© 1997

Elspeth Fingall arrived at college orientation early in the morning. Her only companion was a young man who looked a bit older than her. He stayed long enough to help her bring her luggage up to her room. He left after a quick hug and an encouraging word.

Anyone who met Elspeth that morning saw a petite young woman with long blond hair and piercing blue eyes. She was dressed the same as many of the other arriving freshmen, in sandals, cut-off jean shorts, and a red tank top. Her new I.D. showed her to be twenty years old, a bit old for a freshman at the small private college she had chosen, but not old enough to be truly unusual.

Elspeth had arrived before her roommate and so chose the bed by the window, leaving the larger closet as a fair trade. The first thing she unpacked was an oblong, wrapped parcel. Making sure that the door was locked, she removed the packing paper to reveal a short sword and an old, well- used dagger. She quickly placed them in a gear bag and secured it under her bed. That done, Elspeth again became the college student she was pretending to be, and settled in to make her room habitable.

Elspeth Fingall was most decidedly not a typical college freshman. She was in fact a seven hundred year old Immortal, born in the Scottish Hebrides in 1249. She had died her first death at the age of seventeen and had been found by an Immortal named Angus MacDonald, who became her teacher. Elspeth was probably the only person who recognized Angus as one of the many incarnations of Methos, the oldest Immortal. On the day that she went out on her own, Elspeth had decided to follow in the footsteps of her adoptive father, who had been a bard in the finest Scottish tradition. Through seven hundred years, she had lived in many places and had many different lives, but no matter where she went, she surrounded herself with music.

For the past ten years, Elspeth had played oboe for a small but acclaimed symphony orchestra on the West Coast of the United States. It had been a peaceful and fulfilling life. She had not met a single Immortal in her time there. It ended one day when she died in an extremely messy, very public car crash. Her idyllic existence was shattered in an instant. After sneaking out of the morgue, she took refuge with an old Immortal friend and began a search for something new, while he collected her belongings and tied up the loose ends of her old life. She almost immediately decided to return to college. It had been about fifty years since her last degree, and she found she missed life as a student. She had a friend on the admissions board of a New England school who was able to smooth over the more obvious inconsistencies of her past.

And so Elizabeth Finlay, musician, became Elspeth Fingall, eager young college student. She knew almost immediately that she would not regret her choice to return to school. It felt good to be a kid again, to ignore the worries of the adult world. The first days of her new life were exhilarating. Starting over had always been an exciting time for her, and this time was particularly special. For the first time in forty years, she was using her real name. It felt right somehow.

Elspeth settled in quickly, and was almost able to convince herself she was in fact the twenty- year-old she claimed to be. But there were little reminders of real life that managed to intrude. On the second morning of orientation, she literally ran into one of the other girls that lived on her floor as she was heading for her morning shower. The other girl dropped her shampoo bottle and both girls reached to pick it up simultaneously. Elspeth was given a perfect view of a familiar blue tattoo on the inside of the other girl's wrist. Her Watcher looked horrified when she noticed the direction of Elspeth's gaze. Elspeth gave her an encouraging grin. She had known of the existence of the Watchers for nearly three hundred years, and had gradually gotten used to their presence. "I didn't see a thing," she whispered in a conspiratorial tone and the girl smiled with a strange combination of relief, gratitude and suspicion.

Registration was the next day, and Elspeth concentrated on history classes. The high point of her schedule was a music history class. She wanted to continue with her music in some manner, and the class was a harmless way to relive one of the happiest periods of her life. It was a two hundred level course, concentrating on Romantic and modern music. She arrived for the first class in an extremely good mood. There were about twenty other students, mostly upperclassmen. They spoke together quietly, waiting for the professor to arrive. Elspeth gathered that the man was tough but fair, and that he really knew his material.

The door opened and the room quieted as an older man stepped inside. Elspeth's mouth dropped open. She knew him. The course listings had only had a last name, Williams, and she had given it no thought. Now, she wished she had known.

1953- Lancaster, Ohio

Elspeth sat on the park bench, Tom beside her. They were silent. It was a beautiful spring day, and Tom had suggested the walk to the park. Elspeth thought she knew the reason why, and was almost sick with dread.

She had met Tom a year before, not long after she had come to Lancaster to stay with an "uncle," who was actually an old Immortal friend. His company supplied the grocery store that Tom's father owned, and Tom helped managed. He was poised to follow in his father's footsteps in the family business, but Elspeth soon found out that Tom had other ideas.

Tom wanted to go to college. He wanted to leave his small hometown. He immediately identified Elspeth as someone who understood, and she became a close confidant. She helped him with his applications when his father made his displeasure at his son's idea known. After that, they spent a great deal of time together.

Though no one in town knew it, Elspeth had just lost her husband of forty years, and she had come to Lancaster to try to rebuild her life. At the time, she decided she could never again love anyone as much as she had loved Peter. Tom changed that. In less than a year, he wound his way into her heart. She knew that he was half in love with her, but she didn't see her own feelings. When she finally realized how she felt about him, she was immediately afraid. Peter's death was too fresh in her mind. As much as she wanted to, she knew she could never be completely happy with Tom, knowing he would also die. She wanted him to find a mortal wife, a girl he could have children with, a woman who would grow old with him. With a heavy heart, she made plans to leave Lancaster. Then came his invitation to the park.

Tom nervously cleared his throat and brought Elspeth back to the present. "I got into the University," he said abruptly.

"That's great!" Elspeth exclaimed enthusiastically.

"Dad wants me to stay here, but I got a scholarship, so he really couldn't say anything," Tom continued.

"You deserve to go," she said. "You'll do well. I know you'll be happy." ~And you will forget me,~ she silently completed the thought.

He reached out suddenly and grabbed her hand. "Ellie, there's only one thing I need to make me perfectly happy," he said earnestly, looking deep into her eyes. "I love you, Ellie. Will you marry me?"

Elspeth hung her head momentarily. "Tom," she said as she pushed away the lump forming in her throat, "I can't marry you. We're too different. You don't know me as well as you think. I wouldn't be a good wife for you."

Tom snatched his hand away in shock. "Are you sure?" he asked, his heart in his voice.

Elspeth nodded. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm leaving next week. It's time for me to move on. You will too." She looked back up, but he had turned away from her.

He stood up; his face was stricken. "I'll never forget you, Elspeth Fingall," he said before he turned and walked away.

She didn't see him again. She left Lancaster and started a new life, with a new name, in Boston the next week.

"Fingall, Elspeth," Professor Williams called out.

Elspeth raised her hand only slightly and called out "Here," barely loud enough to be heard. She willed him not to look at her. She regretted using her real name again. Against her wishes, he did look at her, and his face paled momentarily before he moved on to the next name.

The professor finished the roll and moved on to an explanation of the syllabus and a basic outline of the class. Elspeth scarcely heard a word. She knew she had to get out of there. It wasn't fair to him for her to barge into his life in this way. There was no easy way to explain her presence to him. He finished his remarks and the students packed up their bags and filtered out of the room. Elspeth tried to hide behind the line, but he saw her anyway.

"Miss Fingall, may I speak to you?" he called out quickly.

Elspeth sighed inwardly and stepped up next to him. He had aged greatly since she had last seen him. He was in his sixties now, with dark gray hair and glasses. He looked the part of the distinguished professor, in a well-worn cardigan and corduroys. The Tom she had known was still there, but changed and grown.

"This is a rather strange question, but are you named for an aunt perhaps?" he asked. "I knew an Elspeth Fingall when I was young and she looked very much like you."

Elspeth froze for just a moment. It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell him the truth, but that was insane. Tom knew nothing of Immortals, and telling him would be foolish. "I'm named for my great-aunt," she lied smoothly. "I'm told I look a lot like her."

"You've never seen her?" Tom asked casually.

"No, she died before I was born," Elspeth said unemotionally.

For a brief moment, she saw pain in his eyes and she flinched away.

Tom nodded once, his face back to normal. "Well, I'll let you go, I'm probably keeping you from a class. I hope you enjoy the course. Ellie loved music, as I recall."

"So I'm told," Elspeth said before she fled out the door.

Elspeth spent the entire afternoon debating whether or not she should take the class with Tom. She thought she'd left him behind forty years ago, and gone on with her life. Now, she wanted nothing more than to tell him the truth. Could it be that she was still in love with him, or was it just a wistfulness at what might have been that prompted that feeling? She wasn't sure, but she was determined to find out. Resolving to fix him into her mind as Professor Williams, she decided to stick with the course.

Thursday was the first college orchestra rehearsal. Elspeth played a number of instruments, and she had trouble deciding which one to concentrate on at school. The only definite had been that she would not play oboe. Her recent death was still too fresh in her mind for her to want to play that instrument. In the end, she had settled on the viola, figuring she could use the practice. She arrived at the rehearsal to find her Watcher there ahead of her, also with a viola.

Elspeth had already managed to ascertain that her Watcher's name was Lara, and that she was only eighteen years old. Why so young a girl was doing fieldwork was a mystery to Elspeth, and she was looking forward to finding out the reason. She had been friends with her Watcher about seventy years ago, and decided now was a good time to try again.

Lara, for her part, studiously ignored Elspeth, to the point of saying nothing even when they were placed in seats directly next to each other. This one obviously needed some time to get the Watcher non-interference oath out of her system. It would probably be a good year until Elspeth could approach her as a friend. She found the prospect strangely exciting.

By late September, they were into the opera composers of the late Romantic period in music class. Elspeth particularly loved the discussion. She had lived in Paris during the era of grand opera and had always enjoyed hearing the various contemporary theories on the music.

She met Professor Williams on the Green one day, as she was heading back to her dorm. He was going in the opposite direction, and he stopped her for just a moment, to ask her about the progress of her paper on German lieder that was due the next week.

The conversation started out quite innocently. They progressed from the details of the assignment into a discussion of Goethe's poetry. Professor Williams told her that he really didn't like Goethe all that much, and Elspeth choked. She often had the unfortunate tendency to speak without thinking, when she was with people she could trust. Today was the kind of day when she regretted her odd habit, as she found herself blurting out, "That's crap, Tom. You had 'An Den Mond' taped to your bedroom wall. You love Goethe!"

Tom's mouth dropped open and he unconsciously took a step backwards. In her indignant tone and flashing eyes, he had seen the Elspeth he had known and loved. "How did you know that?"

"Shit," Elspeth whispered as she looked down at the ground. "Tom, I . . . "

"How did you know that?" he asked again, this time more urgently. "You can't be her. She would be as old as me now. You said she was dead!"

Elspeth looked back up. Her eyes had changed. They looked old, far too old for her youthful body. "I didn't die. I am older than you are, Tom. I am the Elspeth Fingall you knew."

"I don't understand," he said in a surprisingly level voice.

"We met in Lancaster, Ohio, in 1952," she said. "I helped you with your college applications. You asked me to marry you."

"How is this possible?"

"Is there somewhere a bit more private where we can talk?"

"I was going to my office," he offered.

Elspeth nodded, and Tom led the way to his office on the third floor of the arts building. It was an attic room, with a deep dormer window. One wall was completely lined with books and a cello sat in one corner. The walls were decorated with sheet music. "I didn't know you loved music so much," she said as she sat down. "I remember the cello, but you were mostly a poet."

Tom smiled slightly. "I once knew a girl who loved music. She talked about it all the time and she made it seem like the most important thing in the world. When I went to college, I took a music history course because of her. That course convinced me that this is what I wanted to do."

"I didn't know I had that much of an effect on you," she commented softly.

"It seems neither of us knew each other as much as we thought," he remarked. He turned to look out the window. "I thought of you for years after you left. But I never saw you again, and I gave up after a while. I'd always hoped I'd meet you again, but I wasn't expecting this," he said. "How is this possible?"

Elspeth took out her dagger. It's very hard to hide a sword in summer clothes, so she had taken to wearing the knife instead. In a pinch, it was enough to defend herself with until she could get away and fetch her sword.

"What are you doing with that?" he asked suspiciously.

"Just watch," she said as she sliced her palm open. Tom drew in a sharp breath and leaned forward to help. Gritting her teeth through the pain, she kept him away from her hand and forced him to watch. When the blue sparks of the Quickening began to knit the wound back together, he gasped. "I am Immortal," she said when the wound was gone. Tom's eyebrows shot up, but he said nothing, and Elspeth continued. "I was born in 1249, in Scotland. James Allen wasn't my uncle. He was another Immortal, a friend of mine. I came to stay with him after my husband died. I needed to get away for a while."

"This is unbelievable," Tom said. "But you are the same. You're Ellie." He sat still for a few minutes, grappling with the new concepts he had just been forced to accept. Elspeth sat beside him quietly. She had seen mortals battle to understand the impossibility of her life before, and she had learned it was wisest to let them be until they had accepted it. After a few more minutes, he broke out of his reverie.

"I wish I'd known about your husband. You must have hated me for acting like I did," he stated.

"I didn't hate you at all," Elspeth admitted. "If I hadn't just lost Peter, things might have gone differently. But I didn't think I could deal with losing someone again, so I drove you away. It was my loss."

"I wanted to hate you for years after that," Tom commented. "Until I met Clara."

She had noticed the wedding ring he wore. "I'm glad you found someone. I've always wanted you to be happy. I'd like to meet her."

Tom sighed. "I lost her last year. Cancer."

"I'm so sorry," Elspeth said. It was strange how their positions had reversed since they had last met.

Tom shrugged. "It's better this way. She was in so much pain toward the end."

Elspeth swallowed against the wave of sympathy rising within her. "I don't have to take this class, Tom. I don't want to make you uncomfortable," she said quickly.

"No, stay in the course," Tom blurted out. He paused for a minute, uncertain how to go on. "I don't know why you picked this class anyway. I doubt you'll learn anything new. It always sounded to me like you had personally known some of the composers you spoke of," he said with a slight smile.

Elspeth smiled a bit apologetically. "Well, actually . . . "

Tom's eyes went wide. "You mean to tell me you really did know some of those composers?"

Elspeth laughed heartily at his obvious excitement. "I've always moved in musical circles. I knew Mozart, Brahms, Mahler . . . Beethoven was a personal friend. I can think of a huge list of others that I met at one time or another."

Tom leaned forward in his seat. "You'll have to tell me more," he said intently.

"So we're friends?" Elspeth asked, offering her hand to him.

Tom reached out and grasped her hand firmly. "Friends," he agreed emphatically.

Elspeth immediately knew it would be a good four years. It had been the right thing to return to her true name.

This was my first fan fic. Many thanks to everyone who gave me comments and helped me decide to keep going.