DISCLAIMER: Highlander and its canon characters are the property of Davis/Panzer Productions; no copyright infringement is intended.
Note: This short story is a companion piece to "Awakening." It's not a sequel, but "Awakening" should definitely be read first. Also, it's part of my main fanfic universe, and includes relationships established in "Absolutely Not."
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Paris.
Joe Dawson stood very still, counting the strokes of the clock.
He didn't normally keep an old-fashioned striking clock behind the bar. But on this night, even knowing a countdown would be blaring from the half-dozen TVs, he'd wanted a clock. His clock, one he knew was set correctly.
Seconds could be significant, with the fate of the world at stake.
Methos hovered near him. For once the old guy was also behind the bar - he'd volunteered to help tend it tonight. But now it was obvious that he too had shut out everything else and was concentrating on that clock.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Joe took a deep breath and sagged against the bar. He scarcely heard the cheers that erupted from the scores of patrons, the mostly-drunken shouts of "Happy New Year!"
It was over. The old millennium had ended - finally, truly ended, with the arrival of the year 2001.
He glanced at Methos, who managed a wan smile.
Gotta check on Mac.
His hand moved toward the cell phone in his pocket. But Methos saw the movement and shook his head.
"Don't call him, Joe."
Someone bleated, "Should auld acquaintance be forgot," and the mostly American and British crowd joined in.
"It's over now, Methos -"
"And you're worried about him. So am I. But he insisted he wanted to be left alone tonight, all night. We have to respect that." As the song swelled to a roar, the Immortal leaned close and whispered in Joe's ear, "He is a big boy. Over four hundred years old."
Joe was about to argue, but the revelers chose that instant to storm the bar.
"Hey, all right!" Methos yelled above the din. "Hold your horses, the drinks are coming!"
Laughing, Joe yielded to the demands of the moment. He shouted, "And for everyone who's not already falling-down drunk..." The crowd fell silent. Joe kept them waiting for a long beat. Then he concluded with a flourish, "Drinks are on the house!"
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A half hour later Joe was still pouring, though he hadn't been able to put the Highlander out of his mind even briefly.
He watched Methos, thankful that he was accounted for and getting through the night reasonably well. Methos was Duncan MacLeod's father...and the grandfather of young Richie Ryan, whom Mac had been tricked into killing during his nightmarish struggle with the demon Ahriman. Mac was still devastated by the memory of that mistake. But he could, if he chose, talk about his grief with either Joe or Methos. Methos carried the added burden of keeping the family relationship secret from Mac.
Mac knew Richie had been born in Seacouver, knew the date. If he learned Immortals could father children, he'd remember his split from a girlfriend there some months before. Joe suspected they'd broken up because Mac had refused to believe the woman was carrying his child. Even if he hadn't known she was pregnant, he'd investigate now. And realize he'd killed his own son.
Joe's hand moved toward his cell phone again, almost of its own volition.
He pulled it away.
Methos is right. I mustn't call Mac.
But God, how I wish he'd call me...
The phone behind the bar rang.
Mac?
No, he'd call my cell phone.
But what if he was too drunk to remember the number? The number for the bar is the only one in the book.
Joe got the phone on the third ring. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Methos half-turned toward it. Listening, doubtless hoping the same thing he was.
Speaking loudly enough to be heard over the crowd noise, Joe said, "Le Blues Bar, Dawson."
He heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.
After a moment's pause a man's voice, tight and tense, said urgently, "Joe. Listen to me, and whatever you do, don't hang up. Do not hang up on me."
As a Watcher, Joe was accustomed to strange calls. But this voice seemed almost familiar...and yet, somehow, disguised.
He said what anyone would have. "Who is this?"
The voice faltered. "Th-that doesn't matter." It continued more gruffly: "What matters is that something has happened to Duncan MacLeod. He needs help. Can you get Meth - an Immortal who's a doctor over to MacLeod's barge? You have to get some expert here, quickly!"
Joe swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly gone dry.
Duncan MacLeod doesn't "need help," his inner voice told him with a sick certainty. No friend was there when he needed help.
Duncan MacLeod is dead.
We never should have left him alone! He was depressed - he may actually have let this bastard kill him.
And the guy knows about Methos, even knows he's qualified as a doctor. He must have learned about him from Mac's Quickening. This is a ruse to get Methos over to the barge so he can catch him off guard and kill him, too.
His heart was pounding. But he remembered Methos was listening, and said coldly, "Sorry. That doesn't concern me."
"Wait! Don't hang up!" The voice sounded more familiar than ever.
"Who are you?"
Someone who called me "Joe," not "Dawson"...
"All right, I'll tell you." Resigned now, no attempt at disguise. "But you'll find it hard to believe. For God's sake, don't hang up - or even if you do, send Methos over here!
"Joe, this is...Richie Ryan."
Still thinking of Methos, Joe managed to stifle his strangled gasp.
That's Richie's voice. I knew it from the start, I just couldn't admit it.
But it can't be Richie. I saw his severed head. I even laid it in the coffin!
There were reports he'd been seen alive...
Yeah, but I had them investigated, and they couldn't be confirmed. The more I thought about them, the crazier they seemed.
"Please believe me, Joe," the caller was pleading. "It's really me. I know you thought I was dead, but I'm not.
"Mac needs help. He's unconscious and I can't revive him. And there were special circumstances, this isn't natural..."
"Cut the crap," Joe said icily. "I'm sure you aren't anyone I've ever met."
So why can't I bring myself to hang up on him?
"Wait! Don't hang up!"
After what seemed like a full minute of frustrated silence on both ends of the line, the caller took an audibly deep breath. Then he said quietly, "Do you remember the first time you and Richie Ryan spoke, Joe? I do. I'll never forget..."
Joe's mind was already racing back to another night, on the other side of the world...when he'd felt a degree of uneasiness that was, in those innocent days, alarming.
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Seacouver.
Joe stood at his window, gazing out into a seemingly tranquil autumn night.
It was high time he got undressed, shed the prosthetic legs that were starting to chafe, and went to bed. But he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
Hell, of course something's wrong! I went against everything I was taught, told Duncan MacLeod about the Watchers. Maybe I had to, maybe not. Either way, it changes everything.
I've been trying to work with MacLeod these last few weeks, even gave him my frigging phone number. While all the while I've been lying to him about Horton...
And now I wonder why I can't sleep?
I'd better get used to feeling this way, or I'll never sleep.
He turned away from the window with a grunt and headed for his bedroom.
That was when the phone rang.
He surprised himself with the speed with which he got to it.
"Dawson!" he snapped.
"Mr. Dawson - Joe Dawson?" The voice was young and scared. Not, as he'd expected, one of the local Watchers.
"Yes, that's right."
The caller took a shaky breath. "Listen to me, Mr. Dawson. We've never met, but you probably know my name. Richie Ryan? I work for Duncan MacLeod."
"Yes, yes." Joe found himself nodding, as if the caller could see him. "I know who you are. What is it?" Richie Ryan was the last person from whom he would have expected a late-night call.
"Mac is in trouble," the youth said abruptly. "Bad trouble. And your damned Watchers are mostly to blame, so you gotta help him!"
"Calm down," Joe replied, thinking even as he said it that he'd be hard pressed to heed his own advice. "What's wrong?"
"Tessa is d-dead." Richie steadied his voice with an effort. "She was kidnapped by a guy who had some connection with the Watchers. He knew what Mac is, just wanted to use Tessa to get to him."
"Oh, shit," Joe murmured.
Probably not one of Horton's men, but inspired by him.
"Mac killed the guy and rescued Tessa." The voice was tight, strained. But the youth was forcing himself to speak quickly, not pausing to dwell on painful details. "Then he sent Tessa and me out to the car - I'd come along meaning to help - while he checked out the dead guy's computer. But while we were standing near the car, a mugger came up to us and shot Tessa! He freaked out and killed her because she didn't have a purse or money with her."
Joe, who'd been standing, collapsed into a chair. But he made himself say, "Go on."
"Mac is...kinda out of it. In shock. I found your phone number on a slip of paper in his pocket. He's started carrying a cell phone, too - good thing. He just bought it so he could always keep in touch with Tessa."
Richie himself seemed more and more in control as he continued. "We're outside the dead guy's house." He gave the address - which elicited a moan from Joe, who recognized it. "Classy residential neighborhood, late at night, no one stirring. If anyone heard shots they took them for backfires. Tessa's lying dead in the road. Mac's car is here, ditto my motorcycle. And there's this dead guy in the nearest house - mortal, but Mac killed him by running him through with his sword."
"I get the picture," Joe whispered.
"All right. What we'll have to do is leave the car and Tessa's body here. I'll take Mac with me on my bike."
"He won't agree -"
"He will. I said, I'll take him! It can be made to look like Tessa was driving through the neighborhood. Someone, somehow, forced her to pull over. They took her purse and killed her.
"But the cops are sure to check that nearby house. So you Watchers have to get the body out of there and clean it up. Now!"
Joe sat up straight. "Right. I'll take care of it. And, Richie -"
Damn it, this kid's being forced to grow up the hard way.
"Richie...I'm sorry."
"Yeah."
Joe wasn't surprised by the undertone of hostility in the voice.
He was surprised by what Richie said next.
"Hey, Dawson. You're sure to find this out, so I may as well tell you myself.
"I just became Immortal."
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Paris.
The man who aided the Immortals that night in 1993 wouldn't have believed that in the first minutes of 2001 he'd be standing behind his own bar in Paris, listening as a supposedly long-dead Richie Ryan recounted the tale.
The caller rushed through it, but he had all the facts.
"And you know I couldn't have learned that from Duncan MacLeod's Quickening," he concluded, "because -"
"Because he never knew," Joe said softly.
MacLeod had been so deep in shock that he'd blanked out the first few hours after Tessa's death, never remembered what happened. They'd let him believe he'd had the presence of mind to call Joe.
If Mac had learned that from Richie's Quickening, he would have mentioned it to me. And if it was buried so deep in Richie's memories that Mac never picked it up, there's no way an enemy could have picked it up at yet another remove.
"This really is...you." Joe was fighting back tears. But with Methos listening, he couldn't just blurt out the name.
"Yes." Richie heaved a sigh of relief. "Joe - do you know where Methos is?"
"Yeah, that's the easy part. Right here! But where have you been? And what's wrong, uh, where you are now? What happened?"
"Joe, there's no time to go into that." The young man's voice cracked. "Please get over here! You and Methos!"
How serious is this? Is Mac dying?
Can we dare to hope for a happy beginning to this millennium? Or is Ahriman still out there somewhere, laughing at us?
"Hold the fort," Joe said grimly. "We're on our way."
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The End