SPLIT SECOND
BY MAGGIE
Just a split second of time; that was all it took. All it ever takes.
There ...
Gone.
Just like that. No warnings, no niggling instinct, nothing.
Had he been trying to break the endless spiral of love and loss? A momentary impulse, a declaration, an acceptance, a hurried breath, and even at that moment a hint of danger hovering in the air. He'd wanted it done, trying to put away the feelings of rash action leading to consequences to be regretted ...
The look on her face; surprise, confusion, delight, a circus-ground of feelings all jumbling around each other. She had not known the reason, had not the slightest idea as to his motive for asking her then, at that precise moment. He had never told her; now, he never would.
The other side of the coin forced itself relentlessly to the surface, glared at him, dared him to strike out in anger and denial. He had been tempting fate, proposing like that. For God's sake, hadn't he lived long enough, gone through enough, even been warned ...
'Why did I do it? God, why did I do it!!'
Four hundred years old; how could he have been so horribly, terrifyingly stupid?
Sitting there in the Police Station already feeling guilty for having to let Richie, still in shock himself, deal with all the formalities; a formal statement about what had happened, how they came to be there, watching as somehow the younger man came up with a story to cover up the true events, having to lie about having seen the killer ...
" ... No, I didn't see the guy, I just heard the shot ..."
Once the initial shock had worn off, Duncan knew Richie would be really pissed at him over that; but right now all he wanted was to go home, NO, not home not without ...
Where then?
There was nowhere. No refuge from this; death is death. He bit the inside of his lip until it bled. Couldn't speak, could barely breathe, nothing to say, nowhere to go. He heard the shot in his head and squeezed his eyes shut against tears; he heard it again, then again and again ...
Rising abruptly to his feed he made his way out fast to the car, got in and nearly drive away in the blind need to escape; he was held back only by his remembered responsibility to Richie. He would be out of there any minute, looking for him, worried about him despite the hurt and the anger that would be growing in him by now.
Duncan put his head down on the steering wheel and almost gave in to the grief; he would have to release his agonisingly fierce hold on it soon ...
Just one more minute, please, just give me one more minute, only one more and then I'll go back inside ... It's not fair on him, he's young and he shouldn't have to do this; not for me. I should be able to do this, I should.
I can't ... Oh, God, Tessa, I can't ...
"Mac?"
Richie; hovering on the kerb, his arms wrapped round himself, shivering, almost dodging from foot to foot, his eyes, large and pale with he loss and the sadness; like when he thought he'd finally found his old man and Duncan had been so sure the guy was just taking him for a ride.
Finding the strength from somewhere to clamp down on his own feelings, almost without thinking, Duncan shunted into 'auto-pilot', his thoughts stripped of everything but bare logic.
"Come on, get in; you need some food inside you, and some sleep."
Opening the car door, Richie got in, his movements almost somnambulent, and then just sat there, staring into space. Pulling a rug from under the back seat, Duncan wrapped it around him, Richie allowing him to do so, still staring, still shaking. Starting the car, Duncan pulled away and headed down town.
After a few moments Richie seemed to come to a little, and looked around him, taking in the fact that they were going in the wrong direction.
"Mac? You're not going back to the shop?"
"No."
Barely able to get the word out, Duncan was once more fighting with all the reasons not to go back there, annoyed with Richie for asking the question, then ashamed that he should feel that way.
"Then ... where are we going?"
"I don't know, Richie ...!"
Turning the car suddenly, into a side street, Duncan pulled the car over and for awhile just sat there, trying to stay calm in the midst of the ragged-winged emotions which were clawing at his insides.
"I'm sorry. I can't ... go back there, not right now. A hotel ..."
Richie nodded, his own street-brand of common sense seeming to accept that as the right thing to do at that moment.
"It's a good thing you pulled over pal, 'cos I was just about to buzz you."
Duncan froze and Richie could see a silent but dangerous anger in MacLeod's face. Kick-started into action, Richie jumped out of the car and ran round to face off against the large, disagreeable-looking cop who'd pulled up just behind them, and was standing looking down at Duncan as if he'd like nothing more than to be given the excuse to add another notch on his nightstick.
"Your friend been celebratin', has he? The way he was driving back there, it sure looked like it."
"No!" It was all Richie could do to keep from punching the guy's lights out. "As a matter of fact his fiancee was murdered about an hour ago! Maybe you'd prefer it if I drove; the way I feel right now, I could give you a real roller-derby out there, no problemo!!"
The white heat of rage, backed up by the solid kinship of centuries of experience, gave Duncan a unique kind of deadly control, and he was suddenly there between Richie and the cop, hands up in a pacifying gesture. He didn't like the man any more than Richie did, but getting themselves arrested would only make things ten times worse than they already were.
"It's all right, officer. No more trouble here; just ... looking for a hotel."
He didn't let the cop se his eyes yet, letting them slide past the other's aggressive stare as if he was doing no more than taking in the details of the neighbourhood.
"Which hotel?" the cop asked suspiciously, misinterpreting Duncan's statement.
"We're not looking for anyone; just somewhere to stay for the night."
As an added gesture of good behaviour, Duncan flashed his driver's license under the cop's nose.
Taking note of the address on the license, and knowing that it was local, the guy looked at the two of them in disbelief.
"Whaddaya need a hotel for? Looks to me like you already got a home to go to."
Looking him straight in the eyes, finally, with as much loathing as he could make at the same time seem harmless, Duncan reluctantly gave away more than he wanted to spare the man.
"It's a little empty right now ..."
There was a long moment of honest hatred between the two of them, and then the cop backed down.
"Okay, Mr ... MacLeod; you can go on your way. But I want to see regular driving from you, 'cos I'm gonna be watching you."
Getting back in the car with a "You do that," Duncan opened the passenger door, and looked round to see Richie on the sidewalk, fists balled, still angry.
"Richie? You coming?"
Still looking at the cop, Richie came round the back of the T-bird and got in. Pulling away from the kerb, Duncan made for the main drag once more.
"Look Mac, I don't want to stay in a hotel; why don't you come back to my place?" Richie offered, distractedly "You can have the bed if you want; I end up falling asleep on the couch most of the time anyway."
Richie was still nursing his anger over the cop, but he looked beat, and MacLeod knew that it would only take one stiff drink to put him out for the rest of the night. Unfair, perhaps, but he wasn't looking forward to seeing that anger change slowly into a deeper resentment over Tessa, and the murderer whose identity Duncan was, for some reason, shielding. He didn't want to have to deal with it when he was barely dealing with how he felt about losing Tessa.
Richie was right about one thing, though; the idea of trying to spend the night in a hotel room, with, in all likelihood, a total stranger just the other side of the wall, was turning sour in his stomach. It was something that, tonight at least, he just couldn't face.
"Okay," he agreed, suddenly in need of somewhere he was at least vaguely familiar with. He'd only been to Richie's apartment a couple of times, but he did at least know where the coffee and stuff was, which made the place a lot less impersonal than a hotel.
When they got back to the apartment however, MacLeod almost regretted that he had accepted the suggestion.
The two of them sat nursing whisky sours, and Duncan was waiting for the exhaustion which would send them both blessedly into oblivion for a while, when he jumped at the sound of Richie's glass hitting the casual table between them, hard, splashing the liquor across his hand and onto the polished surface.
Jerking upright, his eyes flashing up to meet those of his younger friend, Duncan realised that the moment he had been putting off was right her, now, whether he was ready for it or not.
And he wasn't.
The resentment was there, seething just beneath the surface of Richie's dully blinking eyes, and Duncan knew that there was no way that it could be contained. There were too many things coming together all at once - Richie was being overwhelmed by pain, confusion and rage. Adrenaline sharpening his senses once more, Duncan could see the loss, which was understandable, but now it was turning into something darker, something which spoke sharply of betrayal, and by its side - reinforcing it - was the shock of disbelief; and it was all headed his way.
Richie stood there for a moment, his mouth working silently, still held prisoner by the chaos of his thoughts.
All right, thought Duncan, old habits resigning him to the moment. If it's gotta be now, it's best to get it done with.
"Just say it, Richie."
Wiping his hand angrily across his forehead, Richie turned on his heel and walked away towards the kitchen counter; MacLeod could see he was still fighting his way up through the speechlessness of shock, reaching out for some kind of order to combat the confusion, so that the words, when they finally came out, would at least make sense.
"He shot her, Mac; for a few lousy dollars, he shot her. He didn't it like making a decision about what to have for breakfast, for chrissakes, he didn't care, it didn't touch him!!"
His breath coming in ragged gasps now, Richie was in the hold of the nightmare once more, his eyes seeing the car and the dark and the gun; and Tessa. Seeing her fall backwards, like a bird shot from the sky; in slow motion, her body flung away from him in movements almost graceful; in his mind the beauty of those movements were an incredible obscenity, and yet, and yet they were all hers ...
Tessa was beautiful to the last ...
"Oh, God, Mac, why, why wouldn't you let me tell them? He killed her, she's dead, gone, and without a description there's no way they're gonna catch that goddamn sonovabitch, why in the hell wouldn't you let me just tell them?!"
GIving MacLeod no chance to answer, Richie was already in his face, his fists balled into his jacket, totally controlled by the rage now. That it had been Duncan who had given him that vital second chance, had taken him in, treated him like family, given him a rock to cling to that he had so badly needed at the time - all that went for nothing at this moment. All he knew was what he felt' it was anger like he had never felt before, and for some reason it was exploding against Duncan, without thought or pity.
If he hadn't been so vulnerable himself, MacLeod would have realised that it was more than just Tessa's murder and his inexplicable request that was boiling up inside Richie right then; a lot more. Coming to accept immortality and all that it meant was traumatic enough in itself, but now he was being bombarded on every side by all the memories; everything that Tessa had ever done for him, every time she had tried to protect him, keeping him from making mistakes, her tolerance, her kindness and generous-hearted nature ... every one a hammer blow, slamming into him everything that she had ever meant to him.
Tessa had never asked to be a mother-cum-older-sister, but she wasn't the first and only woman that he had ever really been able to respond to in that way. Not just that though; she had been beautiful, fun, exciting ...
And then there was the guilt. Felicia Martins. Richie had said some things to Tessa back then that had been unthinking, uncalled for and even downright nasty ...
"She's gonna break my heart and leave me lonely; Tessa, I don't care."
"I don't buy that."
"I mean I don't care what happens a month from now, a year from now ... I've got time on my side; unlike you."
... Unlike you ... unlike you ... unlike you ...
The words were pounding in his head, twisting his heart and making him sick to his stomach; he'd apologised afterwards, but he could never take them back, didn't feel like he'd ever be able to forgive himself for saying them.
He could still see the look on her face ...
All of this was bursting inside him and at that moment there was no way he could find to fight any of it.
if MacLeod could have seen any of this in his young friend, lashing out and knocking Richie to the floor was the last thing he should have done; but overmastered by his own grief and shock at having having his own world shattered and blown to the four winds, impossible, at that moment, to be recovered, in an unthinking reaction he did just that.
He almost ran from the apartment, wrenching open the front door, nearly pulling it from its hinges, and stumbling down the stairs, he somehow made it down into the street and into the car. It took him six tries to get the keys into the ignition, but finally he got it started and screeched away from the kerb, off into one of the darkest nights he had ever know.
***
... Four nursed bruises and six cups of coffee later, Richie'd finally came face to face with the answer to that unresolved question. Looking out the window at the first smoggy fingers of dawn creeping slowly up over the city's horizon, he stood against the wall, his head leaning wearily against his arm, and he sighed.
If the police had caught the animal who shot Tessa, they probably would have found out about me. How long would it have taken them to lock me up as some kind of freak ...?
His head bowed under the weight of guilt which was roiling around inside him, and he squeezed his eyes shut against the words he'd yelled at MacLeod a few hours earlier, not finding any way to forgive himself, not even knowing whether Duncan would forgive him. In a matter of a few seconds he could well have thrown away the only real friend he had left now that Tessa was gone.
Nevertheless, he owed it to MacLeod to go back to the shop, try to patch things up with him. Richie knew that, despite what he'd said, that was where Duncan would be; knew that eventually he wold have to go back to face the reality of the empty space, trying to find a way to settle with the memories, to make some kind of closure for himself.
But first, oh God ... I need some sleep ...
He'd try; he'd put his head down with three good fingers of brandy inside of him, and he'd try.
He knew he wouldn't succeed.
***
Duncan had been getting to grips with some memories of his own. Driving around the city for two hours had proved to be unproductive, and he'd nearly been flagged down by another cop, so finally giving in to the overwhelming need to be near Tessa again, he'd gone back to the shop. Showering and changing on autopilot, he had then allowed himself to slowly sink into the clamouring mass of words and thoughts, pictures and feelings that were everything he knew and everything he had ever shared with her.
The first time he'd ever seen her, on that tourist boat, looking so sweet in that sailor outfit; from that first moment he'd been caught, seeing everything in her face, her eyes, what she was, her life, her quirky sense of humour, her vitality, and all the years of fun and sharing and love that they would have together. There had been no question in his mind that that was how it would be.
Even with all the difficulties and disagreements that they'd had, he had been right about all of it; but he had never seen this, this death, her warm and vibrant presence so suddenly cut away from him for ever.
Her slip in his hands, her perfume still on it, the physical pain of that powerful reminder washing through him like a sweet, unbearable rain ...
There was only one thing that he could do. It would be impossible to go on living and breathing in this place without going mad; rising to his feet, empty of everything but that tide of pain ebbing and flowing inside him, he got his coat and left by the back entrance.
He stopped.
The energy of Richie's presence washed over him like a slow wave, an almost gentle reminder to Duncan that he was not alone in this loss, and that life, like time, went on regardless. Turning around, he saw him standing just across the alley from him, looking pretty much how he felt himself, and a look passed between them, which went above and beyond all the harsh words and deeds of the previous night.
Walking slowly over to him, Duncan felt a tiny flame - no more than a candle in the huge darkness of night as yet, but there nonetheless - of a new kinship with this boy, so rapidly growing into a young man; he would always look like this now, even if he lived to be a thousand years old.
Not likely, he realised, remembering suddenly Connor's words to him - it seemed like yesterday - chiding him over hiding himself away, refusing to play the game. The Gathering was here, now, and he felt sadness stab him with yet another knife, his instincts telling him that Richie could not be The One. Some time in the future, Duncan would lose him too.
Just a few words, enough to tell Richie what he needed him to do, and a friendly warning - more to tell him that he was forgiven than anything else, and then he walked away, heading off into yet another day of his life.
Twenty-four hours, one thousand, four hundred and forty minutes, eighty-six thousand, four hundred seconds.
Another day, another hour, another minute, another second, without her.
Another day and another day and another day ...
THE END
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