Title: Awakening Author: Kay Kelly Rating: PG Summary: At the turn of the millennium, Duncan MacLeod is grieving for Richie...and convinced that his own end is, and should be, near. A mysterious foe is eager to make his death wish come true. DISCLAIMER: Highlander and its canon characters are the property of Davis/Panzer Productions: no copyright infringement is intended. Note: This story has been on at least three websites for several years, but it was never submitted to HLFIC-L. I'm submitting it now because I intend to follow it immediately with two shorter, newly written companion stories. As my contribution to saving this list, I'll be posting them here at least a day before they appear anywhere else. This story should be read before the two new ones. **************************************** *The waiting seems eternity, The day will dawn on sanity... This is a kind of magic. There can be only One. This race that lasts a thousand years Will soon be done...* "A Kind of Magic," Queen I Awkward. Achingly young. The words still echoed in Duncan MacLeod's mind, Richie's words, spoken an hour after the teenager took his first head. *"I just never figured it like this. I was gonna have friends, get a job, meet a girl. It's all backwards now."* //The words, yes, but no image of his face when he said them//, MacLeod thought savagely as he whipped his car around the final bend. //Because I was looking away. Shutting him out, even then.// A sharp skid on a patch of ice reminded him that the cemetery road was not as well maintained as the Paris streets. He corrected for the skid, and slowed the Range Rover to a sedate crawl. At least there were no revelers here, no drunks to watch out for. But he had not completely escaped the citywide block party that was Paris. He could still hear the tooting horns, the shrieks of laughter, the inane music of deliberately triggered, warring car alarms. Not like a year ago. On the last day of 1999 the city had been eerily still, holding its collective breath. But Year 2000 had been a well-behaved babe--not bringing with it the Second Coming, the outbreak of war, or even a crash of the world's computer systems. The prophets of doom had been discredited, and had, in the end, joined in the good-natured laughter at their expense. That laughter had cleared the air. That, and the fact that the one realistic danger, a computer breakdown, was undeniably over and done with. When the public finally caught on that the new millennium would only begin with 2001--because there had never been a Year Zero--they hailed its approach with glee. A glee that would have been misplaced, MacLeod knew, if he had not defeated the demon Ahriman. But at what cost, at what unbearable cost? He drove through the old part of the cemetery, with its forest of densely clustered headstones. Never glanced to his right, though he knew exactly when he passed Tessa's grave...the grave that would one day be opened, if the Watchers honored Joe Dawson's pledge, to receive his ashes. He seldom stopped there now. The new section had seen fewer burials, and headstones were more widely spaced. At any other time of year, the landscaping would be attractive. Thanks to advance planning, the roadside was even dotted with trees. But the dead here were just as dead. MacLeod was able to drive to within a few yards of his destination. He noted thankfully that the sounds of merrymaking had finally died away. As he stepped out of the heated car, without donning his jacket, he forced himself not to shiver. //No Immortal has ever died of a chill, I told him.// Then he thought of his sword lying on the seat, and locked the door...though he wouldn't be far enough from it for even a mortal thief to approach undetected. Old habits die hard. Like old Immortals. He walked the short distance to Richie's grave and dropped to his knees, briefly regretting that there was only a dusting of snow on the ground. //Why do I want to do penance by kneeling in a snowbank, when no penance can be enough?// This headstone, he knew, had occasioned talk because of the simplicity of its legend: *Richie Ryan 22 Years Friend* But Joe had made the right choice. Professional motorcycle racer Richie Ryan had been "dead" in France for two and a half years before his actual death. Rather than bury him under the alias on his forged passport, Joe had pretended this was a reinterment. Then he'd had to decide whether to put a false year of death on the stone, or none. He had felt this was no place for a lie. And the odd inscription captured the terrible uniqueness of Richie's death. Still, despite the appropriateness of the stone, MacLeod felt no sense of the young Immortal's presence. No contact. Not here, and not with the Quickening he had taken into himself. Not any more. *"Don't tell me you really believed me, Mac, when I said I was sure I wouldn't have made it to age twenty if I hadn't met you? Huh. I was a better liar than I thought. I was just trying to make you feel good. You felt bad enough about Tessa. ³Truth time, old buddy. I became Immortal way too soon because I got mixed up with you. The youth I should have had? Down the tubes. "If I'd been a really bad kid, you think you could have straightened me out so quickly? No way. "I would have gotten through sowing my wild oats on my own. Had a racing career, without taking dumb risks. And I would have married Donna, raised Jeremy as my son. Donna wasn't lying about Jeremy, you know--she really believed I was his dad. "I probably would have become Immortal in my fifties or sixties. Then, okay, I wouldn't have lasted long. So what? I would have had the things I always wanted, maybe even grandchildren. Never expected more. "Hey, the life I would have had may not seem like much to you. But it sure beats being robbed of your youth, then killed by your best friend at twenty-two."* In nightmare after fevered nightmare, throughout MacLeod's long agony in Malaysia, Richie had hurled those bitter words at him. Those...and others. And not only in nightmares. For a part of Richie was within him. Had he not been influenced by other entities during the Dark Quickening? Counseled and comforted by Sean Burns? Contact was rare, and in most cases, rightly so--no threat to identity. Nevertheless, every Immortal whose Quickening he had tasted, directly or indirectly, was as truly present in him as Christ in the Eucharist. But the soul of Duncan MacLeod was no tabernacle. And the shade of Richie Ryan had been in no mood to give aid and comfort. He wondered, now, whether Richie had been right about his destiny. His view was at odds with the vision MacLeod had been granted by Hugh Fitzcairn. In that MacLeod-less reality, Richie had, in Fitz's words, "lived and died a thief." He'd become Immortal at twenty, shot by a man whose house he'd broken into. And he'd been killed a few months later by his teacher, a career- criminal Methos, when he'd drawn the line at committing murder. But over the years, MacLeod had come to doubt that vision. It still warmed him to know that Fitz--also present in him, since he had killed Fitz's killer--had gone to such lengths to convince him his life had value. Now, however, he suspected the alternate reality had been a product of Fitz's imagination. He had tried to check it out. Neither he nor a team of investigators could find any evidence of the real existence of an "Andres Seguy" who might, under other circumstances, have married Tessa. Or a "Jillian" who might have met Methos, and become his lover, if he had not left Paris for two months in the spring of 1995. They'd considered two dozen possible countries of origin for the Spanish-named Seguy, and a half-dozen variants of the name Jillian. Even if the vision was real, MacLeod thought sourly, it was a highly selective look at the impact of his life. If he hadn't existed, Debra Campbell probably would have given her heart to Robert MacLeod and found happiness with him. Robert might well have become clan chieftain. Louise Barton would have escaped being murdered in her twenties by the jealous Immortal Kristin, and gone on to greater fame as an artist. Diane Terrin would have won major journalism awards for her World War II reporting, and lived to marry a man who could give her the children and grandchildren she dreamed of. Most significantly, the vision had made no mention of Ahriman. Implying that if Duncan MacLeod had never existed, some other Immortal would have been called upon to save the world, and succeeded as well as he. Maybe that Immortal could have done it without killing one of his closest friends. Friends. Just that morning, in separate phone calls (during which MacLeod had insisted they leave him alone that day and night), both Joe and Methos had tried to gloss over his responsibility for Richie's death. Joe said earnestly, "He would have been dead before May '97, Mac, if you hadn't saved his life. Twice, in the space of a few months! Jennifer Hill had shot him and was about to take his head, remember? And William Culbraith had caught him unarmed. He was a goner, both times, if you hadn't shown up. "Maybe a third time, too. Haresh Clay probably would have killed him, if you hadn't convinced him you were entitled to first crack at Clay because of an old grudge." Methos offered an Immortal's perspective. "I can't deny twenty-two is too young. But aside from that... Think, MacLeod. How would any Immortal choose to die, if he knew he must? He wouldn't want to be the loser in a fight. He'd rather be decapitated accidentally, while doing something noble, and have a friend there to receive his Quickening. "Richie was one of the lucky few. He got to go that way. His standing by you in that crisis was heroic. And Ahriman wanted him dead, but you sure as hell didn't. In my book, that's an accident." It all made sense. And was all completely irrelevant. As was the question of what would have happened if Richie had never known Duncan MacLeod. He *had* known him...with fatal consequences. *"I figured it all out, you know? Right at the end. "I should have seen it coming. Hell, it was the third time you'd tried to kill me! First, when Garrick was messing with your mind. Then the Dark Quickening thing. And finally, Ahriman. "Sure, you always had an excuse. But why was it, whenever you were off your feed, you came after me? Take the Dark Quickening. You never attacked Joe or Methos. And how come I was the first student you'd taken on in almost two hundred years? "Do you even understand it yourself, dummy? You always wanted to kill me! You couldn't be that close to a vulnerable young Immortal without lusting for his Quickening. Someone you'd taught, someone you and maybe only you could take out easily. Someone your damned honor would never allow you to kill, even in a fair fight. "Drove you nuts, didn't it?"* MacLeod squeezed his eyelids shut. Trying, not to dispel the memory of those horrific visitations in the months after Richie's death, but to summon it back. Richie clutching him, shaking him. Hot breath, spittle striking his face... Gone. He moaned. //Were you right about me, Richie? I'm not sure of anything any more. Right or wrong, could I feel your presence again if I admitted it?// No, it was too late to bargain with Richie. He had brought this crushing isolation on himself. For the taking of his friend's head was not his worst sin. Shattered by that tragedy, he had longed for death. But duty had driven him to fight on--to survive at all costs, resume the battle against Ahriman. To survive, he had denied the truth. On his return to Paris, he had insisted Ahriman had murdered Richie, and he had merely been the weapon. He'd made himself believe that. But in fact, however he'd been tricked and tormented--however impaired he'd been-- he had not been possessed. His lapse of judgment had killed Richie. To achieve his self-deception, he had forced the embittered revenant of Richie out of his mind. Convinced himself Richie "understood" the incomprehensible, forgave the unforgivable. He knew better now. He had faced the truth years ago. But Richie was gone, beyond his reach. He'd pay any price for a renewal of contact...for anything, even an eternity of Richie's spewing invective at him. But he had shut Richie out, and he knew his punishment was just. The door he had closed would never open again. He sighed and heaved himself to his feet, stiff from the cold and long kneeling. The waning light told him it was past four o'clock; he'd been brooding over an hour. He crossed himself--another old habit--and trudged back toward the car. In the gutter, where someone else had been parked, he saw a dirty, battered styrofoam cup. //That's me, a used styrofoam cup. Someone--God?-- drained me dry, then crushed me and threw me away. Now I'm empty, damaged, worn out. But I'm not recyclable, so I just have to go on existing.// On a sudden impulse, he rescued the poor little cup and smoothed it out as best he could. The nearest tree was an oak, with leaves loyally clinging to it in midwinter. He plucked a few from a low-hanging branch...deep golden brown, with a burnished, metallic sheen. Beautiful, like so many of nature's wonders that are heedlessly overlooked. He arranged the leaves in the cup, and added a sprig of evergreen. Loyalty, the lustre of sword or armor, ever- renewed life. Then he walked back and laid his makeshift bouquet on Richie's grave. //It's not a spray of chrysanthemums, Richie. But I don't see you relating to flowers, anyway.// He found himself adding a serious postscript. //If I can somehow make amends...if I can fill the empty cup that is Duncan MacLeod by dedicating it to your memory, my friend, I will.// He headed for the car. But then, unwisely, he turned to look back. Just as a gust of wind came out of nowhere and swept his humble offering away.