The Corners of My Mind (12 of 13)
MRiley99@AOL.COM
Mon, 15 Oct 2001 10:53:04 EDT
The young Immortal grimaced, still in thrall to the mental images.
"No," he rasped, shaking his head, hands locked on the couch
cushions to either side of him in a white-knuckled grip.
"What does she know, Richie?" Vanya repeated, not giving him a
chance to gather his wits, determined to break through before the
wall fell back into place. "What does Tessa know!?"
"I can't," he cried, eyes pleading with hers for understanding.
"Yes, you can," she insisted, overriding her maternal instincts,
going for blood now.
His mouth opened and closed and a strangled sound came out.
"Say it!"
"It's. . .my. . .f-fault," he stammered, eyes impossibly blue in an
otherwise colorless face. "Oh, God, she knows. . .it's my fault. I
stood there and watched him shoot her. I could have stopped
him!"
"How, Richie? How could you have stopped a man with a gun?"
"I'm immortal, I could have..."
"No, Richie. You were an unarmed, frightened teenager on a dark
street at night against a man with a gun. You didn't know you
were an Immortal, and if you had--"
"No, I--"
"And if you had known," she continued, "if you had had time to
jump in front of her - then what?" She answered before Richie had
the chance. "Then he would have shot you first, and her second,
and it wouldn't have made any difference at all."
"You don't know that. I could've saved her."
She reached out to him only to have him jump away, leaping to his
feet to avoid her touch, overturning her vacated chair in his haste.
It slammed against the wall-mounted bookcase, sending several
tomes thudding to the floor.
"No! No, you don't understand!" He continued moving away,
oblivious to the debris, nearly tripping over it as he backed up
against the desk. "A hundred Richie Ryans aren't worth one Tessa
Noel! Even if I didn't know I was immortal, I should have stopped
him. Done. . .something." He threw his arms wide in a pose of
helplessness. "Something."
"You should have attacked him? Committed suicide on the chance
that this stranger might shoot, might just *possibly* kill her?
Don't you see, Richie?" she tried desperately. "If we're going to
play 'what ifs' then it could have been that very move that set him
off. How could you have known?" She rose from her seat on the
couch, moving slowly, trying to unobtrusively put herself between
him and the newly-remounted scimitar.
"I blew up at Mac the day he started my training, accused him of
feeling guilty over Tessa, like it was his fault. But we both knew it
wasn't true. We both knew who was really to blame," he said, as if
she hadn't spoken. "We both knew who should have died that
night."
Both Immortals started when a third, angry voice cut in. "What are
you talking about?"
In their agitation, neither had noticed the dark form standing in the
now-open doorway.
"Richie, you don't believe that," Duncan said forcefully, face a
thundercloud as he strode into the room, closing the distance
between himself and his student.
The redhead was disconcerted by the Scot's appearance for only a
moment, his anger deserting him in the face of Duncan's.
"C'mon, Mac, you know it's true," he said in defeat, the words
finally out in the open for all to hear.
"That I wished you had died in Tessa's place? No, Richie, I never
felt that way." He stood an arm's length away now, regarding the
young man with a mixture of concern and consternation. "Richie
look at me," he ordered, waiting until the smaller Immortal
complied before saying, "I never wished it had been you instead of
her. How could you even think that?" Righteous indignation vied
with the anger in his voice.
Richie held eye contact for a brief moment as his inner demons
struggled to surface again.
Vanya watched, a silent observer mentally urging him on, as
Richie fought a battle with himself. She felt bereft at his next
words.
"It doesn't matter," he droned, turning away, demons subdued for
the moment.
"It does matter!" Duncan raged.
He swung Richie back around by one arm. . .and Vanya saw a
glimmer of hope.
"It does matter," Duncan repeated, standing nearly nose to nose
with the younger Immortal now. "You think I would trade one life
for another? That I thought so little of you that I would have
wished you dead at nineteen, just to have Tessa with me?"
"No! Mac...you just don't get it!" The words were hurled at him
in frustration.
"Then explain it to me," the Scot persisted. "Tell me what I don't
understand."
"You want me to say it? All right! I blew it, okay! Big time! I
was supposed to protect her and I screwed up! It would have been
better if we'd both died that night!" he spat out, visibly shaking.
"Don't ever say that! Do you hear me, Richie?!" Duncan shouted,
grabbing the younger man by his upper arms. "I don't know what I
would have done after Tessa died if you hadn't been there."
"She wouldn't have died at all if I hadn't been there!"
"Oh, so *you* kidnapped her? *You* were the one she was being
used to get to? *You* left her and a mere boy on their own
afterwards, just so you could satisfy your curiosity?" He shook the
young Immortal with each point. "No, Richie, you weren't to
blame for any of it."
"Don't you get it, Mac? You wouldn't have left her alone if I hadn't
been there. You trusted me to take care of her, and I let her die!"
"You think you could have stopped it? Richie, even if you had
known you were immortal you can't know that for sure. What was
to stop him from shooting you to death, then turning on her? It
wouldn't have changed anything. Believe me. I've gone over it a
hundred times in my mind, and the results are always the same."
Duncan hung his head, closing his eyes a moment against the pain
of old memories. He looked up again and gave the shoulders in his
grip a firm squeeze. "Do you know how many people have been
killed right in front of me? You're an Immortal, Richie, that
doesn't mean you can save the world."
"I don't want to save the world," Richie cried, all the fight going
out of him in a single breath. "I just wanted to save Tessa."
Whatever else he might have said came out on a strangled moan as
his whole body convulsed, eyes closed tight against the emotional
flood that threatened to overwhelm him.
"Let it go, Rich," Duncan entreated, his voice gentle now, his
strong arms all that kept the younger man from falling away from
him. "She was worth crying for. Let it go."
A wail of pure anguish escaped Richie's lips as the dam burst,
startling in its intensity, blinding tears pouring from his eyes. He
expected Duncan to push him away in disgust, but the Highlander's
arms closed around him, drawing him up against a hard chest,
wrapping around his back and holding him safely within their
confines.
The Scot felt tears soaking the front of his shirt, some of those
tears his own. His were silent, Richie's seemed torn from him - the
slight form encircled in Duncan's arms shook with great wrenching
sobs that rose up from someplace deep within.
"I'm sorry, Tessa. I'm sorry."
The words were barely intelligible, but Duncan's mind echoed
them, the sentiment somehow enough for now. He closed his eyes
and rested his chin on the head of reddish-blond curls, holding
tight as sobs continued to wrack the smaller figure, lowering them
both to the carpeted floor when Richie's legs refused to hold him
any longer.
"Mac, I'm sorry --"
"No, Rich," Duncan interrupted, "I'm sorry. We loved her, and
she's gone. Your fault, my fault, nobody's fault. The guilt ends
here."
He continued to hold Richie in his arms as the young Immortal
wound down, closing his own eyes, seeing a brief, fleeting glimpse
of a smiling Tessa gazing approvingly down at them. "Thank you,
Love," he mouthed, before opening his eyes again to find Vanya
sitting on the floor a few feet away, legs drawn up underneath her,
face wet with tears of her own, lower lip trembling even as it
curved into a shaky smile.
She waited until Richie had gathered his wits and pulled away
from Duncan's embrace. Then both men turned to her with
red-rimmed eyes.
"Well done," she murmured, sniffling softly. "Well done."
It was several minutes before Richie was able to pull himself to his
feet and shuffle over to the couch. He looked like ten miles of bad
road, but he had passed a milestone. Now the healing could begin.
Duncan looked nearly as haggard, but with typical Scots'
stubbornness squared his shoulders and stoically took the seat next
to his subdued protege.
Vanya regarded them both fondly, cataloguing their similarities.
Warm-hearted, too stubborn for their own good, and loyal to a
fault. That last trait had brought them a lot of happiness, and a lot
of pain.
She left them only long enough to prepare two cups of coffee,
returning to find them still silent, looking rather like shell-shocked
survivors of war.
Within seconds, Richie had his face buried in his steaming cup of
black coffee, but Duncan did no more than thank her and set his
own cup on the table before him. He was brooding, she knew the
signs. Richie's demons were out in the open now, but Duncan
apparently had a few of his own to deal with.
Richie interrupted her musings, lowering his cup and glancing
uncertainly from one older Immortal to another, eyes coming to
rest at last on the Highlander. "I wish. . ." He trailed off, then
shook his head and sighed, setting his half-empty cup down on the
table. "I don't know what I wish."
Duncan threw him a small smile that said he understood the
feeling, and Vanya gave him what she hoped was sage advice.
"Richie, it may be a platitude, but it's true nonetheless; bad things
happen to good people, things that aren't even remotely fair or just.
Tessa lost her life at thirty-six, you lost your home and mortality at
nineteen. I lost my family, Duncan his clan, and Joe his legs. The
important thing is to grieve for what you've lost, and then go
on. I have a feeling your Tessa wouldn't have wanted you to suffer
what you have for her."
"No, she wouldn't have," Duncan said, breaking his silence. "She
would have known something was wrong right from the start and
she would have sat him down and made him talk about what was
bothering him, instead of letting it fester." He gave the young
Immortal beside him an inscrutable look. "I didn't even see it."
"In all fairness, Duncan, there may not have been anything *to*
see. We know now that Richie suppressed his feelings, a bit too
well as it turns out."
"But Richie's never been very good at lying to me," the Scot
argued, more with himself than her, noting the flush that rose on
the young Immortal's face at this. "I should have seen it."
"Richie was lying to himself, not you. And, Duncan, remember:
you were having an emotional crisis of your own. You needed
someone to lean on, someone who understood your pain."
"You're saying I used him to get through it." Duncan's shame at
the possibility was there for all to see.
"No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying Richie offered his
friendship, his strength, at a time when you needed it, and you
accepted. That doesn't make you selfish, it makes you human."
"Tessa wouldn't want you to suffer either, Mac," Richie cut in.
"What happened to her. . .what happened to us," he corrected
himself, "wasn't your fault." He gave the pair a sheepish half-grin.
"I, um, I guess maybe it wasn't mine, either." The words didn't
come easily.
Vanya smiled approvingly at what she perceived as another
breakthrough. Duncan was more demonstrative, reaching over and
giving Richie's right shoulder a firm squeeze. He didn't release the
hold until the young man smiled back at him, a little life returning
to his features at the familiar gesture.
"Now what?" Richie asked, turning to face Vanya once more. "I
take it 'sayonara, see ya later' is out?"
Vanya had to laugh at his attempt at levity. "A little premature, I
think. Now," she said, pausing for effect, "we take things one day
at a time. I'd like to continue to see you for a while. Just once a
week," she added when she saw him gearing up to protest.
"You've come a long way, Richie," she admitted, leaning forward
to take one of his hands in both of hers, "and I truly hope we've
seen the last of your night wanderings; but, if we haven't, we need
to deal with that. All of us."
Richie grinned, a little of his old self shining through. "Gotcha."
"And, Richie, keeping things bottled up inside you is never the
answer. You need to talk to. . .*someone*." Her eyes shifted to
Duncan at this; an unspoken message passed between them. "For
now, go home, we'll work out the details later."
"Sounds like a plan," he agreed, getting to his feet, Duncan rising
to stand beside him. The Scot moved toward the door and Richie
went to follow, then stopped, turning back to engulf Korsikov in a
hug. "Thanks," he murmured, tightening his hold fractionally
before releasing her.
She smiled warmly at him, one hand coming up to cup his right
cheek, thumb brushing against it. "Be well," she breathed, placing
a light kiss on his other cheek. She watched them both out of
sight, then dropped down on the empty couch, kicked off her shoes
and put her feet up on the coffee table with a sigh of pleasure,
finally decompressing, a silly smile plastered to her face.