Seacouver 1997
Catriona woke, gagging and covered in sweat, her heart beating furiously. It was a while before she remembered where she was. She swallowed her nausea at the memories she had just shared, and at those from her own past that rose and threatened to engulf her. She recalled that Methos had endured the life of a brothel slave for six years before his first death - until one drunken customer had finally crushed his head and gutted him at the end of a long night of torture. He had been a few weeks past his twenty first birthday.
'If he could endure such pain and survive all this time how much easier it should be for me to recover from one simple rape.' She thought. Except that her own rape had been far from simple. Was any rape simple she wondered.
Unable to remain in bed she arose and put on her robe. Glancing at her watch she saw it was almost four thirty. Soon it would be dawn. She realised she was shaking. 'Great night I'm having,' she thought ruefully.
Walking to the kitchenette, intending to make coffee, she had to fight the sudden urge to crawl into the nearest corner and switch off all connection to the outside world. She wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and never have to move again. Irritated, she hit the counter top. 'Damn it! I've dealt with this - I should be passed this by now!' She felt irrationally angry with Methos for a brief moment. She really had thought that after eight years she'd reached the point where she could cope with her memories. The intrusion of Methos' memories, both as a victim and as a protagonist seemed to have removed the protective wall she thought she'd managed to construct.
'Except,' she corrected herself, 'If I were so certain of that I wouldn't have spent the past eight years running a mile from every man who ever showed any interest in me, and I wouldn't have felt so ill at ease when Duncan held my arms or when he sat next to me on the couch.'
The rage she felt building inside her began to redirect itself to Ariostos and his friends, to Kronos - and to Calum. In her mind all seven of them formed a group, planning, scheming, mocking her.
She shuddered. Yes Calum had, in his way, been as evil as Kronos and Ariostos, and even Sulla. The rage she'd felt at Calum's betrayal of her with his rape made her understand completely the rage Methos had given in to. He'd faced so much more than she had done over centuries of torture..his rage was understandable. The urge to kill and destroy was one she'd felt herself toward Calum. She wasn't sure she could ever forgive Calum, but she had to get over it and rebuild her life. She laughed at herself. 'Ahh Catriona, and isn't that what this move was supposed to help you achieve? Yet here you are, back to square one again.'
Sighing, she made coffee and drank it where she stood. Then deciding that she couldn't face more dreams she went to the bedroom and dressed for the day. As she pulled on her jeans and shirt she mentally ran through the discussion she needed to have with Janet later that morning. Then, returning to the living area, she tried to lose herself in work.
It was her standard coping mechanism. Academia was convenient in that respect in that if you wanted to work long hours at irregular times no one much was going to stop you. She knew it was as much an avoidance tactic as anything..keeping her from having to mix with others as well as giving her time to do the work she found genuinely absorbing. In this way, over the past eight years, she had managed to eschew contact with most of her colleagues outside of the work environment, and personal relationships had been non existent.
Her Uncle had chided her several times over this aspect of her life.
"If you'd wanted to be a Nun, Catriona, I'd understand it," he'd said, "but you don't, you're a nice wee girl you should find someone to settle down with and share your life."
'And if I'd wanted to be a Nun, the church would not have had me,' she'd thought, remembering the last time she'd set foot in the small Kirk at Glenfinnan. The open hostility the clergyman, and The Church in general, still felt toward any kind of pagan belief, and more importantly toward any one professing such belief had been palpable. The less than polite request for her never to darken their door again had not been forgotten. Sighing she banished all thoughts of home from her mind and tried to focus once more on her work..a translation of Mairi Mhic Leoid's songs.