Disclaimer: Rysher, Inc., and Panzer/Davis own the characters; I'm borrowing them for a little while for the sake of amusement and no other purpose and will return them unharmed. All song verses here are from music that I have written; please do not use them or set them to your own music without contacting me. I am grateful to my friends Heidi, Jo and Harry for pointing out things I didn't catch.

Blues for a Summer Night

by Kit Mason

(©1996, Karen-Marie Mason)

It had been a long slow evening. Joe was just winding up his last set as he saw her walk in on the longest legs he'd ever seen. His heart jumped, but it wasn't connected to his fingers so none of the audience even noticed his glance toward the door.

"Of all the blues joints in all the world, why'd she have to walk in here?" he muttered to himself. The guitar wailed; he nodded to the band and they segued into the last song he'd planned, "I Got It Bad, And That Ain't Good." It was cool blues, something to slow down the tempo, wind up the evening, and maybe even give the audience a breath of comfort on a steamy night.

She stood at the bar with a wineglass, waiting for the set to end. He knew he'd have to face her eventually, even if he drew out the last few notes to infinity. After the applause, he leaned his guitar against the speaker, stepped down off the platform and made his way through the crowd with its friendly comments, smiling at and shaking hands with the regular customers who kept the place going.

"Bar's closing in a few minutes. Any last requests?" he asked. She turned to face him, her eyes making large holes in a pale mask.

"How about cyanide?" Her voice might have sounded flippant if its tone hadn't been so dark. He could have sworn she'd been crying, but that was ridiculous; Amanda never wept.

"Will that be for here or to go?" He was trying to joke about it, but he could see it wasn't working.

"For here. Oh, Joe, can't I just stay and talk for a while?"

She'd never asked him for anything personal before. Always, when she asked for anything, it had been something to help MacLeod. This time it was for herself, but he had a sneaking suspicion the big Scotsman was mixed up in it too.

"Sure. Bar's closing, but I can make up coffee if you like. Or maybe the kitchen can rustle up a sandwich? You look hungry."

She wavered a moment, then nodded as she sat on an empty barstool. "Food would taste good in a while, but for now can the rules bend far enough for me to buy a drink?"

Joe nodded and went behind the bar, gesturing to Mike to lock the door after the last customer left. Mike took a look at Amanda, and back at Joe, then followed the customers out, locking the door behind himself. The room was empty except for the two of them; the cook had left at 11, three hours ago.

"Tell you what; I'll put it on my own tab, so the Liquor Board won't pull my chain about selling after hours. What'll you have?"

She stared at the bank of sweet liqueurs behind him, then at the shelf of scotches and whiskeys. "For now, a Benedictine and brandy, with the good brandy. I'd like to make the next drink myself, if you don't mind."

He shrugged. "I might learn something." He made the drink in a pony glass and passed it to her; her hand brushed his as she took it and an electric shock went through him. When he pulled back he could still feel her touch on his hand for a long time. She pushed aside the white wine she'd originally bought, and he put it under the counter.

"I realize it's none of my business," he said as he watched her sip her drink, "but would you mind telling me why you're so sad tonight? I didn't think Amanda Darieux ever looked this sad." He'd never thought he could feel sorry for this woman whom he knew to be more than a thousand years older than himself, but right now he wanted to take her in his arms and hold her like a child, and let her cry herself out on his shoulder.

She lifted her eyes from the counter to meet his. "I'm sorry, Joe. I'm not very good company tonight. Maybe I'd better go." She started to slide off the barstool, but he caught her hand in his own.

"Please, don't leave on my account. If you want to talk, I'll listen. If you don't want to talk, would you mind doing some listening? I've got a few new songs I'm working out on guitar, and I need to practice them when nobody else is around."

Her smile twisted a little, but it was a genuine smile. "And I'm the perfect Nobody tonight? No, Joe, it's all right. I'd love to listen to you play. It always makes me feel better. I probably should have come here earlier, but I've been pacing around the streets for a couple of hours."

"Did anyone give you trouble?" He knew he shouldn't feel concerned; this woman had been an experienced fighter before the Norman Conquest. He also knew that to Seacouver's muggers she would just look like any other young, beautiful woman in a miniskirt: an easy target. But not tonight, he realized as she shook her head. The cloud she carried around her this night would make her seem dangerous to anyone who didn't know her. No wonder she'd been safe.

She settled herself at a small table right in front of the bandstand, tipping her chair back and putting her feet on the edge of the small stage, ankles crossed properly. In any other woman, he'd think the motion was designed to set off her long legs; with Amanda, it was just the way she moved and not calculated at all. He climbed back onstage, leaned against his stool, and adjusted the volume on the amp before picking up his guitar. It had been set to project the music over a noisy crowd, but now he wanted a more intimate sound for an audience of one.

He picked out a lead line on the guitar, playing with it until it felt comfortable, and started to sing quietly.

"Where do you come from, big river, where do you go? You carry my life along in your flow,
You carry my heart where it's never been before. Roll on, big river, roll."

Amanda stirred a bit when he came to the third line, and he thought he saw tears on her cheeks. He moved on into a verse.

"All that we are is nothing to you.
You sweep us away, the old and the new
And there's nothing we can say or do
but roll, big river, roll."

It was tears, dripping down her face and onto her black sweater. He thought of stopping, but she shook off his inquiring glance. Instead of singing another verse, he played with more of the lead line, things he'd do in the interval between verses. The blues notes bent and wound around the corners of the room, wrapping around the two of them and coming back again. He stopped playing at the end of the phrase, and she looked up, startled out of her private reverie.

"You know," he said in an everyday conversational tone, "we're going to have to stop this."

"Wh-what?"

"If you keep crying right there, you'll short out my amp. Besides, I can't stand to see a beautiful woman crying and be this far away from her." He knew he was out on thin ice with the last sentence, but he decided to take the chance. "Would you mind if I pick up the acoustic guitar instead and sit at the table with you? It's a bit disturbing to have my entire audience in tears; I might start to think you didn't like my music."

Amanda's smile this time was a little thinner, but still real. "All right. Just don't ask me to sing." She sniffled just a little. "I sound like a toad."

"I doubt it, but all right. Whatever you want." She pushed the table over to make room for him to get down offstage next to it, and picked up an armless chair for him to sit in with the guitar. He settled himself beside the table, played a few bars of a tune he'd heard on a new album by some guy named Jim Byrnes, "That River." He liked the guitar work as well as the voice on that one; it was right in his range, and the words were sweet. He sang the song slowly, not as intensely as Byrnes did, but with longing and quiet sureness. He hadn't been looking at her, wanting to give her a little privacy, but as he finished the last phrase he did look and saw the tears rolling down her cheeks again.

He reached across the table to wipe away the tears with a gentle hand. "This is probably the wrong thing for me to ask, but is there anything I can do?"

She caught his hand on her cheek and held it. "It's just been a long, rough day," she whispered, "and you're the only friendly face I've found in it."

"I find that hard to believe," Joe said. "What happened?"

She wiped away the rest of her tears with the back of a hand, and took a long sip of her drink. "Yesterday I was in Paris, and I got this notion to come here and visit. It took forever to get a plane -- you heard about the bomb blast in Orly? That wasn't a bomb, it was a French Immortal named Carrondelet, who thought my sword would make a good addition to his collection." She grimaced. "He could have chosen a better place than the baggage room; some people are going to be really upset with the condition of their luggage."

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Broken ribs, a broken wrist. The arm is almost better now but the ribs still ache. Some of us heal slower than others. I probably shouldn't go back too soon; the police got pretty close during the Quickening, and I don't need that kind of complication."

"I can imagine." Carrondelet had been a nasty sort, killing other Immortals just because he liked to own their swords. He'd been due for beheading for some time, but Joe was sorry that Amanda had to be the one to do it. It seemed to take so much out of her.

"You're one of the few who can, I think." She gulped a little more of her drink. "So I got here, and the first thing I did was to head for the dojo, to see MacLeod, and what do I see as I come down the street but him standing at the door of the dojo, wrapped around this little brunette. I swear he didn't even notice I was there." She winced at the thought. "I went to find Richie, to ask him who she was and what was going on, and all I found was a note on his door to tell his latest girlfriend he'd be away for the weekend for a bike race."

"Did you get anything to eat in all this?" Joe asked. She really did look peaked, it wasn't his imagination. She shook her head.

"Just the airplane food. I'd been hoping to go to dinner with Duncan."

He could guess from her expression that the dinner she'd planned would have taken place long after the in-bed appetizer.

"Well, if you can stand my cooking, I can make you an omelet that'll give you a whole new outlook on life." He gestured toward the kitchen. "Care to give it a try?"

"Not yet, and only if you'll have some too. I don't like eating alone." It was a weak attempt at humor, but he gave her a smile anyway — an A for effort.

"So you're in town, nobody to see, and nowhere to go, and you come here. I'm glad you showed up," Joe told Amanda. "I hadn't heard anything in a while and I was worried."

She raised her perfect black eyebrows. "You, worried? Didn't your intelligence system figure out where I was?"

He shook his head. "I can't ask, you know. I have to go on what someone tells me, and if they don't say anything I don't hear about it. Wherever you went six months ago, you might as well have been on the moon for all the good it did them."

She shifted position and grunted a little with the effort. "Good. Now I have at least one place I can go where your Watchers don't find me." She shifted again. "Sorry. It takes a little longer to recover from broken ribs than it does from just being run through with a blade, or shot."

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked, knowing there wasn't really.

"Play me another song, please, or tell me a story. You can't have lived this long without having your heart break over someone who doesn't care enough."

"I've had a few of those," he said drily. "Offhand, I'd say MacLeod cares for you a lot."

"Sure." She drained her glass and set it on the table with a snap. "That must be why I'm finding it so hard to catch him between mortals — because he cares so much. I haven't been able to get close to him for most of this century; he's spent that much time falling in love with the first pretty woman who walks past him, every time." She got up and headed toward the bar. "I think it's time for me to fix myself that second drink. If you want, I'll tell you what's in it. Don't get up on my account," she added.

He strummed a few bars of another song, something he'd been toying with but hadn't really worked out yet.

"Have you ever fallen in love with a mortal?" he asked, not expecting her to reply. She was pouring something at the bar and probably didn't even hear him. Even from here, with those long legs hidden behind the bar, he found a lot to admire as he watched her, and a lot to wonder about. How did anyone so independent manage to look so vulnerable? She usually wore a don't-care hard shell over her emotions, but it was missing tonight.

"Here it is: a whiskey mac. The only Mac I'll have today." She set the glass on the table for him to taste. "Half green ginger wine, half Laphroag. It's supposed to cure what ails ye."

He took a tiny sip. "Interesting. The taste could grow on you."

"It's usually for healing colds, but it does a pretty good job on other things too. It should help the ribs; I'm not sure if it'll do anything for the heartache." She had been drawing a random pattern on the tabletop with her finger; now she looked up at him. "And the answer to your question is yes. I've fallen in love with men who weren't Immortals, about one a century, because it's so much harder to go on after they die, and they all die so quickly. Especially this century, with all those wars."

He pushed her drink back toward her and started to finger-pick another piece, something he'd heard from a folksinger and decided to rework as a blues song. For a few minutes he let his fingers wander into chord progressions and lead lines, going where they wanted to go. He knew they also wanted other things, right then, but he didn't know if Amanda would want them as well, so he kept fingering blue notes and searching for sequences that would help him find the right words.

"I think I was about 23 when it happened," he said at last, over a wavering E chord. "I was working in my first band after 'Nam, and there was this girl who kept showing up in the back of the room. Young, pretty, always alone. After a while I got so I was just playing to her, to see her reaction. She'd come in, listen to a few songs, smile at me and leave; this went on for a couple of months. I kept thinking about her, about how she loved the music, and I wanted to meet her in the worst way. One night when I figured she'd be coming in I took a break and had the guys play a couple of instrumentals without me so I could be there at the back of the room to meet her. She came in, looked up at the bandstand, and started to leave. I stopped her, introduced myself, and asked her if I could buy her a drink. She seemed really nervous, and I asked her if there was anything I could do, but she said no, she had to leave. She headed out the door, faster than I could walk after her -- I hadn't had the prostheses long enough to be comfortable moving quickly in them -- and when I reached the door there was this guy pulling her into a car and speeding away."

He said nothing for a moment, but struck a minor chord that modulated into another sequence of notes. "A couple of days later, there's her photo in the newspaper. Woman killed by jealous boyfriend. Everyone said she was bright, hardworking and bound to be a success if she got one good break; she just had bad taste in men. The police couldn't find any reason for her boyfriend to kill her; she hadn't had another boyfriend they could find. She liked to listen to the blues on her way home at the end of a long shift at the diner down the street." He stopped a moment and the room grew silent, then played a tender chord of harmonics. "I knew differently. We were never lovers except in our minds, but it was there, in the music." He paused, then said it. "When you walked in tonight I almost thought she'd come back."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He looked at her, then away. "I know you're not her ghost. But it made me feel good having you in the room at the end of the set."

"Thanks." Amanda nodded. She listened to the notes echoing in the quiet room. "How long did it take before you fell in love again?"

This time it was his own smile that twisted a little at the corners. "Honey, I can fall in love any time. But I didn't trust my heart again for more than a year." He shifted in his chair and brought the guitar into a more comfortable position. "Could I ask you to get me something to drink? I'm getting a little dry here. Whiskey and water is fine."

She went to the bar and poured him a drink. When she brought it back to the table, she said, "Can you tell me anything about her?"

He didn't misunderstand the question. "The woman Duncan's seeing is a doctor, Anne Lindsey. She works in the Emergency Room at Regional Hospital; I guess he's been seeing her for about a month or two. They come in here sometimes for dinner." His eyes met hers; she wanted the truth. "I don't know how serious it is. She's not another Tessa, or at least he's not treating her the same way, and I'd swear she doesn't know about Immortals."

Amanda nodded. "He may not tell her, either. He doesn't usually. I almost feel sorry for her." She shook her head. "Duncan's a difficult man to love; there's so much he keeps inside that he won't let out. If she finds out all at once, she won't be able to deal with it."

"No?" He thought about Anne's tough mind and warm heart, and the uncertain look in her eyes when Duncan wasn't noticing.

"If she's a doctor, she's going to want scientific evidence. Do you see any of us standing still willingly for medical tests?" Amanda's eyes clouded. "Damn you, MacLeod. Why'd you have to go and fall in love again so soon? Don't I ever get a chance with you?" She put her hand over her eyes, but the tears came through her fingers. "I'm sorry," she said at length. "I hate being a sloppy drunk, and I'm not even that drunk."

"It's all right. I may be only a mortal, but you've always got a shoulder to cry on here, if you want it."

She wiped her eyes again. "You're not 'only' anything, Joe Dawson, and you should remember that. How about one more song, and then I'll take you up on that omelet? If the offer's still valid, that is?"

"All right." He picked up the acoustic guitar again and thought a moment, then played a few bars for intro and started to sing.

"Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it heals
You can't always tell from the way it feels
But I'll never give up, I'll always keep loving you.
Sometimes you're happy, sometimes you're sad
And sometimes you make me feel so mad
But I'll never give up, I'll always keep loving you.
You're not always there when I need you
when I call out your name in my dreams
Other lovers try to lead you
Away from me, but you're all I see
Sometimes I'm lonely, sometimes I'm blue
Then you come back and love me through and through
So I'll never give up, I'll always keep loving you."

The last chord died away in the silence. Amanda put down her glass, stood up and looked at the empty stage for a moment. Then she turned, leaned over and kissed him, long and sweet. The kiss went on as he reached up to touch her face and her hair. When they moved apart, it was only a few inches.

"Would you like that omelet now, or later?" he asked in a soft voice.

She shook her head just enough to make the tips of her hair move. "Could I have it for breakfast?" She sounded hesitant. "I don't want to get you in trouble with the Watchers."

"You won't, or at least not any more than I'm already in for hanging out with MacLeod. It'll take them some time to find you again, and by then you'll be somewhere else. Are you sure?" He didn't want to take advantage of her. "I don't want this to be something you'll regret in the morning."

"It's almost morning already, Joe." She smiled, and this time the smile reached her eyes. "And one thing I've learned from living this long is not to regret anything, especially loving a friend."

He kissed her this time, a kiss like a promise. Without any more words or music, they locked the doors and left, her arm in his, her steps slowed to match his own. The sky was turning pale as they walked together, and the streetlights blinked off.

finis

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