new crossover fic (Light at the End of Tunnel) PG

[karrenia_rune]

Disclaimer: The Dead Zone belongs to USA television Network and
Lion's Gate, and is not mine, nor are any of the characters or
events; the same goes for Highlander: the Series which belongs to
Panzer/Davis Productions, and Renaissance Pictures.
Request 2 - fandom: The Dead Zone
Details: Johnny failed, the world ends. Go ahead and choose your
poison, especially an end that completely messes with Johnny's head.
A little Johnny/Walt(/Sarah) or Johnny/Greg can't hurt either.
Gratuitous use of future!JJ would be greatly appreciated.



"Light at the End of the Tunnel by Karen

The world came to an end and it's all Johnny Smith's fault. Oh,
sure, he could argue against that assessment all that he wants. One,
niggling, unavoidable fact remains.
He had been given the power to see what might happen, along with
several chances to prevent it from coming to pass. "Face it, man,
you blew it, one those All Time Big mistakes."

He can argue that there really had been nothing he could have done to
prevent the ozone layer from collapsing. It was bound to happen
sooner or later, with or without man-made interference. After all it
was humanity who created the problem in the first place.

Of late, his attempts to soothe away nagging guilt that is tearing
him up inside have met with spectacular failure. Johnny realizes
that he is just one man; one man who through no choice of his own,
the powers that be assigned the task of preventing the end of the
world. "Should have known it was impossible from the get-go."

Freezing time: A useful talent if he could have stopped his enemy
before that half-baked suggestion to the government to create a smart
missile to loaded with anti-toxins to wipe out the accumulated
pollution in the Earth's atmosphere. "Maybe, just maybe, I might have
had chance. Now it's more like a snowflake's chance in hell."

Speaking of hot places, Johnny can feel the sweat making the fabric
of his loose cotton shirt stick to his back. He knows that it has
always been hot in this part of the country, but now it's scorching.

Not that he had really paid much attention to the debate on the
effects of green house gases and global warming on the environment.

He had been too busy trying to out maneuver and out guess his own
personal nemesis in Greg Stillson. In the back of his mind, Johnny
wonders why the folks up in the Washington D.C hadn't given more
thought to what it might happen if it really did lose that layer of
atmospheric protection. "Go figure?" he mutters and continues his
trudge up the slope to the top of a steep hillside, one hand in his
coat pocket the other firmly grasped around his cane.

And it is rather ironic to Johnny that most people, right up to the
end, believed that if mankind could avoid a nuclear meltdown than an
energy crisis would be a cakewalk.

And in the grand tradition of leaping at sweeping solutions to the
hole in the ozone layer, Greg Stillson came up with the half-baked
idea of a mart-missile. The politicians on Capitol Hill swallowed
like it was the greatest idea that they had ever heard.

"Which is fine, except the next big crisis we would have to deal with
as a species would be one related to the big energy and dwindling
fossil fuels. Sure it would be a pinch in the pocket books, but it
wouldn't be so bad in the long run, would it?"

On the surface that concept of fixing the hole in the ozone layer
wasn't such a bad idea and Johnny knew better than anyone else left
alive just how charismatic and persuasive as his enemy could be.

"Too damn bad, I had to be the one who saw through the act to the
real man below. Repentance, huh, Damn it, really should have followed
Bruce's advice and admitted what was going on a lot sooner than
this,"

"And I alone, escaped to tell the tale." Johnny shakes his head and
shuffles his feet, wondering where he'd remembered that line, dredged
up from his memories.
As he gazes around at the parched and scorched surroundings, he
wonders if he should be doing something more than feeling sorry for
his singular self.

Maybe he should move away from here and start searching for
survivors, or go look for his friends, Walt and Bruce.

Johnny wishes that Walt Bannerman were here beside him because Walt
always had a way of tempering his more passionate enthusiasm and his
more sober depressed moments with either logic or a bit of levity.

Instead of searching blindly, he tries to formulate a plan, but
nothing comes to him so here he stands, poised atop the summit of a
hillside overlooking a valley.

At the instant he makes the decision to go down and look Johnny spots
an upright figure moving towards his perch. He takes several steps
forward and leans over the edge of the hillside, breast bone level
with the protective guardrail.

He raises his free hand to shade his eyes, staring through the
mingled haze of scudding clouds and rising heat. If he squints he can
just make out two upright figures, seemingly engaged in the give and
take of a fight.

Johnny can't make out details from this distance, but he feels sure
that it's more than a dance, and the fight appears to be in deadly
earnest.

He takes his gaze off of the pair long enough to move away from the
edge of his perch and scramble down the edge, then get closer to the
action.

Duncan MacLeod can't afford to spend too much of his concentration
speculating on how he ended up in this spot because he is too busy
fighting for his life.

His booted feet stumble in the loose soil and gravel of the dry and
dusty terrain and he staggers in order to regain his balance. Steady
once more he brings up the tip of his sword, the katana with the
carved dragon hilt, and parries a glancing blow from his opponent.

Aside from the unusual ringing sound echoing in his ear drums and the
fact the he can't exactly recall the circumstances of having been
challenged by the other man, Duncan wonders how he manages to get
himself into these kind of messes.

Macleod is certainly no wet-behind-the-ears novice when it comes to
fighting other Immortals. After all he's been around, for what, the
better part of the last four hundred plus years? Of late it's become
more and more difficult to tell the difference between reality and
the dark fog inside his mind.

And speaking of messes, situations like this have become more common
ever since that debacle in Paris on that deserted race track when he
fought far more than shadows and the bizarre hallucinations of his
own mind.

He would prefer not to think about the demon Ahirman, or anything
else that happened that night. It's too much, and too much of a
distraction, and he has to concentrate on the fight at hand.

Duncan narrowly dodges a glancing blow that if it had connected would
have crippled his left knee and follows up with a riposte of his own.

When the metal of his weapon makes contact with other man's, Duncan,
for the first time since the fight began, finally meets the other's
gaze. If Duncan expected to see reflected in light washed-out blue
eyes, malice, spite, anger, or even determination to win, he is
disappointed.

"Why fight so hard, sonny, there never was any Prize to be won," the
other said, taking one hand off his weapon and waving it around in a
broad semi circle. "Look around you, there's nothing to be seen,
nothing moving for miles around. And for your information, It's all
my doing."

"I really don't care," Duncan grunted through his clenched teeth, the
sweat from his exertion and the rising temperature making the fabric
of his shirt plaster to his back, his muscles tense, the knuckles on
the backs of his hand white with tension.

"Oh, I think you do, my boy. I have to admit, introducing you into
the great game has to be one of better strokes of genius, and I have
a long list of those, not to toot my own horn or anything." He
glanced around and then back at Duncan. "I do hope you understand
that I do require an audience for some of my more spectacular moves.
It's a part of my nature."

"Well, goody gumdrops for you. It must be very uncomfortable to pat
yourself on the back." Duncan was long past fed up with this vain,
smug, and annoying little man, and more than ready to take his head
and acquire his Quickening.

"My last rival and counterpart in the Game proved to be something of
disappointment. He gave up too easily."

"I do not intend to make that mistake, I assure you."

"MacLeod, I would expect no less of you."

"I would be very sad to disappoint you," MacLeod grunted in reply,
his arm held out straight from his body, "After all, it might be the
last thing you'd ever experience before I take your head."

"You let me worry about my head, you just worry about your own."

Just below where the two men are fighting another man crouches
underneath an overt-turned oak tree, its spreading branches drooping
in the incessant heat. Walt Bannerman's car having become stuck in a
steep ditch about twenty miles back, its engine stalled, he'd been
forced to walk in search of a gas station. That is until he came
upon the two fighting men. Mind you, the weapons of choice in the
duel weren't the mundane everyday weapons; no guns, no fists, no
knives. No, they were using swords.

His devil-may care attitude and curiosity kicking into high gear,
which is far more than can be said for his vehicle, Walt stops to
watch. Even as he gets a comfortable seat on the hard-packed ground
he wonders, 'Why are they fighting with swords? Intriguing, but
hardly practical, when fists would have done the job just as well."

***
It is difficult for Johnny, spectator that he is at the moment, to
not cheer for the underdog in this fight. After all, one of the
participants in this peculiar event taking place is the man who
murdered his wife, okay while he'd been in a coma, Sarah actually
went on to marry his best friend, Walt Bannerman. Even so, the
memory of that still stings, more so than he is willing to admit to
anyone except in the privacy of his own mind.

Johnny has an excellent view of the fight, and his own momentum
pushing him down the slope of the hillside he arrives just in time to
catch a glimpse of his friend Walt kneeling behind his over turned
vehicle.

Johnny can see that the tall dark- haired man who fought with an
antique looking sword, now the winner of the fight stands over the
sprawled figure of his opponent, take a swipe with the blade, and
proceed to remove the head of his opponent. To Johnny's surprise he
registers that there is very little blood, but in the space of his
sucking in great gasps of air, having forgotten how to breathe while
this plays out, Johnny blinks his watering eyes, and breathes out
again.

He has just now realized that, out of nowhere, a thick fog bank has
risen up out of the ground and covered everything in sight. When he
is able to see through the haze, he catches a glimpse of electric
silver and blue aura surrounding the winner of the fight. He gasps as
the blue silver glow erupts into wicked looking jagged bolts of
electricity. "What in the hell?"

"Which question do you want to me to answer first?" Duncan demanded
both angry and exhausted as he kneels on the ground with one white-
knuckled hand wrapped around the hilt of his katana. He is both
irritated and curious about how and why this person is standing here,
unfazed at what is effectively ground zero in the aftermath of an
Immortal Quickening.

The tall man wearing the remains of some kind of official looking
uniform came running up, his hair standing on end and hands stuffed
into the pockets of a pair of faded denim blue jeans. The tall man
also had a queasy-looking smile plastered on his face, and he rubbed
his eyes as if he could not quite make himself believe what he had
just been a witness to.

It gradually sunk into Duncan's rather abused and battered senses
that the tall man had not only witnessed a Quickening but he was also
shaking off the effects of being hit by the electric surge of the
released energy, "Great, this is all I need." Oddly enough Duncan can
not feel any lingering aftereffects. Apparently both men were quite
mortal.

"So what the hell are they doing here? And for that matter, what the
hell am I doing here?" Duncan mutters.

"This is probably a dumb question at a time like this," Walt
began, 'but are you all right?"

"Do I look all right?" Duncan snaps.

"Not so much." Walt shrugs.

"You look really hilarious with your hair standing on end like that,
not that you had much hair to begin with, Walt." Johnny shrugged.

"Lay off the hair," Walt replied, annoyed and rubs his hand through
the spikes of hair in a futile attempt to smooth it down; the
friction created making sparks jump from his hands.
"I must look terrible."

"Trust me, you do."

Walt startled, whirling around in an attempt to locate the source of
the voice.
He finally spots three women coming up the road that leads to where
the impromptu trio stands. One of three women is someone that he and
Johnny would know anywhere at any time: Sarah Bannerman.

The late Reverend Purdy killed Sarah Bannerman. Now Sarah exists
only as a memory and a footnote in Johnny Smith's lengthy crusade.

In keeping with all the other weirdness that had gone on tonight Walt
feels that being struck by lightning and the growing lump on his
forehead from when he collided with his overturned truck might
account for the fact that he literally could see right through
her. "My mind must be playing tricks on me."

"That's one explanation, and one that I would expect you to leap to,
being the most logical of our little inner circle."

"Sarah?" Walt gasped.

"You always were quick on the uptake, Walt, dear." The Sarah
apparition replied. "Hello, Johnny,

"Hello, Sarah," Johnny replies. "Logic went out the window several
hours ago. Fancy meeting you here."

"MacLeod," the blond woman nods at where Duncan is fuming with
impatience, "Nice of you to join us for our little gathering."

Meanwhile, Duncan stands up, the effects of the Quickening having
finally worn off, and he brushes the dust and grime from the front of
torn and ragged shirt, the hem of his duster coat dragging on the
ground.

Duncan sheathes his katana sword and wonders what Johnny and Walt are
staring at.

Two women, one auburn, the other a blond. The blonde woman bore an
uncanny resemblance to his mortal lover, Tessa Noel, a French artist
he had met in Paris and who had been murdered at the hands of a
street punk looking for some quick cash. The memory still stings,
even though it's been at long time since then.

"Tessa!" Duncan whispered. Memories come surging back: Tessa making
dinner in the kitchen of their riverboat. Their first meeting was
when he had been trying to outrun another Immortal and he had jumped
over the guardrail and onto her riverboat full of tourists.

He can recall fond memories of Tessa working in her studio blow-
torching another sculpture; how she would laugh, cry, tease him and
alternately lecture him; how she understood that part of his life
that involved other Immortals and the Game. Somehow, Tessa had always
understood. All of those memories made him realize that mortals had
something that in his four hundred years of immortal life he would
never have. Duncan clenched his fists and cursed under his breath.

As it all came flooding back, for a long interval Duncan was
speechless and overwhelmed by the memories before he regained his
faculties long enough to ask: "How you can be here when I saw you
die!"

"I'm glad to know that you haven't forgotten me Duncan," Tessa
replied, "but our time is short and our window of opportunity is
rapidly closing." She turned to Sarah; "We'd better make this short
and sweet."

"Right, Tessa." Sarah said. "Look around you, gentlemen, what you see
here is a reflection of what might yet be because time is not linear."

"Great, I'm so not in the mood for a metaphysical lecture," Johnny
interrupted.

"Well, you'd better be, Johnny, because this is important," Sarah
replied.

"There are an infinite number of possibilities," Tessa said.

'If this heat apparition really is Tessa,' Duncan thought.

"You happen to be in a point in time where you get a second chance to
go back and correct mistakes made in the past," Sarah said.

"I don't understand," Walt said, 'but I'm game for whatever you're
asking of us."

"What he said." Duncan nodded.

"This a pocket dimension, and in a sense we have all stepped outside
of the time line," Tessa began, "We can send you back to the point in
time right before the disaster occurs that made this current reality
happen."

"Once we send you back, the three of you must Greg Stillson from
convincing the United States government from launching that missile
into the upper atmosphere," Sarah said.

"If you don't," Tessa added," "Well, just look around you."

"We get the big picture," Johnny said, "Let's go back and do it
again."

"Spare us the pop culture one-liners, please," Walt muttered under
his breath.

Washington D.C

Johnny blinks and the next he knows he is standing in the anteroom of
a ballroom dressed in a rental tuxedo tugging at the clasps of his
black bowtie. Walt and their friend Bruce are impatiently waiting
for him to finish up struggling with the small piece of fabric. The
Senate Community for Global Warming is not his idea of a pleasant way
to spend an evening, but it's important to Walt and Bruce that he be
present.

Aside from that factor, another one of his precognitive visions of
the future told him in no uncertain terms that somehow this event was
pivotal to how future events would play themselves out, thus he wore
the black tie, pinstripe suit, and leather shoes. Too bad that
potential pivotal events required that he dress up and shmooze with a
bunch of politicians and sundry business tycoons, but if has to do so
for the sake of saving the world than so be it.

In the senate committee chamber the atmosphere is tense, stuffy, and
heated, and it isn't due to the poor ventilation system. The blades
of the ceiling fans whir in a light background murmur. The debate
has going on for over six hours and nobody has made any motion for a
break in the proceedings.

Johnny has heard any number of suggestions, some rather common sense,
other less so.

The man that they have come to stop has yet to be recognized but
Johnny does not understand how any sane elected official would even
consider some fancy sci-fi 'smart missile' as a viable solution to
fixing the hole in the ozone layer.

Neither he nor Walt could understand the ins and outs of politics,
but they understood enough to appreciate that the process was about
as slow as turtles having a marathon race.

Johnny glances to his left where Duncan MacLeod sits scanning the
room as if he's missing something, swiveling his head and darting
piercing dark eyed glances at every conceivable angle of the small
chamber as if he's looking for someone. Stillson probably, but in
all his dealings with Stillson, Purdy and their like he has never
encountered anyone quite like MacLeod, and he could have sworn he
would have remembered a man with a Scottish accent and who carried a
Japanese dragon-headed sword.

Duncan could not place his finger on it, somehow Greg Stillson, the
man that they had come back in time to stop, caused the small coarse
hair on the back of his neck to twitch. It felt similar to the "Buzz"
of another immortal, but more like an over-sensitive allergic
reaction. 'Damn odd,' Duncan thought.

Several hours later, after the politicians had presented their
arguments, pros and cons, and it came time for the experts and
civilians to speak, Johnny stuffed his hands into the pockets of his
slacks and stood up.

"The chair recognizes Mr. Smith, please proceed."

"Look, I don't have any official backing or area of expertise, but I
do have something important to say about this whole fixing the hole
in the ozone layer."

"This had better be good," Stilton mutters from his chair in the back
rows.

"For years we've talked about how to clean up our planet's
environment, well I
'I will tell you right here and now, it ain't going be some fancy,
expensive high tech measure like this missile to clean up the toxins
in the air. So ditch any ideas of using Mr. Stilton's 'smart
missile' and go low-tech. It's cheaper, it's better, and trust me,
the future will thank you for it."

Conclusion

Present Day

"After all that, you'd think we'd end up better off," Walt said,
shaking his head, running his hands through what was left of his
black hair. "The hole in the ozone layer is still there and we're
still here, so I guess it all balances out in the end."

"How the hell do you figure that?" Duncan demanded, not that he had
paid much attention to the arguments and counter arguments both for
and against the global warming theory. And it occurs to him that
maybe he should have asked his old protégé, Riche Ryan a few more
questions when the young Immortal had brought the subject up at the
dojo.

Again it was one more thing in a long and growing list of things he
should have, might have done, if he had not mistakenly taken the
young Immortal's head in the midst of a Dark Quickening or the tender
ministrations of the demon Ahirman. The memory of that night at the
deserted Paris race track still stings, but he ruthlessly shoves the
memories and thought aside and concentrates on what the others are
saying.

"Hell if I know, I ain't a rocket scientist. Speaking of which, would
a smart missile loaded with anti-toxins really have plugged up the
hole in the ozone layer or was it all just a hoax?" Johnny asks.

"There have been many other bigger hoaxes in history, if memory
serves." Duncan smiled enigmatically as the various hoaxes, both
scientific and some just genuine hoaxes played on the general public
by its government, played out in flashes through his mind.

"I don't know and I really don't care," Johnny said, folding his arms
across his chest. I am just glad it's over, that is more weirdness
than even I'm accustomed to." Johnny grinned and then pumps Walt's
hand, "Thanks for sticking by me, old buddy, through the weirdness,
through the good times and the bad. I mean, you're the best friends
a guy ever had, and I don't tell you that often enough, so thanks, I
guess."

"I think it's over then." Duncan asked. "Weird, but then that's all
relative."

"You leaving then?" Walt asked.

"Moving on, really," Duncan replied.