========================================================================= Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 22:18:08 -0500 Reply-To: Sandra1012@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Sandra McDonald Subject: Epilogue: Studies in Light 2/2 Part 2/2 "What's this?" he asked Tessa in her workshop, as she marked up a large sheet of metal for cutting. Tessa glanced at the paper with feigned disinterest. She knew exactly what he was talking about. "What does it look like?" she asked. "I mean, why? Is Richie thinking about moving out?" "You'd have to ask Richie." MacLeod felt a pang of annoyance. "Why am I the last one to know about anything around here?" "You're not the last one to know, you're just the last one to notice," Tessa said cryptically. "Ask Richie." She was being completely unhelpful. MacLeod went in search of Richie and found him in the alley working on his bike. "Hey," the older man said, suddenly unsure if he actually wanted to pursue this conversation. "Hey," Richie answered. "Hand me that wrench, will you? Thanks." MacLeod leaned against the hood of his Thunderbird. "You need help?" "No. I got it. What's up?" He hesitated slightly. "I hear you're thinking of . . . getting your own place." Richie didn't look up from his work. "Tessa tell you that?" "You circled the apartment ads in the newspaper." Richie reached for a grease rag. His bright blue eyes turned to MacLeod and he said, very casually, "I tossed the idea around a little. I mean, I'm not a minor anymore, it's probably time I had my own address. I think that little place you rented for me while we were in Paris gave me a taste of the good life." MacLeod smiled. "The good life, huh? Young Parisian women?" Richie managed a rueful grin. "Not as many as I'd wished but, you know, it's the idea that counts." "You have any place in mind?" "Not yet," Richie said, pulling himself to his feet. "Just kind of reading the ads, seeing what people have out there. You think it's a bad idea?" "No, not at all," MacLeod said quickly. Maybe too quickly. He hastened to add, "I'll miss your dirty laundry everywhere, and your losing the television remote practically every day, but if it's something you want to do, I'll help you as much as I can." Richie gazed at him with a strange expression. "Okay, thanks." That night, after dinner, MacLeod interrupted what was obviously a private conversation between Tessa and Richie. He backed away as politely as he could. When they went to bed, Tessa staked out her side of the mattress and turned her back to him. "Something wrong?" he asked. "No," Tessa said. "I'm just tired." He wasn't going to play games with her. If Tessa resented his grief over Linda so much that she was willing to let it come between them, that was her choice. Fine. Two could play that game. He stayed on his own side of the mattress as well. When a soft thump woke him from his sleep he sat immediately upright and reached for his sword. Tessa's hand on his arm stopped him. "It's just Richie," she whispered. "Just Richie?" MacLeod turned to her in the darkness. The bedside alarm clock read three twenty two a.m. "What's he doing? Moving furniture?" Tessa didn't answer right away. MacLeod dropped to the pillows beside her. "What is it, Tessa?" he asked. "I can't say," she answered softly. For weeks Duncan hadn't been able to see past himself to the pain Richie was in, and she'd watched helplessly as the gulf slowly widened between them. Her resolve to not interfere wavered with each passing day, but so far she'd stuck to the promise Richie had made her make. She did say now, in the bed they'd shared for so many years, "It's not the first time." Perplexed, unable to get more from her than that, MacLeod went to Richie's room. He knocked softly, heard nothing, and eased his way in. The bed was rumpled but empty, the sheets and comforter pulled over to one side. "Richie?" he asked. "Hmm," Richie answered, muffled. "Over here." MacLeod circled the bed to find him lying in a heap on the floor, twisted in the striped sheets. He didn't look injured, but he looked in no hurry to get up, either. MacLeod turned on the small lamp on the bedside table and asked, ""What are you doing down there?" Richie squinted painfully in the light. "Looking for dust bunnies," he snapped. "Turn that off, will you?" MacLeod obligingly turned it off and helped Richie sit up against the sturdy wooden frame of the bed. Richie had gone to sleep nude, and in a show of modesty made sure the sheets showed nothing too revealing MacLeod sat down beside him and asked, curiously, "Did you find any?" "Any what?" Richie asked blankly. "Dust bunnies." "No." They sat looking at Richie's dresser, immediately in front of them, with its portable boom box and stacks of c.d.'s on top. Socks and underwear stuck out from the jammed drawers. MacLeod didn't find that very tidy, but remembered that when he'd been Richie's age in the Scottish Highlands of the seventeenth century, keeping his underwear folded neatly had never been one of his top priorities, either. Of course, in the seventeenth century they hadn't had much in the way of underwear anyway. Tessa's earlier words suddenly clicked, and he realized that he'd failed to notice something else going on right under his nose. "Bad dreams?" he hazarded. Richie's voice was flat, allowing no weakness. "Once in awhile, maybe." "Greg?" "Maybe." "Maybe," MacLeod echoed. "You've been having nightmares about what Greg did, is that it? The bike accident? Or here?" "Both. But it's not important." Richie made a show of rubbing his right elbow, which he'd banged against the floor in his fall from the bed. "Why isn't it important, Richie?" "Because you said you took care of him. So I don't have to worry about him. I don't have to worry that he's going to stop by and try and snap my neck or something, because *you* took care of him." A new understanding broke open in MacLeod's mind. Quietly he asked, "Did you want me to take his Quickening?" "Does it matter?" "It might." Richie stared at the dresser. "That night, I did. I mean, he tried to kill me. He made me . . . " The words trailed off. MacLeod sensed something he hadn't heard from Tessa, and felt suddenly cold. "He made you do what?" he asked, his voice now low and dangerous. "Nothing," Richie said quickly, meeting his gaze. "I mean it. Nothing sick or perverted. Except - " MacLeod waited. "I begged for my life, Mac," Richie admitted, his face coloring, and hung his head in remembered anguish. "I actually begged. I never had to do that before. You never had to beg for your life, did you?" "Not for mine," MacLeod admitted. "Usually it doesn't apply. Sometimes for others. For mortals, for people I loved. It's nothing to be ashamed of." Richie's face set in a scowl. "Did you have another choice?" MacLeod asked. "Yes. No. I don't know. Maybe I over-reacted. Maybe if I hadn't tried to get away, he would have let me go anyway - " "Richie," MacLeod said firmly, "you were afraid of him, and with good reason. We'll never know what he might have done to you. What he might have done to Tessa, if she'd come home a few minutes earlier. You didn't do anything to deserve having to beg, or being knocked unconscious." Richie didn't look convinced. "So how come you didn't take him?" MacLeod asked, "Are you sure I didn't?" "No," Richie answered, sounding peevish. "You wouldn't talk about it." "We fought on the hospital roof. He had a sword, and I didn't. He would have killed me at the first opening, but I got his sword. I nearly did take his head, then. I was angry about what he'd done to you, what he tried to do to Linda, and afraid of what he'd become. I told him that he had to change or die." "What did he choose?" "He chose to ask for help," MacLeod said softly. "My help. He's ill, Richie, but he's not evil. He's ill, and confused, and in great pain." Richie folded his arms, clearly unwilling to let go of his anger just yet. "So you did what? Took him to the psycho ward?" MacLeod refused to be baited. "No. I got him calmed down, and then I put him on a flight to France. There's an Immortal there named Sean Burns who's also a doctor. He said he would see that he got the help he needed." "As long as he doesn't drop by here again, he can get all the help he wants, okay?" "Is that why you wanted to move out?" Richie sighed as his anger transformed into shadowed vulnerability. MacLeod wondered if Richie even knew how easy he was to read most of the time. A part of him wished wistfully to be that young again, so open to everything new in life, even the hard parts, even the parts that brought nightmares. "I really did like having my own place in Paris," he said, his voice catching a little, "but this is like home, you know? You and Tessa having me come live here was the first place I felt wanted, not just assigned by some idiot social worker." "This is your home," MacLeod agreed. "As long as you want it." "You really mean that?" "Yes." "Thanks." "So you're staying?" "Sure, now that I know you care," Richie answered, with only a little flippancy. He yawned. "Besides, do you know how much apartments rent for these days?" "Richie," MacLeod said, before the moment passed, "I'm sorry what Greg did to you. And when he's healed, I know he'll be sorry too. He was once a very compassionate doctor who saw a great deal of death, and being Immortal has taken its toll on him. What he did was inexcusable, but don't let it haunt you. You're strong enough to move past it." Richie made a face. "I guess." "If you can't sleep, or have nightmares, come to me. We'll talk it out." "Actually, Tessa and I have been having a great deal of late night discussions," Richie said lightly, as he pulled himself upright with the sheet carefully wrapped around his legs. "And gone through a lot of hot chocolate, except she keeps putting big globs of honey in hers. Must be a French thing. Isn't that right, Tessa?" "You shouldn't knock it until you try it," Tessa said from the doorway. MacLeod turned, surprised that he hadn't heard her. She gazed at them both fondly. "And it's not a French thing. I learned it from a Scot." Richie raised his eyes doubtfully at MacLeod. "Not from me you didn't," MacLeod said. She arched her eyebrows. "You think you're the only Scottish man I've ever known? I'm allowed to have a little mystery in my past, aren't I?" Tessa tightened her lace robe. "Come on, guys. I already have the water on to boil." "What mysterious past?" MacLeod asked suspiciously, moving towards her, but she'd already turned down the hall. He glanced back at Richie. "You coming?" Richie tightened his sheet. "It's a little drafty in the kitchen," he said. "Let me find some clothes first." MacLeod went after Tessa. "And what Scot?" he persisted. Richie just grinned. THE END > > > > > > > > > You're still here? > > > It's over. > > > > Go home! > > > Go! - Ferris Bueller's Day Off