered calmly. The young were often so quick to panic. Quite unexpectedly he remembered Alric, and he pushed aside Richie's similarity to the boy dead over sixteen hundred years. Without warning MacLeod suddenly turned to the window, his hands pressed to his temples, his face contorted with an odd pain. And Methos felt the beginning rumble in his brain that was not an earthquake. MacLeod was moving to the window. "There," he said, voice strained, and Methos moved to see two figures in the street below. A man and a woman. He knew the woman. end of part one