Disclaimers: Connor MacLeod, Duncan MacLeod and Rachel Ellenstein, as well as the Highlander situations and universe belong to Davis/Panzer Productions. I am using their creations without permission. If it makes any difference, I get no money for this.
Thanks: Primary credit must go to Chris, who suggested, on the Connorlist, the idea of a story where Russell Nash's father shows up in Connor's life. I liked the idea and ran with it. This story was first published on the Connorlist ) under the name, "Connor's Dad." Thank you to the owners and members of the Connorlist, particularly the "balcony crowd:" MacNair, Lahoffy, Lynnann, Rennie, Sharz, Vi Moreau, Laura, Tracy Doll, and Bridget. (I hope I didn't forget anyone) You guys are the greatest! Thanks loads to Desert Rat, for putting up with my constantly asking her "What should happen now?" and for her excellent answers.
Setting: This story is set in 1980. I'll share with you the reminders I had to give myself, all the time. No cell phones, no CDs, no World Wide Web. No widespread use of VCRs, personal computers, or answering machines. WWII ended only 35 years ago, and, come summer, everyone will be wondering who shot JR.
Hostages to Fortune
by
Teresa C
"We give hostages to fortune when we love."
-- adapted from Francis Bacon
New York City, 1980
The bells on the door tinkled as a customer entered the store, and Rachel looked up from the display case where she was arranging Chinese daggers by dynasty. A middle-aged man entered, wrapped against the bitter New York City winter in a forlorn and hopelessly outdated coat. Rachel started to rise to greet him, but Connor happened to come in from the back, just then.
"May I help you?" Connor asked, in the way he had of sounding like he resented the intrusion into his territory. The store, Rachel knew, did not stay afloat on the strength of the Highlander's customer service.
The man moved forward, his gaze fastened on Connor's face. His fixation made Rachel uneasy, but she saw none of the signals from her father that told her this was an immortal.
The newcomer stopped a few feet before Connor, and removed his hat and scarf. His steel-grey hair stuck to his head, making his ears, bright red from the cold, stick out.
"Are you ... Russell Edwin Nash?" he asked in a tone which seemed to attach great importance to the question.
Rachel rose to her feet.
"Yes," Connor allowed, frowning.
The man cast a quick glance at Rachel, but if he thought she was going to move discreetly away, he was disappointed. He looked back to the store's owner. "I'm ... your father."
The scene would likely be preserved in Rachel's memory for a long time. The gray, storm-tinted daylight gave the whole store a black-and-white movie feel, and the two men, one stooped and anxious, the other straight and immobile, also had an unreal, cinema appearance.
Connor responded, neutrally. "My father," he said.
The man fidgeted with his hat and scarf. "You know. Your real father." The man looked down. "I didn't know ..." his voice choked.
Connor moved his gaze past the man to look for help from Rachel.
Rachel sprang into action, moving to the man's side. "Sir, please come and sit down. Let me take your things. You must be freezing; it's terrible weather today." She babbled on, insulating the two men with feminine pleasantry.
With the man seated at an Edwardian table, Rachel looked up into Connor's inscrutable expression. He hadn't yet decided how he was going to deal with this, she judged. "Why don't you get some coffee?" she suggested.
As if grateful to have something to do, Connor vanished into the small break room.
Rachel studied the man in the chair. He had declined to relinquish his coat, so he looked like a bundled, lost child. His gaze followed the Highlander out of the room, then he looked at Rachel, apprehensively. She smiled.
"I'm Rachel," she said.
"Emmett Nash," he responded with a wan smile.
Rachel suffered much with the strained silence which held sway until Connor returned with coffee. He set the steaming mug on the table, before the other man.
"I'm not wrong, am I?" begged Nash with pathetic earnestness. "You were adopted, weren't you?"
"You're not wrong," Connor answered with a warm smile, as he sat opposite the man. "I'm glad to meet you."
The door tinkled, and Mr. and Mrs. Lansing-Holmes blew in with the wind. Connor looked from them to Rachel, releasing her. Now he's decided, Rachel thought, and she went to tend to the customers.
II
Connor returned after dark, alone, from the bar where he had taken Nash. Rachel met him at the door and squeezed his hand.
"What happened?" she inquired.
Connor smiled mischievously as he stamped slush from his shoes.
"I've met my real father," he grinned. "He needs a place to stay, so I'm moving him in here." He moved past her to the coat rack to hang up his trenchcoat.
Appalled, Rachel looked after him. Then she turned the many locks on the door, flipped the "Open" sign to "Closed," and strode after him.
"What are you doing?" she demanded. "You don't know this man."
Connor sat on a reading couch, one arm draped over the arm, the other on the back, unconcerned. "It could be very useful to be able to produce a relative. I know one or two business contacts who would warm up to me if they met my dear old 'dad'. And some women, too. They get tired of my mysterious background act." Connor arched his eyebrows.
"But who is he? How do you know he doesn't just want money?"
"He has no legal claim on any money," Connor replied, stretching out his long legs. "He'd have to depend on sentiment." He grinned evilly. "I'm not likely to be weak in that department, am I?"
Rachel allowed a small smile, but sat next to him, frowning. "What's his story? Russell Nash's birth certificate didn't list a father." Rachel knew it well, for she had researched her father's current alias for him.
Connor nodded. "Karen Kelsey didn't give her son her own last name. She named him Nash. Emmett Nash and she were lovers before he was sent to the Battle of the Bulge. He probably really is Russell Nash's father."
Oh, how tragic. It sometimes still surprised Rachel that the war which had been the devastation of her childhood world had also been so far-reaching that it had brought grief and darkness even to this prosperous continent beyond the Atlantic.
"How did he not know? Did he hear his son had died?"
"No, get this." Connor seemed amused by the ironies of fate. "He's been in a coma in a VA hospital."
"What! For forty years?!"
Connor nodded. "Thirty-five. He's only now looking for what remains of his old life."
"Dad," Rachel rarely dared use the title, "that poor man. You're using him."
"Would you have me tell him his son died before he was a day old and I've been using his son's identity? He has no family left. I'll take good care of him."
"It just seems wrong."
"Rachel," Connor patted her hand, "you're a good girl."
III
Three weeks made a tremendous difference in the season. Spring was springing, despite the cold, as Rachel left her house and turned up 26th Street. She looked forward to the possibility of days without knife-sharp winds. She also found, more and more, that she looked forward to dates with Michael, a classmate.
Easily a decade her junior, Michael was the only other "non-traditional" student in her Holocaust Studies class at NYU. He seemed genuinely attracted to her, which was reassuring in a way she thought she'd outgrown. Rachel had always been loathe to form close ties with someone who would ultimately have to be trusted with Connor's secret; someone who would have to understand. The rewards – a normal life with a man who loved her; children, even – never seemed worth the risks. Rachel was content with her choices, and Connor rarely spoke of it, now.
She had seen Connor at more revues, gallery openings and fundraisers than she could ever remember him attending in three weeks time, and all for the fun of bringing along his long-lost father. Emmett Nash was a little shy of these events, but couldn't resist when Connor said he wanted to "show him off."
The elder Nash had moved his single suitcase of belongings into Connor's guest room. The arrangement seemed to be indefinite, as far as Rachel could make out. Rachel began to see how difficult it would be to tell Nash any version of the truth other than that he had found a son he'd never known. The man was pathetically sentimental over Connor.
She smiled to herself as she trotted briskly along the crowded, anonymous streets and remembered last week. Emmett had been helping out in the store, when they had all paused for a lunch of Chinese take-out.
"Russell," Emmett began, "I want you to have something."
Connor raised his eyebrows in question, his mouth full of chopsticks and suey.
Emmett put down his fork – the chopsticks which Rachel and "Russell" were so comfortable with were beyond his abilities – and reached into his pants pocket. He brought out an old wind-up watch, and handed it gently to Connor.
Connor paused for the merest second, then put down his chopsticks and accepted the watch. Rachel could see from where she sat that the watch was no antique; merely old.
"Your mother gave me that watch before I went into the Army," Emmett breathed. "It has our initials on the back."
Connor still held the watch in an outstretched arm; he hadn't taken it to himself. He turned it over. On the back of the face someone had scratched a heart. Inside the heart it said "To E.N. love K.K."
"I can't take this," Connor responded. "You should keep it. She loved you."
Emmett affected an air of worldly-wise self-sacrifice. "She didn't live for me to come back to. But she was your mother. You should have something which came from her. This comes from both your parents." To Rachel's dismay, Emmett's eyes filled with tears.
"Emmett," Connor replied, with a gentleness she had only heard him use on children, "Some other time. You keep it for me, now."
"No, it's yours." Emmett stood proudly, and with two steps reached the desk. He opened a drawer and put the watch in it.
Arms crossed, he sat back down.
Connor applied himself to his chop suey. "All right then," he muttered.
With a block to go before she reached the store, Rachel allowed herself the grin she hadn't allowed then.
Rachel carefully revisited some old, old memories of her own. Before Connor MacLeod had found and adopted her, she'd had a family. Her mother, particularly, she remembered. How would she feel if she found someone who said they were her brother or her mother? The thought strummed an old melancholy note in her soul. No, Connor couldn't tell him. He couldn't. And the Game mustn't touch the man, either.
She reached the store and entered, tinkling the bells. Connor called to her as he came in from the office. "Rachel! Look who's here!"
Beside Connor stood a swarthy, dark-haired man with a tremendous build, wearing expensive dark clothes. Connor had his arm around him.
"Duncan!" she greeted, delighted.
"Rachel." Duncan MacLeod came to her, a huge smile on his eternally handsome face. Pleasure flooded Rachel at the sight of him. She was prepared for one of the bear hugs she remembered from this immortal kinsman of Connor's, but instead, Duncan stopped before her and grasped both her hands.
"Rachel, you look more beautiful every time I see you."
Rachel went weak-kneed at the man's attentions as she had every time she'd met him since she was a girl. His sheer masculine presence washed over her in a great wave. This time, though, she felt a bittersweetness to the compliment.
"Oh, Duncan, you're sweet to say so."
Duncan regarded her from arm's length.
"Rachel, is anything wrong?"
There was more than one answer to the question, but before she could reply, Emmett Nash came out of the elevator. Rachel dropped her hands and looked at the elder Nash, raising her eyebrows at Duncan. Duncan glanced at the newcomer, and looked to Connor.
Connor came forward, looking uncomfortable.
"Russell, who's your friend?" Emmett asked.
Rachel tried not to smile. This should be interesting.
Connor cleared his throat. "Emmett, this is Duncan MacLeod, my cousin."
At Nash's startled look, Connor added, "My adopted cousin."
Now, Duncan looked intrigued.
"Duncan, this is Emmett Nash, my, uh, father. You know, my real father."
It was Duncan's turn to look startled, but he recovered gracefully.
"Nash? Mr. … Nash. So good to meet you."
Rachel really tried not to smile, while Emmett pumped Duncan's hand.
"It's so good to meet Russell's people. It's been an amazing experience for both of us. Just amazing. Are you a cousin on his mother's or his father's side?"
Rachel saw Connor roll his eyes.
"I'm . . . more distant than that. Russell, when were you going to tell me about this?"
"Tonight, at dinner. We're all going to the Club. Except for Rachel. She has a date." Connor sounded affronted.
Duncan turned a pleased smile on Rachel, and it was all she could do not to blush like a schoolgirl.
"Who is he?" Duncan asked.
"She won't let me meet him," Connor groused. "She says I scare her dates away."
"I'm sure you do."
IV
Connor would have to meet Michael, Rachel realized. Her friendship with Michael was not going to die away, and, if anything, was growing quite strong. Funny and sweet, and more well-read than anyone she could remember knowing, he was comfortable company. She'd shared with him the story of her childhood, and he'd listened with shining interest in his hazel eyes. His questions betrayed no discomfort, no morbid curiosity, only a support and understanding beyond what she'd expected from someone so distanced from the personal experience of wars and loss. Did she love Michael? She asked her heart. "No," it replied. Could she love him? "Yes," her heart whispered. She would have to proceed with caution.
Perhaps, though, she considered, Michael's understanding wasn't so strange. He worked, it so happened, for the Veteran's Administration.
Rachel had asked Michael to check Emmett Nash's story. She felt a little guilty for using her friend this way, but she refused to feel guilty about the precaution. Connor himself had taught her that suspicion was healthy.
Michael called her at the store the next day with discouraging news. He could find no record of an Emmett Nash in a coma in a New York State VA hospital. If he had been out of state, Michael needed to know which state, or the search would take too long.
Emmett entered the office, his face grey and wet with sweat. He sank into a chair.
Concerned, Rachel frowned. The man's health might be frail; she shouldn't have given him heavy work.
"I've got those columns all in," he reported.
"Thank you," she answered. "Have something to drink. I'm afraid I've been working you too hard."
"I'd love a drink."
Rachel left the desk to get him a glass of water. As she handed it to him, she asked, "Emmett, where were you in the hospital?"
"Syracuse," he replied, accepting the glass.
Syracuse, the place of Russell Nash's birth. Definitely in New York. Strange.
"You really look tired. Why don't you take a rest?"
Emmett brightened at her. "I want to show you something. Tell me if you think Russell will like it." He left the room and returned with something held behind his back. Smiling hopefully, he brought it out.
It was a green painted plaque, with the words "World's Best Son" written in kaleidoscope colors. In the bottom left corner was a graphic of a baseball and bat, and in the bottom right corner was – Rachel couldn't quite believe it – a teddy bear. With a ribbon.
"Think he'll like it?"
Rachel couldn't afford to be speechless. She rallied. "Emmett, I'm sure he's never gotten anything like this before." She raised her gaze to meet his chocolate brown eyes, and lied earnestly. "He'll love it."