Disclaimer:
The characters of Connor MacLeod and Duncan MacLeod belong to Panzer/Davis. This fanfiction story is written strictly for entertainment, there is no profit involved. Rated NC-17 for sexual situations. The author suggests you read "Strong Enough" and "Bridges" first.
This story was written August 2000, one month before Endgame was released. Enormous thank-you to my Beta reader Sharz for all her work and praise. If it were not for her, no one would ever see this particular piece. Thank you to Celedon and imnxtc for the photo compilation shot for this story.
Lost and Not Found
by MacNairCDC
Lost and Not Found...
He took him back to the Highlands, where he could see the land of his birth and walk the familiar terrain. While Duncan called many places "home"--Paris and Seacouver, and a few others scattered along the way--the word only meant one place to his friend. They traveled silently, one of them subdued and the other watchful. He put his kinsman astride a horse for the last leg of the journey, but couldn't dispel the lingering vacancy in the once fierce gaze.
It hurt to see Connor torn like this. There was nothing he could do to help him, except stand by. He watched him quietly endure all the visitors at the funeral, the bouquets of flowers, the sympathy cards and food shoved in his face. His old friend shook hands and hugged and nodded agreement in all the right places, with all the right people. Stood to say a few words over the casket. Heaved the third shovel full of dirt that landed with a thud on the lid. Tossed the flowers after it, a movement of grace and sorrow combined.
Nothing left now but the soft footfalls of the horses, the jangling bits and the wind sighing down off the peaks. The rolling carpet of green stretched away from them, dotted with outcroppings of rocks and boulders. The mountains started straight out of the ground and loomed into the sky. Purple heather everywhere in profuse bloom. A few clouds, wispy like feathers against the blue. The scent of salt water and mist hung lightly in the air. He half expected to hear the pipes from far away, twisting and lamenting. It would be fitting, he thought grimly to himself.
Connor MacLeod had always drawn strength from this place, pulling it straight out of the ground. When he hurt, he went home. And Duncan was counting on the land to put him to rights once more.
There was something terrible in seeing his teacher so frail. He was a shadow of his normal intense self. No one home. Even his height seemed diminished somehow ... as if he had collapsed inward. A sad, half-deflated balloon. The normally active and alert eyes, changing like the skies over Scotland, were blank and distant.
Duncan took him past Glenfinnan, up the mountain to the home that his old mentor kept there. It was simple and tidy and well stocked. Joe had called ahead to let the keepers of the place know they were coming; a small gesture of kindness from a man Connor had not even met. Duncan reminded himself that he needed to thank him for the help. There were too many details--the funeral, packing, rental cars and flights--for him to have managed it all and still have the ability to steward his bereaved clansman
He went to put his bags in the spare room, but Connor turned him aside into the master suite. A wordless appeal to not leave him alone. He put both their clothes away as if he had always lived here, like this. He fixed a meal, drew Connor a hot bath, and studied the house until he knew every route outside and every position of defense. He rechecked his katana edge for anything amiss on the ride in. At the end of the first long day, he curled his strong body around the slighter one to sleep, subconsciously protective, as if they had not spent the last few decades apart.
Duncan fell into the rhythm of the place and automatically took over. He cooked and cleaned and talked to no one in particular. There was wood to chop and stack and, although the gas heat was usable, he preferred the intense warmth of the fireplaces. Three horses to brush and water. Part of the rock wall had tumbled and it took a day laboriously stacking stones to mend it. He pitched hay and patched the corner of the stable that leaked. One friendly striped tomcat would perch alternately on one of his feet and then the other when he stood still too long.
Connor spoke little. He just followed his kinsman's leadership. If Duncan didn't need help, the older immortal would simply sit and stare out across the moors. The younger man noted grimly that he never wept, just wrapped himself in silence, hunched with pain. He carried his sword, but Duncan never saw it in his hand once. Not even to check the edge.
It was another week before the older man left the house of his own volition and started out across the green. Duncan gave him some lead and followed. It did not seem to matter if he stayed out of sight, so he kept himself within shouting distance.
Just a little walk; Connor took them along the brow of the cliff, where the edges crumbled away and the sea pounded and roared below. Duncan feared for a while that he would simply jump, spinning himself out over the empty space and the reaching surf, to find that too short peace in death. But he didn't. He just walked.
Day after day he walked ... and Duncan trailed behind him.
They followed the same winding path used by sheep and stag. Duncan could feel the ocean spray and the tremble of the stone underfoot. He constantly fought the niggling worry that his brother would leap off the jagged rim. The sweet heather, the rich dirt, the soft moss on the boulders--all of it a veritable feast to the senses, but one to which the elder Highlander seemed oblivious. The calling of the gulls sounded distant from their height on the cliff.
They paced one after the other, hunter and prey; Duncan alert for any fight that might waylay his old master and Connor a fragment of himself, wandering.
He was losing weight. Despite his efforts, Connor was gaunt and pale. His musculature became more defined, the lines and angles of his body more acute. The once gentle hollows along flanks and buttocks more pronounced. Veins showed through the translucent skin and the tendons pulled like wires. Before his watchful eyes, the Highlander was paring down to the classic lines of his youth.
Connor had always had a voracious appetite, just like Rich, but under duress the pounds had a stealthy way of slipping off of him. He remembered that his clansman was as expensive to house as his erstwhile student and when both of them were with him, his food bill soared.
The natural chill and dampness of the high country permeated everything. Whenever Duncan chanced to touch him, he was cold. He built the fires high, dressed his companion in wool, and put food in front of him at every turn.
But as the adage always said, you could lead a horse to water...
"Connor, you need to eat."
"I'm not hungry."
He did not press the issue. Suffering was the unwelcome companion of all immortals, Duncan included, but he ceaselessly warded him. A shepherd at watch over one lost sheep.
Connor never seemed to notice.
To Run and Not Hide...
He awakened in the night and reached out by habit, but his questing hand did not find his kinsman. Faint moonlight through the window and the whispering wind outside. The house was quiet and empty.
He swung himself out of bed in search of his errant charge. He was not in the house. No ring of his presence echoed anywhere. He went back to the bedroom, brow clotted with worry. Clothing gone, including the tennis shoes ... but the katana was still leaned by the bed.
Dear Lord!
Duncan went out the door scrambling into coat and shoes, running, fear lending his feet speed to the stable. The long bodied gelding, eager for any adventures, went out the door in a smooth rush and took the hill easily.
Nothing. No one.
The sprinkle of stars and the distant moon just rising, making the long shadows shrink as it rose. The wind moaned softly around him. The gelding swished his tail impatiently while Duncan's thoughts whirled.
Where? Where? His friend had traversed this way day after day without thought.
Where did he go ... where would he go when the silence in his soul grew too heavy? A bright bird fallen to darkness. Connor came back to the Highlands because it was home, but where would he go when he had lost his center? When the land itself failed to call him back...
Not where ... but to whom, Duncan thought with sudden clarity. He had gone to talk to Heather. Of course! When the world pressured him, he went to his cabin on the island to heal. Connor came back to the land and to the ghost of his old love.
He wheeled the tall bay and set out over the mist strewn ground.
He didn't see him at the crest of the hill and for a moment he gaped at the mountain, stunned that he could be so mistaken ... but a few steps more and he felt the ripple of immortality brush across him. It was sweet as a kiss across his senses. The horse nibbled grass as Duncan started up the hill on foot.
Connor was prostrate ... face down on the sod. It was a stab in Duncan's heart to see him, arms outstretched as if crucified, skin waxen and silvery in the moonlight. The old claymore, nameplate ravaged by time, was crooked where it burrowed into the earth. A fitting reflection of the broken immortal lying so still, pinned to the earth with death and life mixed in such a bitter draught.
For a moment, Duncan just stood over him, feeling ill suited to be anything this man needed. He had held children and newborns, lovers, fallen warriors, the dead, the dying and some he had been forced to kill. But standing here, watched by stars and the great circle of the moon, he stared at his heavy hands as if they were strangers.
"Be true to yourself, Duncan MacLeod. When you lack direction, listen to your heart." Darius spoke as if from a great distance, calm and gentle ... another man to whom he owed much. And Connor had crossed great distances many times to help him and raise him from losses along the way. What would he be without the sacrifices the elder MacLeod had so willingly given throughout the long years?
He stretched himself alongside, half across his friend's shoulders, weight taken on a braced elbow. The ground was frigid. One hand curled around the elder man's closest nerveless fingers. There were no words for this dark night of the soul so he just stayed, face pressed close along the nape of the older man's neck.
Listening.
Breathing.
Waiting.
The only thing he had to give was himself, full and augmented. Anything this man needed, he would give. To find him healed and whole.
He felt the difference as soon as all his barriers fell away. Sensed the shifting in his perceptions as he consciously offered all of his balance and strength. Duncan had tried to master the art, but finally just conceded that some things were gifts only for certain immortals. He could match his breathing with Connor's, but lacked the ability to do anything more. He just didn't have the skill. He could only hold out his presence and hope his fallen brother would respond.
Open heart.
Open hands.
Open to shoulder this load.
Wait for the connection ... hope for the rejoinder ... and finally, from a far distance and settling in as soft as snow, the mirroring beat of another heart.
Then he was gone, swept along down the long tunnel of memory....
He was in the "hall of glass" in Connor's New York loft. Duncan remembered naming it decades before, tossing it over his shoulder at Connor with merriment.
"You have so many pictures up in this hallway that it's just one sheet of glass, you know. Enough to blind a man!" he said cheerfully.
"And you tramp down here every visit to see it, Duncan," the Scot shot back with humor.
"Of course. Have to see what you've put up new." He turned to eye his clansman archly. "I bet you shuffle them around and then put one in, just to see if I'll spot it!"
He found it right away because it was crooked.
Connor MacLeod was as proud of his pictures as he was of his antiques. He would never allow one to list, but there it was. Rachel Ellenstein, long gowned and smiling ... and Connor, one arm around her waist, wearing a suit and bow tie. Syrupy words in cut out behind them and gaudy decorations. The Prom.
Duncan gaped and his brain launched ten thousand merry teasing words at the sight.
But Rachel, blooming as gracefully as any 19-year-old, whisked through his line of vision before he could say a single thing. She smiled at him, her teeth white and even as pearls. "Oh, you found it! Isn't that fine? Except it's crooked--I never could get a picture to hang straight!"
"Connor took you to the prom?"
"Absolutely. But I had to ask him. We had such a marvelous time."
"He danced?" His brain was as slow as the words.
"Of course. All evening." She looked at him, eyes mischievous. "He's a Highlander, he can dance to anything."
"No jigs, though," Connor added from the end of the hall. He was staring at the amber swirl of whisky in his glass.
"No. Oh no!" Rachel laughed. "No reels OR jigs!" She gave Connor a squeeze on the arm as she passed him and the look they exchanged was full of warmth.
Duncan couldn't remember a time when his teacher's face held such contentment. Connor simply adored her. And she loved him and always had.
The younger man felt all his teasing melt away to silence. He looked back at the picture and suddenly realized that it was just a photo of two kids--out laughing and dancing and celebrating a turn within the box of life.
The memories came faster and faster, a smoothly streaming rush of impressions and pictures--and the perspective bent so gradually that it took a while before he realized it wasn't even his own anymore.
He saw Rachel, a frail girl, too afraid at first after the war to be alone and Connor sleeping for almost ten months on the floor beside her bed. She was fearful of the fireworks; Connor held his hands over her ears so she could clap in delight while enjoying them. He took her to see the sun come up out of the water in the east and then flew her to the west to see the same sun sink into the ocean again. Practicing French and Italian and Spanish, sometimes all of them mixed together over a dinner that left them laughing breathlessly when someone finally misused a word with predictable consequences. Through Connor's memories, as if inside his mind, Duncan saw Rachel step through her years.
The first trip back to Germany to settle the old horror. Her trips abroad to help him purchase antiques. Rachel in London, a grown woman dangling beautifully off his arm as he showed her the sights. Her delight in the vistas of Scotland and the stories she plagued out of him. Her face so quiet on the hill with Heather and the single rose she brought to put there.
Riding horses, ice skating, pillow fights, cooking together inventively. Pajama parties with a group of girls that kept him awake all night with their giggling from down the hall. Piano lessons that he taught himself, long fingers graceful on the keyboard. Watching her paint. Making croissants together and tossing flour at each other while they cooked.
Snatches of impressions so vague as to confuse him: frustration, merriment, loneliness for someone who was there and yet not. Gowns of blue and rose and of tawny browns, gems and pearls and finery bestowed as tokens of simple affection.
Rachel dancing, Rachel arguing with him, Rachel holding all of her fears tightly as he went to face a fight. The joyous returns around eyes swollen with crying. And flashing by as to be almost missed, her hands gliding along the naked chest that was not his own, eyes dark and mysterious.
The wedding to a man who could never be Connor, but was close enough to accept. The release of his lovely charge to the stewardship of another--so painful and joyful at the same time. The babies, one by one, that pulled at his fingers and left merry messes on his couch. Grandchildren that he loved from a distance, so as not to jeopardize their safety.
The eyes never altered, but she did, growing old and frail around them.
Duncan saw it all, as if he was real and present. And Connor, dropping like a stone through her life, never changing. First father, then older brother, sometimes a boyfriend when a suitor was too forward, next a younger brother ... a friend, a cousin and finally--in a hasty explanation one day--he became her son ... then grandson.
Until the very last, when all the others went to sleep on that night, holding her fingers in her room and looking into those eyes that had never changed. She waited until then, as the dying often did, alone with the man who was center of it all before closing them the last time.
My Hand Inside of Your Hand...
His tears had soaked the back of Connor's neck.
It was cold, Duncan thought. How long had he been down? He felt dazed, like after a storm, and the older Highlander was gasping for breath beneath his chin. He turned him over, flinching at how light he seemed--as if his bones were full of air.
Connor was lax, limbs unresponsive, the deep set eyes dark pits. He stared straight up at the heavens, unseeing.
Still - there were no tears. What did it take to crack this formidable Scot? All of his strength bound like steel within ... and all of Duncan's fortitude without. He traced his fingers around and around the eyes that refused to cry, willing release, speaking softly the old tongue.
"I'm dying." Connor said it so brokenly, struggling for breath as if the words were true. "I'm dying. I'm dying."
Duncan felt the fear across his mind like a rustle of dried leaves.
Dying? Can he will himself into death without a wound? It filled him with horror.
He impulsively drew Connor close, bending over the cold cheeks and breathing face to face, just as he used to do in the tribe with every frightened or injured horse. By instinct, responding to the need of the moment. Holding on and blowing his calming breath, rocking forward and back while Connor whispered that he was dying over and over and over.
Still, it was a long time before the weeping ever came.
He did not resist the hoist onto the gelding when the day dawned; the elder man simply slumped where he was put. Duncan pulled himself over the bundled haunches, tangling a hand in the mane for stability and preventing his boneless clansman from sliding off. They crossed the long green meadows silently, exhaustedly.
Connor was limp the entire way back to the house, but struggled, blind with pain, when he sank him in the tub of hot water. He thrashed and cried brokenly with reawakening nerves.
By a dint of effort Duncan got him gentled again, stroking his fingers over and over across his drawn face and whispering soothingly. For a long time, his friend was like a wild thing, easily startled, restless, murmuring only the tops of conversations long ceased.
"Duncan?"
The voice was so soft, he would have missed it save for his preternatural alertness. Thrice he had refilled the tub with hot water around Connor, and the second time, numb to his ankles from the harsh night afield, he had simply stripped and climbed in with him for a few minutes.
Mist outside the house and mist inside the heated bathroom. Duncan sat, wrapped in a terry robe, hair still dripping light as fingers down his back.
"I'm here, Conchobhar*," he replied, using the old name to orient him.
"I knew you would be..."
"Of course."
Connor turned his head, blinking, still dazed. His face had never looked so open and vulnerable. Fragility that Duncan couldn't remember seeing in all his years of knowing him. It aroused in him a powerful protective instinct. He wondered if this was how it felt to have a child ... but with Rachel's death, he wasn't sure he ever wanted to chance fatherhood.
Not now. Not after watching this, experiencing it almost firsthand.
"Thank you." Connor said it quietly--stunningly. "For staying with me."
Duncan sat, dumbfounded. "You don't have to thank me for this," he intoned gently. "You needed me. I came. Same as you've come for me time and again."
"I've given you a devil of it, haven't I." It was a statement, not a question.
The long weeks, the walks, the forlorn night on the hill ... Duncan flipped all the pictures over methodically in his mind. "You said you were dying." It was the most terrible point.
"I was." He offered no explanations or additions. "But you didn't want me to."
Duncan pulled in sudden ferocity at the dark hair at the back of his head, an unconscious expression of distress that he sometimes reverted to. Tessa had always said that he would be bald in that spot when he was old if he didn't quit it, a familiar point of laughter between the two of them. How he wished it were true sometimes. How he wished he could still hear her laughter.
"We've done that before ... lining up like that, breath and heart," he said thoughtfully. "It never went so deep as to give me any pictures. Always before it was just the feelings, the intentions. This was like living in them." He gazed at the older man. "Living in you."
Connor grunted acknowledgment and was slow to answer. "Only when it's really intense and when I hurt ... so much ... so deep." He looked directly at Duncan. "You got hammered. Are you okay?"
"Of course I am. There's nothing of you I can't accept if you've had to live it too." He stated it as an obvious fact. "Besides, you've seen me through a few ugly days along the way."
There was quiet for a moment.
"You aren't ugly even when you have ugly days, Duncan," Connor commented with just the faintest trace of his dry humor.
The younger man felt like he was breathing again after holding his breath interminably long. It was the first step on the way back. A small one, but the only one he had seen thus far. 'I feel like a trapped animal suddenly set free,' he thought.
"This is why immortals aren't suppose to raise children." The accent-blended voice was soft.
"You wouldn't trade a day, Connor. And where would she be if not for you?"
"Dead. Starved to death. Raped to death. Dead of exposure in a few days. Dead all the same."
"But you gave her the world."
Connor was silent a moment, head back against the tub. Duncan could see the pulse pounding at his exposed throat. "Aye. That I did. And now I'm left to go on." He looked then, haunted, directly at him. "Sometimes, Dhonnchaidh*," a long breath, painfully drawn, "sometimes I just don't feel cut out for this immortality crap."
Duncan had no answer at all.
Losing My Grip...
He awoke in the dark with the covers tangled around his back. Connor, sidled up next to him, moaned and moved restlessly as if in pain.
Duncan turned and pulled Connor around to face him, gathering him close to calm his nightmare ... finding instead, arousal. For a moment, he contemplated waking him--and rejected it almost as quickly. So much pain and distress in the last 3 weeks, culminating in this brutal day. It was no wonder his brother's body was forming its own insurrection.
So he held him, putting one thigh between Connor's, not alarmed in the least when his oldest friend pressed even tighter to him. If he were a woman, his hands would wander--so he let them, trailing down the curving muscles of his back and stroking the line of the buttocks. Connor responded instinctively, shivering and flexing into the touch, murmuring so softly that Duncan was hard put to hear the ancient Gaelic.
The familiar caresses by Tessa and countless other women, he put quietly into play, seducing very calmly and gently. Fingers glided over features and anatomy unlike a woman's, but lived in daily. And Connor, whispering and arching, pressed the fierce erection against him, searching with his voice for something lost.
Duncan reached to cup the heavy testicles. Sensuously, the elder Highlander spread his knees to give him access, groaning softly. He fondled him for a moment, feeling the responsive trembling in the thighs, stroked over the thick shaft and smiled in understanding when Connor thrust into his fingers. The hands that gripped him were tight and urgent.
No use prolonging this sweet torture ... and who was he with, he wondered? It had to be Heather ... and if circumstances weren't so dire, this would be a smorgasbord of tormenting for the next 200 years - at least. But he already knew on the morrow, he would say not one thing to this man. Not a word, ever.
Intimately acquainted with his own passion, it was only a matter of reading the body language to identify what his clansman liked. He circled the jutting penis with one hand and tightened on him, setting a slow pace to see if his kinsman would follow. He wasn't surprised to be turned partially over on his back, the older man looming over him, driven by instinct into a superior position. He held him across one shoulder, letting him lead, watching his facial expression - and Connor was in climax shortly thereafter, thrusting through the ring of fingers, throwing his head back, mouth open and wordless in pleasure.
He was almost, but not completely, silent. Duncan thought it was the most erotic thing he had ever seen.
Falling So Far...
How could he be such an idiot?
He was an educated man. He had studied human behavior over all the centuries, trying to unlock the puzzle of mortals as a way of understanding the forces that drove him. How many times had he wrestled with the entire concept of suicide and found it shocking?
Here he was, unable to simply live his life and die and teenagers killed themselves over a romance that bobbled or facial features or even less. They hit terrible depression and then, when they started to feel better, is when they killed themselves. He had read it a hundred times or more. And now here he sat, dumbfounded over his own stupidity.
Connor went over the cliff today.
No fanfare and no warning accompanied the act. Duncan was studying his katana after performing his daily repertoire of exercise and his old teacher simply went past him at a dead run, silent as any predator. The lithe body leaped, graceful as a hind, out over the eternal face of the mountain and plummeted without a cry into the depths. It was so abrupt, so unexpected, that Duncan could only sit staring at the point where he had vanished, the wiry grasses twisted by that last prodigious step.
It was several hours before Connor reappeared again, walking, nearly naked from the severity of the fall and the tremendous slap of the ocean that half tore his clothes off. No blood and, of course, no mark on him at all. As new and fresh as the day he died.
He jumped again. The same gliding rush, head up and eyes on some distant mark, launching headlong, arms reaching like wings, clothes whipping in the wind.
Duncan could only watch. The words of some old text, insanely inspired by the sight, spoke in his head: "To run without fear...to leap with the wind in my hair." He leaned over the edge and caught the image of him on the way down; spread like a star, silent, open as a sacrifice. He hit the water far below with a smack, the sound reaching Duncan seconds later, and sank.
It was the most terrible thing he had ever seen.
"Are you finished?" Duncan rose to intercept the long stride.
"I think so."
"I hate this." He said it harshly, feeling defeated in a war not even his making. He gestured at the water far below.
Connor was a while answering, but it was with a thoughtful voice when he did. "Am I the only one here who forces his suffering to find his way out?"
Duncan sighed under the gentle recrimination. He had invested a few days vainly attempting to find death after he had been cast from the clan. Now he chose meditation instead ... and isolation and strict solitude, anathema to his gregarious nature.
And, at times, he just threw himself savagely into hard labor until his muscles trembled and his bones ached for days. The cabin on the island was such a product. His personal respite from the world and a place fraught with bitter memories.
"You always could grieve easier," Connor continued simply. "I have to go to the bottom. It takes me a while."
"I know," suddenly gentle. "I know." He stood eye to eye. "You live in a fortress, clansman. Walls so high and thick you can't even get out when you want to."
"You live in one too."
"I had a good teacher," he rejoined simply.
"Not much of one lately..." and the eyes were so lonely.
Duncan reached to clasp his shoulder in easy familiarity. "Come. Let's go in. You're naked as a newborn and chilled right through."
"Goosebumps on top of goosebumps..."
My Hand Inside...Your Hand...
He was getting better now.
Duncan could tell by the slow gain in his weight and the walks that had turned gradually into jogs and now, finally, into pell-mell runs down the shoreline. He had given up trying to pace himself with his brother. Connor was built for running and he simply glided across the sand, effortless and unthinking, arms and legs loose.
Duncan cantered his horse along behind his clansman, sea foam and spray soaking his trousers and the gelding snorting and pulling the reins for more slack. He laughed aloud and the sound was drowned in the voice of the sea. He remembered his friend's words from centuries ago.
Ramirez had done this very same thing. Taught his young pupil the secrets of his body that were his alone, mysteries and talents, one of them being this incredible endurance. The old man had shouted encouragement and galloped the ivory stallion along after the blue eyed Scot.
The older Highlander had donned some plaid. He loved the freedom of the loose cloth and, here in the land of Scots, he could be a Scot to his heart's content. 'And go half-naked', thought Duncan wryly. It was enough to send him into town for a bolt of tartan himself.
Most confirming of all, Connor had taken back up the sword. He was up at dawn and out on the cliff practicing every morning now. Duncan wasn't sure if he had ever seen such a bonny sight as his old master with his katana, flowing like water through the familiar steps.
They both trained, side by side, just as they had hundreds of years ago. Duncan with his husbanded strength; precise and measured, muscles shifting under sweat burnished skin, breath blowing gusts of mist. And Connor; slender and graceful, hands blurring with the quickness that had served him so well for so long, his face set with concentration.
And when the younger man finished and turned to his comrade, he saw the brilliance in that gaze that had been long absent--vivid and passionate and so very alive. He wanted to shout with fiendish glee at the sight.
Another week passed before they started wrestling. Connor was cagey as a wolf and sharp as a steel trap, but no match for Duncan's superior weight and strength once he laid hands on him. The trick was to get a hold of him, and they scrimmaged like boys over and over, around and around, until the sod was pressed flat or dug up in great gouts.
Connor hated to wrestle, but he tasked himself with it anyway. Duncan knew he picked up new skills every time they tussled physically and so he sparred with his friend every chance he had, striving to give the slighter man some of the knowledge he had acquired over his journeys.
He slapped him over and over, opening his hand at the last second instead of fisting him outright, until his partner deciphered each new move and blocked him. Combat arts he had learned from various teachers, he tossed in haphazard fashion at his kinsman.
Connor, true to form, gradually rose to the occasion until he was proficient enough to evade or counter each one. They found the perfect balance and hammered at each other, exultant in the savagery of the brawl.
Eventually Duncan hemmed him against the wall of the house and struggled him to the ground, using brute strength to pin him down beneath him. It took pressure against bones, nearly to the point of breaking one, to get the thrashing immortal to stand down and surrender. It was a gratifying conclusion ... the smaller Scot still had that deadly stubbornness that kept him fighting even unarmed against a larger opponent. Duncan calmly regarded the irritation in those ferocious green eyes, anger that slowly stilled and cooled.
"One of these days..." the elder said finally, when his visage had calmed.
"One of these days," replied the younger and then pulled him to his feet. "You're going to slap me to a peak and slap the peak off."
"You just love to wrestle me down like that at the very end, don't you?"
"Have to win something somewhere. Christ, Connor, you slice and dice me when we use swords."
The elder man eyed him a moment. "Not as much as I used to when you were still green, but I've been a hardscrabble the last few days. I'll let up on you."
"No. You're working out pain," Duncan observed. "Besides, you make me think fast and it been good practice." He took note of the sudden grin on his kinsman's face. It was a welcome sight even if the words were not.
"Practice at which? Moving faster or thinking?"
I Hear Your Voice And Follow...So Hard To Believe...
Duncan found him on the mountain one morning. It had been almost two months to the day since they arrived in the homeland. He studied him for almost an hour, his dark hair blowing across his face until, in frustration, he tied it back. The gelding he had rode out on whickered and nosed at him for treats. He fed him a carrot and rubbed the proud neck a moment, then started up the hill to join his clansman.
He came to Scotland irregularly, but each time he traveled the distance to visit this lonely hilltop grave. It was a subtle unspoken gesture between Connor and him. They were the only two who knew this was Heather MacLeod's last resting place, her bones long gone to the dust by now.
Each time he came, paying respects to his mentor's true love, he moved a small stone from the right to the left of the sword hilt. The next time Connor paid a visit, he moved it back. Such a small thing, a simple act of caring from one to the other and it did not attract unwanted attention to this hallowed place on the mount.
He studied the somber face of his kinsman. He was still pale, but had regained all his weight. No crying jags since that terrible night and the dregs that escaped him over the next week. Connor was an even match with the swords and almost with hand combat now. His sleep was untroubled. The blue-green eyes were calm when they rose from the ground to greet him.
"Duncan."
"Connor."
They stood in silence and regarded the mountains that lofted into the air. Snow sprinkled the tops like sugar. The ravines stabbed downward, black wounds against the white with depths that rarely saw a glimpse of sun. He pointed and Connor turned his head to view along his arm--a red stag, antlered like a tree, coasted unhurriedly along the far slope. The wind was the wrong way for the wary beast to scent them, a grand sight. He watched the smile across his friend's face until it faded.
"It's time to go home, old man." Duncan said it gently.
"I am home, laddie."
Only Connor could get away with calling him that. He did it more often than Duncan preferred, but today he didn't chide him. This was the hardest part of all ... bringing him from the healing land back into the world that always hurt him. Like leading a horse back to the scene of a burned barn.
Duncan saw the look in his eyes; the quietness, stillness, pleading for time, searching for defenses. For an instant, he thought he would bolt and he reached without thought to clasp his hand, anchoring Connor to himself.
Connor regarded him, his eyes scudded with the clouds in the skies. "I know," was all he mustered finally.
"Come with me, old friend," Duncan softly encouraged. "I will help."
"I'm not ready, Duncan..."
"Conchobhar." Duncan cut the protest swiftly and calmly. "You are ready. I see it in you." But, then again, maybe he wasn't--for his elder clansman leaned against him, resting his brow on his shoulder. "I'll catch you. You won't be alone until you're ready. I'll be there." And he let his voice go on, in Gaelic, murmuring assurance and peace ... comforting a man suddenly a child.
The stag disappeared. A hunting kestrel skimmed the open ground. They stood together until Connor's straggling hair waved across Duncan's face enough that he had to sift a hand through it. A gesture of futility, as if anyone could tame his friend's thick hair once it got longer than his ears.
The Highlander raised his head to look fully at him a moment, face composed and quiet again. "I guess I need a haircut before we get to the airport," he muttered.
"Leave it long. I don't care," Duncan chuckled. "You can look a wild man until New York."
"Eh? And scare all the ladies away from you?"
"Well," he admitted thoughtfully, "there is that..."
Connor cuffed him on the arm in familiar affection and started back down the mountain. They walked together silently, skirting boulders and clumps of grasses, hopping over rivulets of water.
They both paused, almost of one accord, and looked back a moment when they reached the level again. Duncan waited for the words.
"Thank you, Blossom." They were said so tenderly even after all the years. Connor did not look back again as they left the moors and crags, the fragrant heather, the forbidding lochs of his home.
And Still I Go...
It had been nine months since Rachel died.
Connor MacLeod was on his own back in New York and Duncan had been free for a few weeks. It was a slow walk through the cemetery to find Tessa's grave this damp Paris day. The trees bowed under the heavy drops on the leaves and all was still and silent.
He sighed. It was hard to be here, but his kinsman always went back to his love on the mountain for solace--he had better start practicing now before the hurts of his long life drove him here in pain.
It had been a long time, but he found her marker easily. Unyielding granite, cold, smooth, barren as the death it represented. Faceless. Nothing like the vibrant woman he had laid here.
He felt sad and guilty ... ashamed. He had not been to see her the past few years. Her death still hurt him. The memories haunted him. He felt neglectful. As if he had abandoned her here in this desolate place, thousands of miles away from Heather's grave and just as tragically lonely. He hung his head beneath the curtain of his hair and stared at his feet.
What could he say to her? I've been too busy to see you? I thought you wouldn't mind if I just went on with life and didn't come?
He had raised his head and almost turned to go with all his useless words still locked inside, when he saw it. One small stone. Alone. Sitting atop the face of the slab to the left of her name.
Keeping watch. Taking care. Holding her hand during the long wait.
With a start of recognition, he realized that his love had not been forgotten all these years after all ... Connor had filled the interim. Visiting. Talking. Telling her all the tidbits of news that a lover wants to know about the one they have left behind.
"And laughing as he told you, I'll bet anything," he said fondly to the unresponsive stone. "Chuckling and telling poor jokes and cracking peanuts open while he sat here. Tossing a few at the squirrels for good measure and all the while keeping this running dialogue of everything that I've been doing. How much I've missed you and how much I've talked and talked to him about you----," and his deep voice rolled on in the empty graveyard, pouring out the years of silence in a steady rush of words.
He stayed for hours, talking and laughing beside Tessa's grave and allowing the sweet sense of homecoming to permeate his heart until there was no room left for the loss and grief that had haunted him. When he finally left at dusk, he knew he would never feel lost and on the run again. He had a place to go. Someone to talk to who was always there, waiting.
Author's notes: Conchobhar is the Gaelic word for Connor. Dhonnchaidh is the Gaelic word for Duncan.
Story tied together by the lyrics of "Hand," by Jars Of Clay from their album "If I Left The Zoo."
"I'm here waiting for something new to break my heart
From lost and not found, to run and not hide
Fear is keeping time with the beating of my heart
From lost and not found, to run and not hide
I hear your voice and follow
So callus laden, that I can't feel a thing at all.
Will you catch my fall?
My hand inside ... (your hand)
Losing my grip, falling so far
My hand inside your hand.
I'm doing way too much thinking
And it's tearing me apart
But I, I feel you reach for me
My hand inside ... (your hand)
Losing my grip, falling so far
My hand inside your hand.
So hard to believe, and still I go.
Still I go."