Date: Wed, 13 Jul 1994 20:28:52 EDT Reply-To: Highlander TV show stories Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: "(Nancy Cleveland)" Subject: Aloha Part 1 (for real) of 7 Looking for constructive feedback. Thanks. ALOHA c 1994 N.L. Cleveland The katana sung, the blade keening a note of exhilaration as it flashed and shimmered in the balmy morning air. Jonathan Raven moved through the kata, the almost instinctive ritual easing for a moment the tension in his shoulders, neck, spine. All week, this sense of being watched. Nothing to pin down, just a feeling. Even the familiar moves seemed strange, awkward, as if performed on stage before a hostile audience. Sweat gathered and ran down his back, as he sought release from his inner demons, and his outer, in the fast, precise motion. 'Ski said take vacation. Maybe his friend was right, but not in the way he meant it. Not with a hot tub full of giggling blondes. Maybe it was time to go back to the wilderness. For a month or so. To leave this fruitless, frustrating search behind. Maybe it was even time to give it up. Jonathan paused, the blade suspended in mid-stoke, and considered. The constant tension, never knowing if a new lead would reveal his missing son or alert the Black Dragons to his presence and Jonathan's search. The driving urgency to race these unseen competitors to the quarry, lest they snatch it away before he arrived, never knowing if they were even aware of his progress, or if they just waited and watched, planning their revenge. < I should have killed them all. Or I never should have killed at all. > The bloody memories washed over him, the slaughter he'd begun, but not entirely finished, at the clan's compound in Kyoto. He still felt an unresolved mix of anger, shame, triumph and regret when he thought back to that day. He'd known them all, intimately, from years of training and working and killing together, learning their trade and earning their trust, only to take his final revenge, betraying and murdering as many of the Black Dragons as he could find, in a wild paroxysm of rage. Some of the assassins clan had escaped his vengance, his carefully planned revenge for the murders of his parents, years before. He'd moved through the compound, killing everyone in his path, mechanically, feeling nothing but a grim and distant satisfaction. Until that girl. That damn girl. Some assassins daughter. She'd been maybe ten, just a tiny little thing, in a flowered kimono, staring up at him with huge wounded eyes as she knelt over the huddled bodies of her family. He'd stopped, then. Shocked into awareness, unable to continue his berserkers rage. He'd been unable to kill her, or to continue hunting down survivors. < The way she looked at me. I was a monster to her. Like the Dragons were, to me.> He still felt the sick rage and shame, all twisted together, that her presence had stirred in him. It hurt, to think back to that day. He'd pushed it all deep down into his mind, buried it as far as he could and still it nagged at him, a question he'd never really faced. Not resolved. Not even yet. Had it been worth it? His whole life had been twisted, shaped and forged into nothing but an instrument of revenge. He'd lost his lover, his son, a chance to have a family, his chance to explore what he could have become in another, more normal world. And for what? The perpetual memory of that girl's eyes, staring at him over the lifeless bodies of her family. He'd run away from the abbatoir that had been his home and training ground for 10 years and the stage for his revenge play. He'd run mindlessly, using all the skills he'd learned from the Dragons, covering his tracks and leaving Japan, never to return. His skills gave him one career option, and he'd taken it. He'd been invisible, during his years after that working as a free lance assassin with the Agency, but his numbness wore off and he started asking himself some hard questions about his life and his work. He sickened of the assassination trade, the mindless killings for reasons "of policy" that he never fully understood. He forced them to let him go. He held damaging information about the current director and past Agency terminations. That was his route out. < But do we ever really retire? They told me killing was in my soul, its all I can do. I intend to prove them wrong. > Since coming to Hawaii, he'd intentionally established a public profile. Two times, since then, the Dragons had come after him, to make him pay in blood what he had taken from them, in death. Two times, they had failed. Now, nothing. Nothing, except this constant sense of unease. Were they back? Was this a new tactic? What was their plan? < To take my hope for my son from me, like I took their future from them? > He understood, rationally, that killing the Dragons hadn't brought his parents back, didn't fill the empty hole in his life that their deaths left. < All I did was destroy my self. To get my revenge, I traded away my life. I never got a chance to know Aki, or to see my son. My life became a monument and a sacrifice to the past. > He paused in his mental litany. This part hurt the most. < Would they be proud of me?> He'd had to face it, they would be horrified at what he'd become. < I betrayed everything they believed in, worked for, to avenge them. I broke the laws that they died to uphold. > And now, were the Dragons after the one last thing he had left, from before, from Aki? < Are they after my son? > He would never know, not until the boy was found. And that seemed more and more unlikely. All these dead ends, all these false leads, false hopes. That last boy, Jari, had seemed so possible. And the chemistry between them had been so wrong. < Suppose he had turned out to be my son. Would we ever have been able to talk? To understand? To accept each other? > The boy had been so full of rage. Of pain. Any kid living on the streets can get that way. Jonathan had seen it before, he'd see it again. But that personal twist, that was the problem, the hook he couldn't get past. < Could that be the life my son is living? If he's even still alive? > Jonathan had chewed the question over and over, and still was no closer to an answer. < If he has survived, is it right to expose him to the threat of the Black Dragon's vengeance? Is claiming him for my own worth the risk to him? > His mind raced down the familiar path, following the same logical steps he'd run through a thousand times before. < We'd be total strangers.> Perhaps it was time to leave the Islands, to draw the hunt away. To end it. Jonathan took the last three steps, and finished the kata. The tension was still there. He breathed deeply, and began again. That boy, Jari, had been defiant, angry. He'd laughed at the idea of going to Father O'Malley's shelter, laughed and walked away. He was into the drug trade, a runner, maybe a dealer. Probably a user too. A wasted life, at 14. < I can't save every lost kid who crosses my path, can I? Can I? > He'd given the boy his phone number. Something about him had tugged at his soul. Somehow, this one was worth trying harder for. But he couldn't force him to come in. < If he wants to call, he can. If he didn't throw it away. The motivation has to come from within. No one else can give it to him. Not me, not anyone. > There, that feeling again. A tingling along the spine. Someone. Here. Jonathan whirled, his sword ready to strike or defend. The boy stood at the edge of the water, watching him from the rocky beach. He had a small gym bag over his shoulder, the fluorescent pink strap cutting into his deeply tanned skin. He wore baggy swim trunks, and dirty blue Adidas sneakers. "Jari." < Why is he here? Has he been the one watching?> "I thought about what you said. I'd like to give it a try. Get off the streets." Jonathan lowered the katana. No one else was visible nearby. A few tourists wandered far down the shore. Still, something was close. The lingering feeling of unease remained, prickling at the edge of his consciousness. "I'm glad to hear that. Can I drive you to the shelter?" Jari looked down, frowned. He scuffed a ragged sneaker against a rock. "You don't understand, do you. That shelter is no good. They'll find me there, in a second." Jonathan walked towards the boy, wiping the sweat from his own face as he did. Jari flinched but didn't back away. "Who will find you?" Jari's eyes shifted focus, flickered sideways for a second, down the beach, then back. "You know. The guys. The ones I work for. They don't like to see anybody leave." Jonathan held out his empty hand. Jari hesitated, then took it and pulled himself up the rock shelf onto the lawn. Jonathan felt the jumpy pulse, the cold slick sweat of fear, or something else, covering the boy's skin. "You never told me you worked for anyone, when we talked before." Jari shook his hand free from Jonathan's, and backed away. He attempted a sneer. "What did you think, I live on air?" Jonathan turned and walked toward the open doorway of the house. He picked up his black kimono and pulled it over his shoulders. Jari trailed behind. Jonathan could hear his footsteps, slow and cautious, like a wild animal half ready to run again. Jonathan paused at the doorway. Jari stopped, too, just out of reach. Jonathan deliberately kept his back to him. < Time to find out the lay of the land. > "Jari, I know what you do. I can offer you a way out, if you want." Jonathan turned, to watch Jari's face.The boy's eyes were shadowed, opaque. "But you have to be honest with me. Can you do that?" The boy gave a half nod. Cautious. "Are you here because you want to leave that life behind, or to case my home and let your friends in to steal?" Jari's face crumpled, and flushed. Tears welled in his eyes, and he furiously wiped them away. "I thought you were different. I thought you were real. Forget it. You're just like all the rest. You just think I'm trash. You never meant anything. You never gave a damn about me." He spun and ran across the lawn, heading for the beach, his head down and arms pumping. < Damn. > Jonathan dropped the katana and ran after him. The slick wet dew on the grass slowed him, his bare feet sliding a bit as he he dug his toes in and pushed. Jari slipped, at the edge of the sea wall. Jonathan stretched, managed to grab his flailing arm and keep him from falling onto the rocks below. "Let me go." Jari panted, trying to bite Jonathan's hand, kicking and punching the air, as Jonathan held the boy away from him. "Not until you calm down. Stop it, now." Jonathan spoke firmly, using the calming tones his teacher at the dojo had, when he would rage about his parent's deaths. He waited. Jari exhausted himself, struggling, and then stood facing him, mingled sweat and tears gleaming on his face. He glared at Jonathan. < His eyes. So like Aki's. > Jonathan had a moment of doubt. < Could this be my son? > No, it was impossible, there were too many inconsistencies. But his eyes pulled at Jonathan. There was a promise there, a possibility. Maybe he didn't need to find his son, just someone's son. Maybe this was the purpose he'd been seeking. Redemption. Save a life, to pay for a life. Maybe. "So you aren't here to steal?" < Time to gamble, now .> Jari stood silently, his lower lip quivering, then turned his head away. "Do you still want to stay?" < Calm, non judgmental. Let him decide. > Jari shrugged, then looked back at Jonathan. The boy's shoulders were hunched together, like a turtle in its shell. "Would you stay, if I invited you?" < Am I crazy? I don't know this kid at all. But I do know he's still just a kid. > Jari's shoulders loosened. He nodded. Jonathan let him go. Jari stood, his body leaning away, as if he were still half-ready to run. "Please, come in." Jonathan gestured towards the open doorway. Jari relaxed visibly, and followed him toward the house. Jonathan stooped to pick up his katana. < Have I just made a terrible mistake? His body language is so confused. Something else is going on. The tension is there, inside him. And the others, whoever they are, are still outside. > * * * * * * Duncan MacLeod shivered in the blast of frigid air. His linen shirt and pants were no match for the arctic chill. < When they told me to dress for the tropics, they didn't warn me the taxis would be like ice boxes. It's been too long since I've been in a warm climate. I should have left Paris long ago. Maybe I'll buy a place here. I can at least take some time to look around, after the auction. > "Kona Hilton,sir." The cabbie turned towards him, hand out for the fare. The meter showed $25.40, Duncan dug out three tens. "Keep the change." He swung open the door, stood and lifted out his one piece of luggage, a long black ballistic nylon bag. Nothing but a sword and a change of clothes. He hadn't planned on staying more than a day, originally, but the sight of the lush foliage had reawakened a part of him he'd almost forgotten, bringing back memories of days and nights spent on the tropical paradise of Tahiti, long before it had been "discovered" by tourists. < That girl, what had been her name? Ko'an'cha'ti...daughter of a chief, and rightfully proud of her own accomplishments as a healer, and a dancer. > He stared at the cascade of red bougainvillea flaming across the white plaster wall, and remembered. * * * * * The red hibiscus blossom over her ear was Ko'an'cha'ti's only adornment. She sat cross legged on the woven mat floor, sorting her herbs into small piles. Duncan lay on his side, watching her, one hand playing with the rippling silk of her long dark hair. Filtered light coming through the palm leaf walls of the hut dappled his bare skin, as he held his arm next to hers, comparing their dark and pale bronze hues. "Duncan, please, you'll mix the piles." Ko'an'cha'ti smiled and turned back to her task. Duncan groaned in pretended pain and flopped down on his back. "If I was not the healer, I could not choose my mate, as I have chosen you. You should be grateful to these herbs." She mocked him gently with her smile. "Woman, you break my heart, drive me mad with desire, and then only have time to sort your herbs? I should have stayed on that schooner. I could at least get a game of cards going with the other sailors." Ko'an'cha'ti turned to look at him, her eyes wide with curiosity. "Cards? What is cards? Is this another of your odd customs you will not tell me about? " Duncan considered. "Do you gamble here?" She looked at him, confused. "Bet, wager, take chances on how things will be, try to guess the future, as a game, and pay winnings to the person who guesses best." Enlightenment dawned in her eyes. "Of course we gamble. Everyone gambles. Life is a gamble. Beyond that, we guess how many fish the nets will catch, who will have the smallest or largest, will the next child be a boy or a girl, everything can be guessed about. Why?" He sat up, grinning. "So I won't be breaking custom if I teach you whist, then? I can make cards from these palm leaves. Give me something to do, with the men here. Maybe I can win back my pocket watch" He picked up a large palm leaf and traced a small rectangle with his pocket knife, began cutting it out. Ko'an'cha'ti put one hand lightly on his wrist. "And what are you going to wager against the pocket watch? Me? " She shifted her weight slightly and Duncan felt her arm brush lightly across his chest. "There are no refunds on bride prices. Not if the husband is satisfied." All thought of the card game vanished from his mind, as Ko'an'cha'ti ran her fingers up and down his back. "And you are satisfied, aren't you?" He trapped her hand, swung around and faced her, as they leaned together into a long, passionate kiss. * * * * * "Hey, buddy, move it." A horn beeped. Duncan snapped back to the present as another cab pulled up next to him and the cabbie leaned out the window. "You're blocking the sidewalk. I got fares to unload." "Sorry." Duncan stepped aside as the door swung open and a tall Asian woman with a smooth shining fall of dark hair, wearing dark sunglasses, bright red lipstick and a skin tight red silk sheath mini dress, eased neatly out of the cool dark cab. < Nothing like Ko, she's too polished and hard. She looks like she just stepped out of Vogue. I wonder what it would take to get past that cool exterior. > The woman turned to him. "Are you the bell captain or do you usually gawk at strangers in public?" "I was just leaving. I'm sorry if I stared. You reminded me of someone I once knew. " Duncan turned to go. < Damn, this hadn't been such a great idea after all. > Too many memories were coming back, and he felt too vulnerable to them all. You can't leave your ghosts behind. They follow you forever. And after 400 years, there are a lot of ghosts. The woman touched his arm. "Wait. I'm sorry I was so abrupt. I get tired of men's reaction to me. My name is Toma. Yomoko Toma. Look, could you give me a hand with this luggage? There doesn't seem to be anyone here to help." She indicated a pair of suitcases. She cradled a long embossed leather case in her arms. Duncan glanced around. The uniformed bellcaps were all gone, no doubt on their way to someone else's rooms. He leaned down and hefted one of the cases. Not too bad. He slung his own bag over his shoulder and picked up the other. < Hmm. Maybe it was time to start weight training again. > *Bit out of shape, aren't we?* < Hush. > "Lead on, Ms. Toma. Your wish is my command." Her lips twisted oddly when he spoke, but he put it down to her general hostility to the world. He wondered, as he followed her into the lobby, why she dressed the way she did if she didn't like the attention. Several men, and women, paused for a moment as they passed, stunned by the sheer visual impact of Yomoko's vivid and colorful appearance. Her figure didn't hurt, either, he noted sourly. Her legs were perfect, long, tanned and slender, and he was getting a good look as he walked behind her to the registration desk. "My reservation must be here." She tapped her red nails on the counter, her voice exuding a cold wall of rage at the hapless desk clerk, who wilted and pulled nervously at his tie as he searched the computer database again. Duncan put the bags by her feet and waited his turn, listening idly to the conversation. "Madam, yes, we did receive your reservation, yes, for this weekend, but somehow it was deleted from the room assignments. I am terribly sorry, but there are no more rooms available in this hotel." The clerk was sweating now, despite the cool conditioned air. "All these conventions, you know." He gestured helplessly at the crowded lobby, bustling with pale skinned mainlanders. "I am certain the manager will be able to find you other accommodations, on us, of course." He smiled, hopeful, placating. "That will not be acceptable." Yomoko spoke in a low furious voice. " I am here for a specific event being held in this hotel tomorrow. I suggest you find me a room. Now. The Penthouse suite is open. I know Don Carlos is not in town this week." The clerk signaled to the manager, and gratefully stepped aside as she walked over. Duncan wondered why Yomoko was so insistent on staying here. Certainly there were other 5 star hotels on the island. What could be so important about being here? < Damn it, this was getting tedious.> He stepped up to the counter, where Toma and the manager were still discussing why or why not someone else than this Don Carlos fellow could use the penthouse. < Time for a resolution. > "Pardon me, but I've got a reservation. I'm Duncan MacLeod. I confirmed it from the airport, so I know it's good. Miss, Mrs. Toma, why don't you just take my rooms. I have no problem staying at the Hyatt or the Tradewinds." The manager smiled at him, relieved. Duncan smiled back, noticing a charming dimple that emerged on her right cheek. He glanced at her left hand. No ring. < Possible. > She was Hawaiian, maybe with some Polynesian blood. Around 35, he guessed, dressed in a simple navy blue suit. Very professional, and obviously quite bright and accomplished to be handling the floor operations and staff of this hotel. < Definitely possible. > =========================================================================