Highlander Kriya

**Kriya**   
A post-_One Minute to Midnight_ vignette.

The last hurricane had truncated the beach. Left it chopped off, a strip of rocky sand. He settled on a railroad tie that served as the last step of the path that led from the bungalows to the ocean. Warm water rushed up to meet his toes and retreated just as quickly.

He counted the invisible stars. Breathed in time with the waves.

The approaching storm was still veiled, hovering over the grey-green water. Lines of clouds emerged over the horizon, sliding through the clear air, leaving a filtered dimness behind.

He remembered other beaches. Other storms. Dark boulders in Bretagne, pummeled by kamikaze waves. Rain, driven vertical, tearing at his cloak. White cliffs radiant against a rising fortress of clouds. The ochre of sand spun in tornadoes of dust. Squalls at sea. Tsunami. Spidery lightening crawling across the iron-clad sky.

This storm, this storm coming now, it wouldn't be much. A release of pent up energy. The knowledge sat in his mind, wordless.

Gulls circled and headed inland. A tiny crab poked out of its shelter to skitter sideways across the sand in front of him. He tossed a pebble into its path. The crab hurried to examine the pebble, turning it over and over in its claws before dropping it and plunging back under the sand.

"Sorry to disappoint you."

His voice was strange in his ears.

The crab had the right idea. 

A dream of falling books had woken him late in the afternoon. He rolled to his side and blinked at the shadowy gills sliced across the wall. The wall breathed when the breeze rustled the window blinds.

A sneeze shook him. Phantom dust in his lungs, in his eyes. Dry and pungent on his tongue. Piles of musty books and crumbling scrolls towered over him. He sat up, sure they would crush him.

Blinked again and remembered he was awake. Remembered he'd left his books behind.

He'd fled Paris and his confusion and ended up in this one-room bungalow. The confusion remained outside like a vampire, barred from entering until he invited it in. He wished he could do the same with his thoughts. They cluttered up the place, filled the spare space. Pushed him outside where the confusion waited. Patiently.

Maybe his confusion and his thoughts were in league. They certainly fed off one another. Symbiotes.

When he abandoned the bungalow for the beach his twin tormentors followed. He ignored them. Let them chase their tails. He shed stray thoughts until he reached the ocean. The wide horizon filled him up until there was no room for anything else.

It didn't last long. But while it lasted he let it carry him. Floating. Blank.

Until the storm interrupted and sent him whirling back into himself.

He raised his gaze from the crab's sandy sanctuary. The cruise ship that had settled a few miles off shore that morning had become a ghost. Grey curtains fell between its lumbering frame and the beach. He watched the ship fade away, recreating the Philadelphia Experiment before his eyes. A blink and it vanished.

The wind herded the waves along. The last of the gulls retreated. The crab stayed crouched in its hole. He waited alone for the storm with the reckless defiance only humans possessed. The wall of rain blew toward him, shrinking the space between ocean and sky.

He had two canvas duffle bags and Adam Pierson's passport. An old sword, a new gun and a fading tattoo. The rented bungalow was sparse. White walls, scuffed tile floor. The only piece of furniture not made of rattan was a high bed with new sheets and mosquito netting. Too... soft. After the first night he'd taken to sleeping on the floor.

There was a telephone but no television. He'd used the phone for the first time that morning to check his answering service and found three messages. Two were from the Watchers. One of these was conciliatory, the other demanding. Good cop / bad cop. Their words flowed over him and through him, gone before he could catch them.

The third was from Joe.

He didn't want to talk to Joe. Didn't want to talk to anyone really - hence the impromptu vacation to this battered island in the off-off-season. Joe would be struggling with his conflicting loyalties, looking for advice or common cause.

He wasn't ready to face that, not with grace anyway. Not with Joe's accusations and MacLeod's raging sorrow prickling under his skin. Not while the memory of Joe's blood lingered sticky on his hands. 

Not while he still listened in his sleep for the sound of Joe's breathing.

An islander hurried past him, up the beach path, yelling and gesturing at the sky. Shook his head when Methos just nodded.

He knew storms. This wouldn't be a big one, but each storm was different. Sometimes it was the rain that got you, or the too-close crash of lightening. Wind so strong it could toss a grown man to the ground. Hail, which never ceased to drag up the stoning that ended his wretched third century. Floods sudden and slow. Mud.

He waited until the islander's footsteps retreated behind him before he turned back to the ocean. Blasts of wind tugged at his t-shirt, chilly with the coming rain. He closed his eyes and for a moment he was perched on MacLeod's desk in half lotus, intoning the eternal word.

_what was..._

Rain slapped his face. Forced his eyes open.

The waves bucked the shore and swirled around his ankles. Under the low rumble of thunder he heard another sound. Realized he was laughing.

_what is_

The wind pelted him with sand, needle sharp. The nearby line of palms bent under the onslaught, losing fronds in green ribbons. His tee stuck to his chest and shoulders. The laughter died and left him quivering, empty.

_and what shall be..._

He'd come no closer to reconciling his choices with his reality.

But in this moment he was himself again. 


End file.

Highlander, Angst, Drama