This story was written for the Summer 2004 Lyric Wheel.  The story was to incorporate words from the song  POSSESSION by Sarah MacLachlan.   This story is set in the Highlander Universe between Finale II and Chivalry. It is probably rated R.

THE GERMAN DOCTOR

I cannot believe that I have been Adam Pierson for less than ten years and still his persona appears to have so completely overtaken my life. His analytical approach to the world has created a protocol that requires that I take prescribed and measured action steps to deal with the events of the past few months. Despite the fact that everything has changed, that there are several people – watchers and immortals – who know my true identity; I need to continue living my life as if I am still a watcher and a researcher. I specifically need to clean up after Donald Salzer.

The fact that he had left a back-up disk that his wife had easily found led me to believe that there were other things hidden in Shakespeare and Company. That meant going through the books one by one. Checking for false dust jackets, covers that didn’t match the interior pages, bent corners, things slipped between the pages, even those hollowed out books that sometimes hold guns and knives. I’ve discovered several valuable books that had been miss-shelved, currency from several different countries (some predating the 20th century) and the fact that Don (or some other employee) seemed to have a fondness for Dutch pornographic etchings. When I found another copy of the back-up disk just stuck in the shelves between books, I wondered if there were other copies more carefully hidden.

I’ve questioned the sincerity of my dedication to this project. Would I spend forever here and not be satisfied that I had found everything? Or, am I just putting this much time in the project because I do not want to admit to myself that my life had changed? After centuries of truly not caring about anyone but myself, suddenly I have become involved with people I identify as friends. Or, am I working so hard because I cannot admit my newly revealed feelings about Duncan MacLeod, which seem to have progressed beyond friendship?

I had not been left without a computer after the power surge had damaged the electrical infrastructure of most of Paris – probably due to my paranoia about unplugging my machine when I was not at home. My current system is not state of the art, but I have installed not one, but two firewalls and several levels of password protection. The found disks are “read only” and I have much more secure hiding places than my old friend Don. I rely on my ability to find back door connections to the Watcher Library to fill in the missing information on the sketchy database. One click and I am reading Watchers’ personal comments for the past thousand years.

I am busy reading the history of Duncan MacLeod. Of course, I had checked most of the current stuff after I received the call from Joe Dawson that MacLeod would be paying me a visit. Because I knew McLeod would recognize immortality, I had to be sure he could be trusted. Now I am reading everything. Going back to the beginning and reading not only about his conquests of other immortals, but about his travels, interests, and of course, his love life.

That is when I see the name, stop and read it again, and curse under my breath.

* * * * * *

1505 – Central France.

I know there has been speculation about my choice of alma maters. Why with the blossoming of seats of higher education all over Europe had I chosen to matriculate in medical school at the University of Heidelberg in the mid-15th century? Some have speculated that it might be due to the fact that the school allowed me to major both in medicine and dueling without considering the fact that pursuit of the two curricula might be mutually exclusive. Others have attributed it to my fondness for beer and deep-fried smoked pork forelegs. The truth of the matter was that I realized that if I had stayed in Spain or Portugal I would have been overly tempted to join some sailing expedition in search of a “New World” which I had visited centuries earlier with Irish Monks. My over-enthusiasm for such ventures, coupled with my firm belief that ships would not fall over the edge of the world, might have convinced some that I possessed magical or demonic powers. The results of such charges would not have been pleasant. So I traveled to the other side of the Holy Roman Empire and was fortunate not only to study medicine but also to read some of the earliest printed books.

My specialty was treating people infected with the plague. Not that my success rate in curing patients was any better than a myriad of other doctors, but I seemed to be somehow immune to catching the disease. A doctor willing to treat plague symptoms was able to move about at will without questions being asked.

But eventually I tired of the fight. As I traveled through central-France, an area that for the last 50 years has been swept by seven epidemics of the same plague I fought in Germany, I find that the night is my companion and solitude my guide. I do not plan to stay here. I have given this disease my best, and grown tired of the fight. Let someone else take up the sword against it

* * * *

It was not a name I ever thought would be associated with Duncan MacLeod. The MacLeod I know is far too world-wise to have ever been bewitched by the charms of Kristin. Then I realize that I am not picturing the MacLeod of the mid-seventeenth century, a MacLeod who has only been an immortal for a few decades and probably couldn’t read or write, let alone resist the charms of one so bountifully endowed with looks, money and land. His watcher has it all transcribed to the nth detail including the scene of MacLeod rising from the bathtub and walking across the room naked that leaves little to the imagination. I certainly have entertained the thought once or twice and smile as I read it again. I am sure most people would be intrigued by his learning about wine and fine clothes, two other skills he has certainly used to his advantage. Were it not for the things that I know about Kristin, it would be a pleasant story to read.

There is trepidation in my thoughts knowing that MacLeod was that close to pure evil and didn’t realize it. I also realize that if I had done my job, what I could have done, wanted to do, needed to do, but walked away from doing to survive another day, Duncan MacLeod might have ended up a warrior dead in the trenches of some war fought over what now is recognized as nothing at the hand of some other warrior immortal. The hero has his roots in muck that I should have cleaned up over a century before.

* * * *

It was a soft and gentle morning in early September. My large white horse’s feet made a trail in the dew that had not yet risen and the sun painted the air a soft shade of pink. Even though I knew winter was fast approaching, I delighted in the harvest air. The earth here was once again presenting its bounty to those who lived in the valley.

I came upon a small wooden hut at the edge of the forest with a yard full of flowers. I could not help but notice a woman cutting flowers and hanging them from the eaves to dry, and I recognized that the flowers and herbs are those used for medical potions. “Ring around the rosy. A pocket full of posy.” -- folk medicine and the songs of children fill my head. Still I had been traveling for several days without stopping and I craved human companionship. I directed my horse toward her house and speculated which of the many languages that I spoke she was mostly likely to understand.

Her name was Yolande, and it has been far too many centuries for me to remember the exact words I used as an introduction. She was as kind as she was beautiful and invited me to stay the morning and share the mid-day meal with her. I learned that my initial perception had been correct and she was the village healer. While the state of the local population was not as bountiful as the land, she had been holding her own against plague and pox and there was no shortage of babies to deliver.

I threw my whole being into helping her with the harvest – picking grapes to ferment into wine or to dry into raisins. I accompanied her on many of her healing trips and watched as she set fractured limbs with a gentle touch and the skill of those who had taught at Heidelberg’s hallowed halls. . We discussed at length possible causes of disease and the idea that prevention could be a greater blessing than treatment. We fanaticized of a world without disease. What was to be lovely fall morning extended into the winter.

With the coming of the cold several things changed.

First, we became lovers. I had resisted what I took to be her advances for a long time because I valued her as friend, a colleague and in some ways a teacher. I took the gentle touch on the shoulder, a hand trailing down my back, even the quick kiss as a sign that she welcomed intimacy between us. I knew I could never be her husband, but it was not something we ever discussed. When I finally decided that I could be her lover, I was shocked to learn that she was a virgin. I was not prepared for this the first time and took her too roughly. She cried, the first and many times after, but always begged me not to stop. When we finished, and after I'd wipe away the tears, she would lie in my arms and promise that the next time it would be joyful for both of us.

Second, the diseases of winter beset the local population. It was no longer the broken arm or the arrival of a baby that brought her neighbors to her home. Usually it was fever and cough. Often it was death. Mortal healers were always at risk of disease from those to whom they ministered. I expressed my fears for her and she told me that she had been caring for the sick long before I came to her village and would continue after I was gone. If I could treat the dead and dying, she could, too.

I told her I couldn’t die.

I told her everything -- almost everything.

She would awake close to me in the morning and whisper “my body aches to breathe your breath, your words keep me alive,” and I would sigh and wish that this could be true. She continued to treat the sick, but would no longer allow me to accompany her.

* * * * *

As I read the conclusion of the MacLeod-Kristin chronicles, I realized that my wished for ending did not happen. I could speculate the part about her becoming attached to MacLeod and his falling for the woman she had commissioned to paint his portrait. I was not surprised when the painter lay dead at her hands. What surprised me was that MacLeod was unwilling to take her head. He had to know that her past must have contained even more evil than he had seen in his encounter. At that time; a woman immortal would not have survived long on just her good looks and skill in bed.

I read the watcher’s comments about MacLeod’s inability to take the head of a woman with whom he had shared a bed and wonder if this consideration was ever extended to a man.

* * * *

I remember the night a well-dressed rider had arrived at Yolande’s home and told us that the estate of Madam Gillespie, a wealthy woman landowner, had been hit by disease again and again. Each time everyone in her home had been infected with pox and each time they had all died. Only she had lived. Now she had heard of the “German doctor” who might be able to help avoid it happening that winter.

I’d asked if the woman was old and ugly, thinking that perhaps she had been once infected with the pox and recovered, creating her immunity, but the courier informed me that she was quite beautiful. His plea was convincing and presented a challenge.

Yolande was welcome to come with me; another healer would also be useful. We packed our bags and were to leave in the morning, and as I lay awake, Yolande at my side, the unarticulated missing piece fell into place. Kristin Gillespie had to be an immortal. That was the only way she could have survived repeated bouts of the pox. I speculated as to how she had learned of my presence, and decided that what she really wanted was to take my head.

I could not go. I tried to explain it to Yolande; but without telling her the part about the wanting to take my head, I was arguing under a severe handicap. A natural healer faced with an argument based on fear -- expressed by a man who had already told her he could not die -- would not stand up to a whole community dying where she might be able to help. I could not stop her. She rode off with him without me and I realized I would never see her again.

* * * * *

I exit Duncan’s files and move to Kristin’s. What I feared opened before my eyes. There was a period of several centuries where her watcher changed with rhythmic regularity reporting that the previous watcher, had died when the plague, or the pox, had swept through Kristin’s estate killing everyone. There is even a mention of a female country healer who had kept the people alive one winter and helped them grow flowers and herbs to help prevent disease. With the coming of the next winter, Kristen had shown her gratitude by distributing warm blankets to all those in her estate. Within weeks the pox came and everyone, including the healer, had died.

I was about to add flippantly that the German doctor was still alive and well, when I realized what I had just read. It was Kristin who had killed them all. It was the blankets that carried the disease. She had probably gathered them after the last round of disease and saved them until the time came when she needed to rid herself of those who surrounded her. I wonder if she were motivated by a bad harvest and resulting hunger, or wanting to hide her immortality, or jealousy of a beautiful healer who would teach the peasants to avoid disease. It didn’t matter. She had used the blankets like bullets or a sword.

How was she stopped? Why had it not gone on for centuries more? I find a note dated 1590 which reports a fire sweeping through her barns. That was probably where she stored the blankets. I wonder if it had been accidental or if it was set by someone who had figured out what Kristin was doing.

It certainly wasn’t the German Doctor. He had survived, but . . .

* * *

Anger and guilt are not emotions that contribute to one’s survival. But, sometimes, even one who has thousands of years by avoiding conflict is overcome by the past or by the present.

I read through Kristin’s reports into to the present time. I follow stories of intense jealousy, fits of anger, and mysterious disappearances and deaths of both mortals and immortals with whom she has had contact. There is nothing of the scale of her murders of the 16th century, but she has not changed.

I see that Kristin has been based the last 12 years in Los Angeles, running a modeling agency, and that this summer she is planning a talent search in, of all places, Seacouver. I breathe a little easier speculating that she is bound to cross paths with Duncan MacLeod and that he will do what I had been afraid to do almost 500 years before.

But MacLeod had been unable or unwilling to take her head when they had been together, when she had hurt him and killed someone he loved. MacLeod does not avoid conflicts out of fear for his survival. I remember the watcher’s comment and wonder if it could be true. I know Kristin is strong and not afraid to kill. I suddenly shudder at the thought of Kristin killing MacLeod.

I have to go to him. Perhaps I can convince him that she needs to die. That she will kill him if he doesn’t kill her first. He cannot give her a second chance. He cannot continue to let her live. She deserves to die. If he doesn’t kill her, then someone will have to do it.

McJude
June 11, 2004