I am a Watcher.  It is what I do.  It is who I am; or rather who I
became from one walking moment to the next shattered intake of breathe
and muddy delta water.  I did not realize this; even after I had learned
of Immortals and accepted Ian's offer.  I did not realize this for more
years then seems possible.  It was not until I became included in the
intimate circle of friends that I realized who, what, I had become; by
then I saw no way to change.

I am a Watcher.  I watch Immortals.  To be specific I watch Duncan
MacLeod.  I do not watch because I am a voyeur, though there are those
who do so for that reason.  I do not watch because  I feel a need to
record and keep the histories, though that is what I answer when asked
directly.  I watch because I have a life debt.  I watch because I am
still here, still breathing, still loving and learning and one day I
will not be here, but they will.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

>From the private journal of Joe Dawson -

Autumn in Washington D.C. could be very welcoming, but not that year,
Nov. 13, 1982.  The winds blew harshly against bundled men and women
chilling the quiet mass as they moved in a solemn procession along the
great expanse of The Wall.  Name upon name gritblasted on the black
granite surface.  Over 58,000 confirmed dead, missing or POWs lined in
rows, chronologically from 1959 to 1975.  Sixteen years of anguish and
anger, fear and hope.  Enough time for children to be born and never
know their fathers, for wives to change from the flower of youth to the
brittleness of age.  Enough time to know better, enough time to change;
or maybe not.

Flags, flowers and pictures littered the abutment at the base of the
wall in silent remembrance.  Here and there, a group huddled or a single
person stood.  Each expressing grief and love for the lost ones.  The
dedication ceremony was long since over by the time I had finally made
it to The Wall to pay my respects to Bravo Company.  Truthfully, I don't
know if I would have gone on that day, or any day, had I not been doing
my job, following MacLeod.  The memories were never far from my thoughts
and the regrets were magnified each and every night as I performed my
evening ritual ending with the removal of my freedom.

How I hated my legs!  When ambulatory it was easy to think of myself as
whole; and the world tends to view us as we wish them to.  However, each
night, the cruel reminder of my broken body would lay upright beside the
bed making a mockery of my foolish pantomime at normalcy.  Then, each
morning, rather than admit defeat I would again strap myself into the
prison of self-delusion and walk tall and whole, losing once again to
the inevitability.  While learning to use these falsehoods I sometimes
overheard the therapists and nurses whispering; they would comment on
the determination it takes to learn the skill to walk again, the
physical effort necessary and how this was a testament to strength of
character as well as a measure of the individual.  I knew the truth.
There is a supreme cowardice in wishing for acceptance by not standing
out as unique.

As I stood at The Wall, I couldn't fail but to notice the number of men
and women, obviously no longer whole, yet all claiming their virtue and
strength by admitting their disability.  They silently triumphed in this
display whether surrounded by the support of family and friends or off
by themselves.  All the while I stood and watched.  It seemed all that I
was capable of, all that was in my future.  I am a Watcher after all.

I hadn't wanted to come to this place, not yet, and most definitely not
that day.  I had yet to come to terms with who I was and this was too
much a reminder of who I had been; but where your Immortal goes, so go
you.  I think that I hated him then.  I despised the fact that he was
whole, and would stay that way until the day he lost his head.  I was
angry that I found myself in a place that I would never have chosen to
be were I not compelled to follow.  Perhaps, most of all, I resented the
fact that he could choose to place himself in danger because he knew it
would not effect him.

All that I could see were the more than 58,000 names on that cold black
granite mocking his eternity and accusing me for doing nothing but
standing and watching.  All around us, whether real or remembered, were
the shattered souls left standing in grief who would never be whole
again.  Who better to watch and record than me.

I had been watching MacLeod for 4 years.  A few years previously he had
met and became seriously involved with a beautiful French artist by the
name of Tessa Noel.  I didn't know if Ms. Noel knew about MacLeod's
immortality, despite the circumstances of their meeting.  There hadn't
been much to report in the way of The Game so she wouldn't have had any
indication in that regard.  At the same, time this lull had given me
plenty of time to catch-up on most of his chronicles. Despite my
understanding of his past, why he wanted to come to the dedication
ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial didn't seem to make any
sense.  Though I knew that he had been in Cambodia in 1975 working in
rescue efforts for displaced persons, that didn't seem to be enough of a
reason to disrupt his idyllic life in Paris.

Because of the crowds and everyone's inward focus, I was able to move
close enough to MacLeod and listen as well as watch without any real
fear of being noticed.  Maybe I would get the reason after all; it was
worth a try.

It took a moment for me to re-orient when I realized that they were
speaking in French.  I should have realized this without being startled
but I was so involved with my own reflections that any language was
almost beyond comprehension let alone one which seemed so out of place.
Once I finally began paying attention and understood what was being
said, it was the reward that I was hoping for.   MacLeod was talking
about his time in Cambodia toward the end of the war.  It almost seemed
as if he was back there and no longer standing in front of the memorial
with thousands of other people, all held in their own reminisces.  He
told Tessa about the successful rescues and then he told her about his
most horrific failure, the time he re-met Kage and lost the children he
had come to save.

In re-telling the story, it became obvious that Tessa did not know about
MacLeod's immortality.  He told her of how he was leading a group of
orphans to meet with an evacuation plane.  When they got to the plane,
the pilot was dead, the plane destroyed.  While trying to plan the next
step, the sound of a chopper shattered the air.  The chopper was no help
however as it was a drug-runner who would not save the children instead
of picking-up his poison.  This was the most difficult part of the story
for the immortal as he told Tessa that he had been shot and left for
dead and when he awoke, the children and the nun had been slaughtered.
I don't think he realized that he was crying or that Tessa was holding
him, soothing him.  No one paid any special attention, they weren't the
only ones at The Wall that day giving and receiving comfort; no one that
is except me.  I stood, I watched and I recorded and at that moment I
hated myself and what I was.

At least I knew two things that I didn't know before; Tessa did not know
of his immortality and the reason that MacLeod had come to The Wall that
day.  What I didn't expect was what Tessa told MacLeod.  I will never
forget her words.  Though they were meant for another's ears, they spoke
directly to me as well.

"Duncan", she began, "do you think yourself a coward because you live
and they died?  You did what was humanly possible, perhaps more.  You
are not superman.  You are only one man with one life and you did what
you could do.  You are here today to remember and to share the tale of
those souls that you touched and who touched you.  You were able to save
so many more than you lost but the lost ones will stay with you forever
because you feel that you failed them.  There were no successes in that
war, there were only temporary illusions of safety between the horrors
of devastation.  It is important that you remember, both the ones you
were able to help as well as the ones who died.  If everyone forgets,
then who would tell the stories.  This memorial is not only to honor all
the ones who names are on that wall, but for the living who survived and
their children and their children's children.  The horror of war can
never be forgotten or it will be repeated again and again and again.
You made a stand and choose a hard path; to save rather than kill.  You
lost friends and you lost some of those you tried to help, but don't
loose yourself.  Your survival means that you can continue to work to
make sure something like this does not need to happen again.  If you
loose that direction, then you and all the others like you, will be the
final causalities of that place.  You can not sit by the sidelines and
not involve yourself in life and in the future.  You owe a life debt to
those who helped you survive that terrible time and place.  I did not
realize how important this memorial was to you before; now I do.
Please, don't paint yourself as something less than who you are, but
don't expect more than one man can do."

If I hadn't already been half-way in love with Tessa, I would have been
after that little speech.  I didn't hate MacLeod anymore and didn't envy
him either.  Because, unlike Tessa, I knew that he would remember those
he was unable to help for a very long time.  I had thought that MacLeod
was unaffected by the tragedies of the wars in which he fought, I was
wrong.  I also hadn't realized that at a certain point in time, MacLeod
no longer fought in wars but served in other capacities to save the
wounded or the civilian populations.  No matter how well I had thought I
knew this man, I realized that I didn't really know anything about him
at all.  If only I could talk with him, get to know him as more than a
subject of study, maybe that would help flesh out the reality of the
history of immortals.  If only that could happen, but that is not in the
job description.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

As I sit in the bookstore re-calling that day so many years ago, I
wonder, not for the first time, what would happen if an Immortal and a
Watcher met, became friends.  Would it really be so wrong?  After that
trip to The Wall, I realized that I had a lot to be thankful for; not
the least of which was the fact that I was alive.  I had been
castigating myself for being only human.  When I realized that Duncan
MacLeod, immortal, whole, and in love, had all the same feelings and
failings that I did, it didn't seem that we were so different after
all.  I also began to appreciate that I was not less than a man because
I was no longer in one piece.  Just as my guitar was a means to express
my feelings and my words were a way to record the truths as I saw them,
my legs were a tool to allow me to contribute in the way that I choose.
The strength of character was never in the determination to use the
tool, but the manner in which it was used.  Those words, spoken to
another, let me see the pain in my own heart and begin the healing so
long overdue.  I made a vow to myself that day that the opportunities
presented would not be overlooked.  Sometimes, you have to do more than
just watch.

The chime on the door has just wrung and I look up to see who has come
into the store.  It startles me for a moment when I realize that it is
Duncan MacLeod himself.  It seems that my assistant is somewhat
flustered and I had better get down there and take charge of this chance
meeting or else something might be said which shouldn't.

Finis
(We all know what happens next ;-] )