Letters from the Beyond
~Kate of Kintail, 2000
At the Legacy convention in DC we all got a few wonderful tastes of the new Highlander novel, 'An Evening at Joe's' which would be a compilation of stories by writers, cast, crew, and creators alike. This short piece is the continuation of one of these. Stan Kirsh's story was a compilation of letters written from the grave to those he left behind, to comfort them and explain what was happening in heaven. All characters and the original idea are not mine, simply borrowed for the sake of fanfic with interesting, angst-filled, thoughts of life, death, and heaven.
Oh, and this is a first draft... and please excuse my killing of a few commas throughout! :-)
Richie put down his pencil and leaned back in his chair, admiring his work. Joe, Amanda, Methos, and Duncan. So they were done at last, the letters he'd been trying write since the very moment of his death. Comfort, loyalty, friendship, forgiveness. They'd been so emotionally draining that he was glad for the pencil's rest, but still rather sad to see them completed. There was so much more he wanted to say, so much more he wanted to show them. But he knew that was not to be.
He felt two soft hands on his shoulders. A smile grew across his face as his head turned to show it. A heavenly wind swept a curl of long blond hair away from her face and Tessa's sweet smile returned his sentiment. "Finished already?" in a gentle French accent that Richie hadn't noticed how much he missed since he heard it again.
With a nod, he sealed the last envelope.
"It took me several earth years to finish mine. Duncan's..." she trailed off, and ran her hands from his shoulders to his back in comfort before removing them all together.
"It was hard for me, too, Tess."
For as long as there had been death, there had been these letters. They were necessary for a soul's complete transition into the ways of the afterlife. Richie knew he was one of just a few whose letters were actually being sent. The circumstances of his death and the possibilities of his immortal companions allowed it. The others were collected and stored away for an eternity. A flood of memories of that sacred night with Tessa came rushing back. The kidnapping, the renegade watcher, the random violence. The smell of the dark bushes he had crouched behind in wait. The sound of the hilt of the blade as it banged against his head and echoed within. The look in the man's face as the barrel of his gun stared them down. The desperate, gut-wrenching scream of someone who had been more than a mother to him as blood rushed from the hole in her chest. The sound and sight of the bullet coming at him, ripping him open, tearing his insides apart. And the footsteps of the man running away as the world grew black and cold around him for what would be the first time of many.
"Forgiveness," Tessa whispered softly, bending over to kiss Richie's forehead as a mother might.
With a smile, he gave her a nod. "I learned that one in life as well as death."
She nodded back. He had not told her of his run-in with their murderer, of holding him twelve stories up, of feeling the rush of power and revenge course through his very blood. But somehow, from the look in her eyes, he knew she had an idea of its happening. Her eyes. A warm blue kindness that he'd missed so much. He knew they understood.
He looked down at the letters, wondering if they really needed to be sent. Comforting they would be, but everyone copes differently and perhaps there were not as needed as they seemed. Methos... Amanda... they'd seen more mortals and immortals die than even Duncan had. Joe... he'd been through war, and now made his living watching live vs. death. But Duncan. What was it like for Duncan? How would he be grieving? How had he coped with Tessa's?
Memories flooded back, the black, the tears, the anger. Richie had been the immortal, not Tessa. And yet... and yet in this place, in this reality, there was no time. She looked as beautiful as ever, and was as inspired and artistic as ever. Death could not change what she was now, as it did with immortals. Here, there was no game, no death, no fighting. Just pure, innocent, beautiful immortality. Over ten years living with an immortal, and it was she who felt true immortality for the first time. And while it should never have happened the way it did, and though it was traumatic for them all, Tessa's soul was part of the bright, wholesome purity of immortality now in this heavenly, timeless dimension. But Duncan couldn't know it- not now. Not until his time was up. It had been Tessa's night to die, and he hadn't been able to stop it. It had been Richie's time to die then, and it had been his fault, after so many close calls in the past.
This was his final chance, and it was forever. And forever in a place without any concept of time held more than any prize of the game could. One hand wandered to his chest and for a moment he dwelled upon his lost immortality. His quickening had gone to Duncan; it was almost as if a part of his very soul was gone, perhaps to be recovered eventually. There was a force greater than himself, always driving him like the instinctual, obedient animals immortals were, and in the great pain and cold of death, he had felt it become one with his teacher. If it had to have happened, and Richie knew it would have eventually, he was glad a part of him was with Duncan. In the end, there could be only one. Perhaps the small part of what he was and what he felt for his mentor would help Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod be that one.
He gripped the letter tightly and then felt a rush of peace coarse through him. With a grin he held it up to Tessa to kiss before releasing them to fall upon the ground. The letters slowly rocked back and forth in the air, disappearing one by one before hitting the ground. Richie sighed. 'Goodbye for now.' It was done, the separation from his life on Earth.
Tessa punched him jokingly to relieve the tension. "Come on," she said, her accent showing through more as it broke through the silence. "Darius is waiting with tea and the chess board."
Kate's Kintail
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