The New World, 7/8

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(See intro for disclaimers)

[THE NEW WORLD, Part 7 of 8]
(Second story in "The Disciple" arc)

"I thought I did what's right
 I thought I had the answers
 I thought I chose the surest road
 But that road brought me here."
             "Better Than I", John Bucchino


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joe's Bar
Tuesday Night
Closing time
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Just after midnight, getting ready to shut the place down, with just
a small, affable group of regulars left. Closing time after a good
solid night's work    one of Joe Dawson's favourite parts of his
life as a working stiff.  He and the house band had played two
good sets that night: loud, down and dirty blues.  He still had a
wicked grin on his face from that, and the band was laughing and
joking with each other as they packed up.  The crowd had been
into it too; dancing, laughing, feeding so much energy back to Joe
and the band that none of them had wanted it to stop.

Business had been great.  The dinner crowd had been bigger than
usual, especially for a Tuesday, and it had thinned out earlier than
usual too, leaving plenty of room for the blues, beer, and dance
crowd.  Things were winding down now; the bar was quieter,
filled with the low murmur of well lubricated conversation and
occasional brief, raucous outburst of laughter.  Yeah.  Life was
good.

In the corner of his eye, Joe caught sight of the door swinging
open slowly.  When it didn't swing shut, he looked over curiously.
To his surprise, Rachel Hudson was standing there, half in and
half out of the open doorway, peering cautiously around the edge
of the door and into the room.

Joe slipped into Watcher mode immediately, without a conscious
thought.  The girl's face was pale.  Her fingers were clenched
tight on the doorknob, and she was poised to duck quickly outside
again.  What, Joe wondered, had happened since he'd met her?
Had she started training yet?  MacLeod hadn't mentioned, and
Joe hadn't asked anyone.  Not Rachel's Watcher, and certainly
not Mac.  The Watcher and the Immortal had clashed too often
lately, and they had begun to establish a wary set of boundaries,
avoiding areas that would bring them into conflict with each other
again.

To Joe's practiced eye, Rachel looked much the same on the
surface as she had the first and only other time he had seen her:
clothes old and worn, but well mended and tidy; dark hair pulled
into a disciplined knot at the back of her neck.  The face and the
eyes, he noted almost clinically, were what were different.  This
girl was one scared puppy.  It wasn't just the alert caution he'd
seen in Mac's dojo.  Rachel's eyes were full of the chilling,
paralyzing awareness of danger, very real and very present, and it
had her just this side of terrorized.

Not that he blamed her for that.

>From behind the bar, Joe watched Rachel scan the small crowd,
wide nervous eyes lighting briefly on each person in the room
before she finally turned towards the bright lights of the bar.  She
shied a little when she realized that Joe had been watching her,
but she met his curious gaze with a small, tight smile    there for a
moment, then gone.  He flashed her a welcoming grin and lifted a
hand, beckoning her in.  Rachel didn't move at first, hesitating, but
she finally came into the room, letting the door swing shut behind
her; she jumped at the heavy *thunk* it made as it closed.  With
her head down and her hands shoved deep into the pockets of
pale, faded jeans, she approached Joe slowly, eyes returning to
the small clutter of customers over and over again.  When she
was still a yard or so away from the edge of the bar, she stopped
in her tracks and looked up at Joe.  Her jaw was tight, her lips
stiff as she spoke.

"Mr. Dawson."  That was all.  A brief, polite greeting, a small nod
of the head.  Not the barest hint of a smile.

"Ms. Hudson," Joe returned, with the same nod of greeting.  He
kept the warm, friendly smile on his face, giving Rachel more than
the usual wattage.  The kid was scared to the bone and it didn't
take a brain surgeon to figure out what she was doing here.  "You
been doing all right?" he asked her casually, picking up a glass and
polishing it, hands busy, eyes calm.

"Pretty much, thank you," Rachel answered.  The words came out
by rote, an answer straight from automatic pilot.  Her glance
flitted around the room but kept returning to his.  Wanting
something.  What, exactly?  Help?  Advice?  Protection, God help
her?  Joe continued his work, letting her come to the point herself.

"Mr. Dawson, could we talk for a little while, please?  Whenever
you're not too busy?"  Another string of words owing more to
reflex than to conscious thought, but, hey, she got it out.

"Sure," Joe agreed easily.  No big deal here, just a couple of folks
trading words, passing the time.  Uh huh.  "There's a place right
over there by the stage," Joe suggested, nodding towards a small
table in the shadows, near the back wall.  "It's quiet there now
that the band's cut out for the night.  Want to take a seat?  I'll be
around soon as I finish up a few things."

"Of course," Rachel agreed, glancing back towards the table in
the half-lit corner.  "I don't want to disturb you."

"Won't be any trouble," Joe assured her heartily.  "Want
something to take back there with you?"  His hand was poised at
the  ready on a draft tap.

"Um..."  Rachel's hands reached into an old leather waistpouch
and pulled out a small changepurse.  She glanced inside, checking.
"Do you serve meals here?" she asked, looking up at Joe hopefully.

"The kitchen's closing down, but we can still cook you up
something simple.  How about a hamburger?"

>From the look of relief and gratitude on Rachel's face, you'd have
thought he'd offered her eternal salvation on a silver platter.
"That would be wonderful," she said gratefully.  "Thank you so
much!  And maybe a beer?  Is there a house special?"

"Smooth and dark. You got it," Joe answered congenially, pulling
her a large mug of the rich house brew.  He should probably card
her, but he didn't bother.  She looked like she could use something
a lot stronger than beer.  Returning to the cash register, he rang
up the sale, knocking off as much of the price as he thought he
could without being obvious.  If money weren't a problem for the
kid, she wouldn't have needed to check first; Joe was riding a
hunch, a gut feeling that if he offered Rachel the meal for free,
she'd get all insulted.  "Comes to five ninety five with tax," he
said.  "Why don't you go on and take a seat?  Mike or someone
will bring the hamburger out to you."  Behind the counter, he
added a note to the kitchen order to add fries as well.

Rachel laid her money on the bar and pocketed the receipt Joe
gave her.  The Watcher's practiced eye automatically took note of
the girl's hand moving randomly on the sleek wood, fingers
opening and closing fitfully until Joe slid the heavy mug across the
bar and into her grasp.  Rachel thanked him with a quick smile
and picked up the mug with both hands; Joe saw that she didn't
slosh the beer any more than any other sober patron.  Scared,
nervous, but in control.  Barely, maybe, but holding on.  So far, so
good.  She was hanging in there.

As Joe watched, Rachel wove hastily through the scattered
customers and empty chairs to the small, isolated table by the
stage.  She pulled a chair to the far side of the table and sat down
facing the room, her back to the bare wall.

Behind the bar, Joe went on about the business of closing down
for the night.  Every so often he looked over towards Rachel,
always just a little surprised to see she was still in her corner.
The burger and fries that Mike had brought her from the kitchen
helped keep her there, no doubt.  She was managing not to inhale
her food, but she ate like it had been a while, and she barely left a
crumb on the plate.

"Hey, Mike," Joe called, "can you finish up the sidework?"  He
picked up a shot glass and a bottle of scotch.  "Got something
over here to attend to."

"Will do, boss," Mike answered, taking up the cleaning where Joe
had left off.

Joe carried his bottle and his glass in the same hand, strolling
casually across the emptying room, greeting familiar faces and
newcomers with equal warmth.  He was aware of Rachel's eyes,
guarded and wary, drifting up to him and looking away again.  Her
hands, he noticed, were still playing restlessly, aimlessly.  Her
fingers had shredded a napkin and were now tracing around and
around the rim of her beer glass, still half full.  She was leaning
back in the chair, maybe even looking relaxed to the casual
onlooker.  To Joe, long accustomed to observing and learning
from a distance, the underlying tautness and nervousness were
unmistakable.  Again,  not something he could blame her for.

He came up to her table and pulled out the chair opposite her,
dropping into it with unaffected ease, a man secure in himself, and
pretty damn secure in what it was the girl wanted to talk about.
Best to be friendly to start off with.  Try and put the kid at ease.

"Good to see you again, Rachel," he said, his voice cheerful and
relaxed.  He removed her empty plate to another nearby table.
"How's it going?"

"Hello, Mr. Dawson.  Nice to see you again too," she returned.
Polite smile, eye contact, the whole bit.  Except for the random,
restless fingers, and the eyes that kept dropping away from his,
Rachel was still on automatic pilot.  The words were coming out
like she was Talking Malibu Barbie.  OK, so much for putting her
at ease.  How about a reality check instead?

"It's Joe," he corrected, the grin widening.  "All my friends call me
Joe."  He lowered his voice and leaned across the table.  "Even
my Immortal friends," he added with a solemn wink.

Well, that got her.  Across the table, Rachel flinched slightly.  Her
eyes met his, and she knew she was caught.  Her face flushed,
but she didn't lower her gaze again.  Good for her.  Joe returned
her stare, blue eyes twinkling with good humour as he sipped the
smooth old scotch and waited for Rachel to make up her mind.
One way or the other.

It didn't take but a few moments.

"I need to talk to someone who won't think I'm crazy," she said,
and once she got started, the words rushed out of her, caged birds
set suddenly free.  "Someone who knows things that I need to
know, too.  Someone who hasn't already decided what it is I ought
to do.  I need to talk," she repeated.  Her eyes were doubtful and
she searched Joe's face, looking for    what, he wondered?
Honesty?  Support?  Someone to tell her what to do?  Better put
that last one to rest, quick.

"Now, that's one fight I got no dog in," he said easily, taking
another pull at his drink.  "You want someone to talk to, a
sounding board?  No problem with that.  But if you're lookin' for
someone to make up your mind for you   "

He stopped at the abrupt and emphatic shake of her head.  "No,"
Rachel insisted firmly    the first definite, unequivocal statement
she'd made so far.  "No, that's exactly what I *don't* want."  She
pressed her lips together for a moment, and then the words
started pouring out of her again.  "Everyone    Mr. MacLeod and
Richie    they think they know exactly what I need to do.
Everything they say to me, every word, they're trying to steer me
towards doing what *they* want me to do."

Joe nodded his understanding.  "Train with Mac," he supplied.

"Yes."  She snapped her fingers.  "Just like that.  Easy, simple,
nothing to discuss."  Rachel shook her head and leaned forward in
her chair, her hands folding tightly around the tall beer glass.  Her
eyes still held Joe's, but now  they were unmasked: snapping with
frustration and anger, in fact.  A definite improvement.

"On Monday, near home, I felt another    Immortal," she said to
him, her voice low and tight.  Her lips twisted around the word, as
though it had tasted nasty.  "Just for a little while, and then they
left.  I don't know who it was."  Her eyes still held his.  "I don't
know whether it could have been Richie or Mr. MacLeod."

"I doubt it was either one of them, if that's what you're asking
me," Joe answered decisively.  "Richie took you home that
morning, right?  So he knows where you live.  If one of them
went anywhere near there, they wouldn't have left you
wondering."

Rachel looked at him for a moment, uncertain, but finally nodded
assent.  "But if it wasn't them, that means someone else knows
about me now.  Nothing happened, I didn't even see who it was."
Her voice and her eyes both faltered for a moment.  "Maybe they
don't mean me any harm," she said hopefully.  "Maybe they
wouldn't hurt me any more than I'd hurt them."

"Maybe," Joe agreed, letting the word hang there in the air
between them.

Rachel's uncertain gaze dropped down to her beer glass again,
and she sat in silence.  Joe waited, giving her whatever time she
needed.  Finally, she looked back up again.

"I have a life," she said to him, her voice tight.  "Nothing so nice
as Mr. MacLeod's, I don't own a home or a  business or anything
at all, but I've worked hard to get as far as I have.  Nobody
helped me, I did everything on my own.  I don't want to just give
my whole world up because he says so."

"You don't have to 'give up' anything," Joe told her agreeably.
"Just make a few adjustments    or not.  It's your choice, Rachel.
It's your life."

Rachel looked at him in silence, skeptical and unconvinced.  With
professional curiosity, Joe wondered if it was him personally that
she doubted.  Maybe it was just her way with everyone.

"How much do you know about them?" Rachel finally asked,
watching him closely.  "A lot?"

"About Mac and Richie?  I've known them for a while now," Joe
hedged.

"Well, them too, but I meant about all of them," Rachel persisted,
and then made a small, unpleasant face.  "About *us*," she
relented, as though the words were nasty to say.

She would pick that topic to jump into.  Joe glanced around the
bar; it was deserted now, Mike was locking the doors and heading
to the back office.  Joe and Rachel were alone and free to talk.

"Mac and I have been friendly for a couple of years," he said.  "I
met Richie around the time he became an Immortal.  So I know
the basics as well as most outsiders can."  He crossed his arms
and leaned forward across the table towards her.  "If someone
else knows about you now, then yeah, you're probably in danger.
But you knew that already."  His tone was conversational, but his
words were straightforward.  Rachel's eyes went blank and
opaque, hiding whatever emotion Joe might have startled out of
her.  Anger?  Fear?  Hell, either one was better than self pity, if
Rachel wanted to stay alive.  And Joe figured that deep down, no
matter how confused she was, Rachel wanted do whatever she
had to do to survive.  Or else why would she be here at all?

"I've seen enough of their lives," he continued, "to know that
everything they told you the other night was the truth.  No
punches pulled, and nothing made to sound worse than it really is,
either.  They gave it to you straight.  And if you'll take my word
for it, Mac's a good teacher.  He did a good job with Richie, and
as long as Mac's been around, I'm sure he's got plenty of other
students under his belt, too.  It takes a lot of smarts and skill to get
to be as old as Mac is.  He'll do right by you, and you've got
nothing to fear from him.  Is that what you're looking for?" Joe
asked.  "Confirmation that Mac's one of the good guys?  That I
can give you.  No question."

"Not just that, exactly," Rachel answered.  "I wanted..."  Her
voice trailed off and she looked at Joe silently for a moment,
weighing what she could safely say.  "Aren't there any other
options?" she finally asked.  Begged, almost.  "I don't want to kill
anyone.  I don't even want to know how.  Does it really come
down to just two choices?  Train and learn to kill, or die?"

Joe leaned back in his chair and regarded the unhappy girl for a
moment in silence.

"That, or join a convent," he finally answered.  "That's as honest
as I can be with you.  You'd still have to give up that life you've
worked for, but you'd be as safe as possible.  And plainsong is
nice.  Hey, these days, it's even gotten real popular."

Rachel turned her head away, caught halfway between a
choked off laugh and a groan of dismay.

"Rachel, it's not up to anyone but you," Joe said.  "You know what
the choices are, and it's understandable that you'd want to talk it
over with someone."  He cracked a grin at her.  "Someone who
doesn't think you're crazy."

That finally got a wry half grin and a nod of agreement out of her.
Well, hell, 'bout time.  Joe slouched back in his chair and began
counting Rachel's choices off on his fingers.  "Y'know, what it all
comes down to is real simple.  You can do your best to ignore
what's happened to you, and live as normal a life as you can
manage, right up to the time you feel another Buzz.  It's a
perfectly legitimate choice, and you might live for years.  It's been
known to happen.  Or, you can take MacLeod up on his offer,
keep on doing what you're doing now, and add training to your
daily routine.  Training to kill, yeah, but training to stay alive is the
point.  Or, you can give up your life as a singer and figure out
some way to live on Holy Ground.  It's been done before."  He
spread his hands out before her, palms up.  "Real simple to lay
out.  Hard choice to make."

Rachel had listened to him intently, like a student trying to follow a
teacher's line of thought.  Now she set one elbow on the edge of
the table and rested her forehead in the palm of her hand, fingers
twisting and tugging at her bangs.

"It's not fair," she said finally, her words directed at the tabletop.
Her voice was beginning tremble, and an unpleasant, petulant
whine was creeping in.  "I didn't ask for this.  I didn't deserve this
to happen to me."

Joe planted his hands on the arms of his chair and took a deep
breath before saying anything.  OK, she was feeling sorry for
herself.  She was entitled.  Up to a point.

"Rachel, almost everyone's life gets screwed at some point.  It's
not just Immortals.  There are worse things that can happen,
y'know."  His voice was kind but firm, and he waited until Rachel
finally looked up and met his eyes before going on.  "Some people
lose their health, or their sanity, or their youth.  Sooner or later,
most every one of has our lives turned upside down.  Some people
have to give up everything that was important to them and start
over from scratch, and nobody ever 'deserves' it."  He refrained
from pointing out the obvious parallel of his own life.  If she didn't
get it by herself, spelling it out wouldn't make any difference.
"Whatever happens, Rachel, it's up to each one of us to make a
choice.  We can look for help or ask for advice, but in the end, it's
a choice we each have to make on our own.  Die    or live  - or
just exist.  You're the only one who can answer what that means
for you."

Joe drained his glass and got to his feet.  Rachel, he saw, was still
watching him, her face serious and her eyes solemn.  Not giving
anything away.

"Would you happen to know Mr. MacLeod's phone number?" she
finally asked, looking up at him, all cool composure.  "In case I
decide to call him."  Just like that.  No fuss, no drama, no big deal.

Not a bad little actress.

Joe repressed a smile.  He dug into his pocket and pulled out a
stub of a pencil.

"Got anything to write on?" he asked her.  Rachel fished the cash
register receipt out of her back pocket and pushed it across the
table towards him.  Joe leaned over the table and scrawled a
phone number on the back of the receipt, then pushed it back
across the table to Rachel and straightened up again, stretching.
"You know your options, Rachel" he said to her congenially,
picking up his bottle and both their glasses.  Damn, the girl had
even left a tip beside her glass: a dollar bill, and a handful of
change.  Good thing he hadn't underestimated her pride quotient.
"You know your options, and you know the consequences. You
know what the truth is.  What you do with it    that's up to you."

Expertly, Joe shifted the bottle and both glasses to one hand, and
with the other, he slid the dollar bill out from under the coins,
leaving the change beside the remains of Rachel's shredded
napkin.  "My treat, just in case you need to make a phone call," he
said amicably.  "For a cab, or whatever."

He grinned down at her until she finally gave him a half smile in
return.

"Thanks, Joe," she said.  "Thanks for everything.  I appreciate it."

"No prob," he answered.  "Glad to help out.  If you want to hang,
Mike and I are gonna be here a while yet."

"Thanks," she said again.  Joe nodded and turned.  He strolled to
the door to make sure Mike had locked it; then, whistling softly to
himself, he returned to the bar and began counting the evening's
take from the cash register.

In her shadowed corner, still undecided, Rachel fingered the spare
change Joe had left on the table.  She still couldn't even imagine
herself with a sword in her hand.  Not to fight someone with.  Not
for real.

Maybe she wouldn't have to.  Maybe, if she were very, very
careful, it wouldn't ever come to that.

But she had to know how to defend herself, at least.  If she
couldn't do that, she'd spend the rest of her Immortal life afraid, as
afraid and helpless as she'd been for the past two days.  Running
from Buzzes she felt in the street.  Frightened to go home.
Panicking in the middle of a performance.  How often could that
happen before the opera company started pulling her out of her
roles?  She couldn't live like that.  She wasn't brave enough to live
like that.

It was really ironic, when you thought about it.  Rachel's mouth
twisted up in a wry grimace at herself.  She'd never had stage
fright, never in her whole life, and now going out onstage made
her break out in a cold sweat.

She was still nervous about Mr. MacLeod and what he might do,
but Joe Dawson said he was trustworthy.  It made her feel a little
better, even though she didn't have any reason to trust Joe either.

Rachel closed her fist around the coins.  She wasn't giving in.
Not at all.  It was a compromise.

If she wanted to keep the only part of her life that still made
sense, she had to learn to accept the part that made no sense at
all.

Behind the bar, Joe heard Rachel's chair scrape briefly across the
old wooden floor.  He didn't look up, but his ears all but twitched,
following the quiet footsteps as they moved to the alcove in the
back corner, where the phone was.  A moment later, he heard the
rattle of coins falling down their slots, and Joe allowed himself a
small grin of satisfaction.


[End of Part 7]

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