THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY

Standard disclaimers apply.  None of the characters are 
mine--I've just taken them for a spin.  Any similarities to 
real-life events or other stories are entirely 
coincidental/unintentional.  Permission is granted to 
archive at fkfanfic.com, the ftp site, and the CoTK site; 
all others please ask so I that can keep track of it.  For 
those of you who are interested in reading my other work, my 
other stories are all available at 
http://filebox.vt.edu/users/diharris/Homepage.htm.

Although this story started out as a mushy NNPacker binge 
for me because it's been so long since I've written one, it 
really turned into something quite different.  All of my 
favorite factions have come out to play in this one, so sit 
tight and enjoy the battle between the NNPacker, Knightie, 
Dark Knightie, CoTK, and FoDS sides of me :)

Just to warn you, this story is a bit darker than most of 
mine--very angsty.  If you're looking for mindless fluff, 
I'd suggest hitting that delete key right now :)  There is 
mild cursing throughout, and some mild violence-I would say 
PG-13 overall.  

Thanks to Marg and Marcus for their knowledge of Canada, and 
Toronto specifically.  Thanks also to NightAngel and Kathy 
for medical advice.  And, as always, my beta-readers, Lois 
and Heather-Anne, were key!     

Any and all comments can be sent to Diane Harris at 
aria5@vt.edu.  I thrive on positive and/or constructive 
feedback.  If I can improve my writing based on something 
you have to say, by all means, say it.  One could even say 
that I'm a feedback glutton :)  So bring it on!  I promise 
I won't bite :)  

THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY

His breath caught viciously in his throat, burning as his 
oxygen-deprived blood pleaded for relief.  Chest heaving, he 
began to feel numbness set into his limbs, almost 
effectively deadening them, and then a bone-crushing pain 
swept through his system like an explosion .  He clutched 
desperately at his sides as he bit back a scream of agony.  
Something was terribly wrong...  

Something was crushing his chest--he felt like he was being 
smashed in a trash compactor.

Nick stopped jerkily, stumbling slightly on the pavement as 
the momentum of his body carried him forward even after he 
had decided to halt.  He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, 
the crisp, cool night air cleansing his burning lungs.  
Surprisingly, with that small measure, the suffocating 
feeling began to recede like an outgoing tide, almost as 
quickly as it had arrived.  He shook his head, his mop of 
thick blond hair tossing about.  Odd...  

"Are you going to drink that protein shake, or not?"

He spun around on his feet and looked around, but was unable 
to find the source of the voice...  The voice he knew so 
well...  Natalie...  What?

"Well, come on!  You look ill already and you haven't even 
tasted a drop...  At least _try_ my cooking before you 
reject it..." the disembodied voice said with an echoic 
laugh.

No.  Nonononono NO!  He clutched at his temples as a spear 
of white, sizzling light crackled through his head, trying 
to stop the flashback.  Not now, this was _not_ the time...  
And yet, despite the dire situation, the sounds and smells 
and sights flooded the air around him, and he was unable to 
escape the memories as they descended upon him like an angry 
whirlwind.

"Well?"

EARLIER THAT DAY

He stared into her eyes, peered at her as she silently 
prodded him to do what he knew was certain to make him 
terribly sick.  But as he watched her watching him with her 
big, bright eyes, he couldn't help but tip back the glass 
and take a hearty swallow.   

He regretted doing so almost instantly.  The noxious brown 
gook slipped down his throat way too slowly for his tastes, 
and he couldn't help but gag.  "Jeez, Nat!  What the Hell is 
in this?" he cried with a disgusted curl of his lips, trying 
desperately not to choke on the stuff.  He could feel it, 
oozing all the way down to his stomach, he could feel it.

Natalie smiled.  "You don't want to know..." she replied 
mysteriously, the quirky grin never leaving her face. 

Nick groaned theatrically as he set the glass down on the 
countertop, the foul substance sitting like a cinder block 
in his stomach.  "That's what I was afraid of," he stated 
grimly, turning to give her a look of disapproval.  "If I 
didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to kill me 
with these things..." he added warily.

"What?" she began, placing a hand on her chest in the 
perfect 'who me?' expression.  "You didn't know?" she asked 
with a laugh and a bat of her eyes, dodging behind the 
morgue table with a certain quickness that he found quite 
hard to believe that a mortal could ever possibly possess.

Nick grinned.  This was the type of thing he'd missed, this
playful interaction.  It was probably the first time since 
Natalie's goddaughter had been viciously murdered that she'd 
readily cracked a smile and been so openly playful.  Taking 
advantage of her cheerfulness, he lunged after her like a 
big cat, skillfully avoiding the many breakable things that 
sat between them.  

"Nick!" she said, backing away from him with a cautious 
tone in her voice, but to no avail.  He felt his hands snake 
out to grab her almost as if they had minds of their own.  
"Eeep!" she screeched, half giggling as he took her into a 
platonic embrace, but not first without a little tickle to 
her sensitive abdomen.  She shrieked, kicking outward and 
sending a pile of papers and case reports flying.

"That's what you get for torturing my stomach!" he cried 
with a hearty laugh as the previously well-organized files 
fluttered down around them and softly landed on the floor.    

She laughed, leaning back into his comfortable embrace.  She 
gripped him tightly and rested her head back on his chest 
with a sigh.  "I've missed this, Nick," she said, softly.

He inhaled the soft scent of her hair, leaning his chin on 
top of her head lightly.  "Missed what, Nat?" he asked, 
happily feeling her snuggle even more into his arms.  
Subconsciously, he tightened his grip.

"This.  Just... being.  I don't know," she replied, relaxed.  
"Does that sound stupid?"

"No, I don't think so, Nat," he replied, a tinge of regret 
suddenly haunting his tone as he looked ahead blearily.  "I 
don't think so at all..."

They stood there silently for a few moments, relishing 
each other's touch, neither wanting to say something for fear 
of the peaceful moment ending.  But fate, unfortunately, 
simply didn't to give them a moment to themselves.  

"Nick!  C'mon, let's hop in the green boat and get a move 
on!" Schanke exclaimed as he entered the morgue, clapping 
his hands loudly.

Reluctantly, Nick unwrapped himself from around Natalie.  
"Sure, Schank.  The lead panned out, I take it?" he asked 
grimly, hoping that the answer would be an affirmative.  
They'd been on the trail of this bastard for a long time, 
with nothing but an ever lengthening trail of raped and 
mutilated bodies to go on.  It sickened him, and the murder 
scenes had always been just barely tolerable for him.  
Luckily, Natalie had usually been there to cover for him 
when his beast came out to play.

He wanted to bring this guy down.  Soon.

"Yup!" Schanke replied with a dopey grin.  "We have 
ourselves a genuine, grade-A perp, tagged as Thomas 
Greenborough.  All we gotta do is bag 'im," he drawled. 

Nick smiled.  Finally, a case that was amounting to 
something other than death.  Lately, he had begun to feel 
as though that was all there was.

"All right, let's go.  I'll see you at the loft later, Nat, 
ok?" he asked, turning to Natalie, who had been listening to 
the conversation intently.

"Definitely," she replied with a grin.  

Nick leaned in and gave her a platonic peck on the cheek in 
his usual fashion, despite Schanke's questioning and 
relentlessly prying eyes.  

"Be careful, guys," Natalie cautioned them as they shuffled 
out of the room.

With a quick nod, Nick smiled as he reached the door and 
turned back to look at her, his hand gripping the doorknob 
as though it were a lifeline.  "As always, Nat.  As 
always..." he replied softly, glancing sidelong at the ever-
oblivious Schanke before mouthing 'later' with a lopsided 
grin.  And then he was gone.

THE PRESENT

"Nick!  He's getting away!" 

The frantic cry of his heavyset partner shocked him back to 
reality, and he forgot all about the obviously somewhat 
effective protein shake and Natalie's earlier warnings.

He took off at a run, for once slightly behind Schanke 
rather than out ahead in the lead.  Strangely, he could feel 
his muscles burning as he attempted to at least keep even 
speed.  The moments stretched into an eternity as he felt 
each and every pained tendon and muscles screaming for 
mercy, every sinew pleading for him to stop.  Flex, burn, 
flex...

"Schanke..." he cried breathlessly, becoming distressed, but 
Schanke kept going and he felt himself forcing his 
protesting legs to follow.  The pain was wicked, biting into 
him with cruel stabs of burning, clawing agony.  He felt 
like he was going to die, and he quickly grew dizzy and so 
desperate for breath that stars were appearing before his 
eyes.

Suddenly, Schanke flung himself to the side, ducking behind 
a trash can in the alley.  Nick instinctively followed, but 
his duck and roll hurt quite a bit more than he'd remembered 
them to hurt in the past...  He landed on the pavement with 
a resounding thud, and he felt, oddly, as he thought a bug 
hitting the windshield would feel.  Barely able to convince 
his body to utilize his momentum and tumble to the side, he 
groaned and flung himself to the right.  Only inertia saved 
his weak attempt.

Schanke was panting hard, back pressed up against the wall.  
"We've got him cornered... Nick.  There's... no way back 
out..." he said between labored breaths as he cautiously 
peered over the barrel, only to have a bullet zing by his 
head.  "He apparently realizes... this also," Schanke 
muttered, sarcasm dripping from his tone as he sat there 
catching his long-lost breath.

His eyes closed, Nick nodded mutely as he felt the air 
around him seem to crush him, not wanting to admit that he 
was glad they'd stopped simply because that meant he didn't 
have to run anymore.  He was panting so hard that his chest 
felt like it was going to explode from the building 
pressure, and sheets of blackness were cascading before his 
eyes like waterfalls.  "Schanke..." he whispered between 
pants, but Schanke didn't seem to notice.  Something was 
wrong.  Very wrong...

"Greenborough!  There's no way out!" Schanke cried, 
obviously trying to get out of this situation peacefully.  

Several hollow plinks followed as their perp took potshots 
at the barrel, and Schanke visibly flinched for each one.  
"Nick, cover me, I'm going to roll to the other side of the 
alley," Schanke hissed, not noticing that, for once, he was 
actually in charge of the chase, rather than following 
clipped orders from Nick.

Schanke didn't wait for an answer as he flung himself to the 
other side of the alley.  More shots followed.  Nick, 
despite the sweat wildly streaming down his face that was 
practically blinding him, managed to provide adequate cover. 
Thankfully, Schanke made it across safely, and Nick 
collapsed back behind the relative safety of the barrel, 
overcome with exhaustion.

Couldn't catch his breath...  He closed his eyes and prayed 
that Schanke would be able to carry them through this mess,
because he could tell, grimly, that he was already down for 
the count...  What the Hell was wrong with him?

"Come on, Greenborough!  You don't want to end it like 
this..." Schanke screamed into the darkened alley, tension 
gripping his face in a chokehold.

The rest was almost a surreal blur.  As Nick tensely hunched 
up against the wall, fighting both his wildly cramping 
muscles and the nausea that was suddenly welling up in his 
stomach like a burbling geyser, he could hear Schanke 
screaming at Greenborough to give it up, only to receive 
numerous potshots in response, each hitting the barrel that 
separated Nick from the perp with a little metallic plink.  

But for one shout, there was no plinking sound of a bullet 
hitting unyielding metal, only a rip-roaring pain in his 
left side.  Nick cried out, jamming himself hard back into 
the brick wall with such force that he grew dizzy for 
several moments.  He hadn't thought he had been in the line 
of fire...  

But something was wrong.  

Terribly wrong.  

It wasn't supposed to hurt this much...

*****

"Come on, Greenborough!  Come out with your hands up!  
You're not getting out of here any other way.  Can't you see 
that?" Schanke cried.  He'd called for backup only moments 
ago, but they wouldn't be here for a few minutes.  The 
sirens were already faint in the distance, but still, faint.  
And there were still precious seconds in this game that 
Schanke had to play which could all too easily mean victory 
for the other side.  A victory that he simply could not 
permit. 

"I'm NOT coming!" Greenborough cried, enraged with panic and 
desperation as he took more haphazard shots at them.  

Schanke groaned.  For goodness sake, couldn't the guy see he 
wasn't hitting anything other than metal?  He glanced over 
at Nick and felt his stomach sink, and for one precious 
second, he forgot entirely that he was playing target for a 
psychopath.

His partner was sitting back up against the wall, his hands 
clutched around his stomach, with his knees drawn up against 
his chest in obvious, if not muted, pain.  "Nick?" he 
called, worriedly.  Oh, please, don't let him be hit...    
Please don't let him be hit...  

He didn't have time to listen for an answer.  Greenborough, 
hearing the sirens now, too, was making a run for it.  
Spraying bullets everywhere for cover, he leapt up and ran 
for the bottleneck between Schanke and Nick that separated 
him from a clean escape in the wildest bid for freedom 
Schanke had ever seen.  

"Stop, or I will fire!" Schanke cried, his heart pounding 
wildly in his chest.

Greenborough kept coming, charging forward like an incensed 
bull, feet pounding on the pavement as his nostrils flared.

"Stop, or I will fire!" Schanke repeated, raising his gun 
and training it on Greenborough's quickly advancing figure.  
The milliseconds passed by at a slow crawl as he lined up 
his shot.

And still, Greenborough kept coming.

Schanke hesitated only for a fraction of a second before he 
pulled the trigger and sent Greenborough tumbling to the 
ground with a loud thump.  Breathing heavily, he watched for 
a few moments.  Greenborough wasn't moving at all--the only 
sounds in the alley were the sounds of himself breathing and 
his blood rushing madly in his ears.  Soon, the fact that 
he wasn't planning on getting up anytime in the near future 
became pretty obvious.  

"Nick?" he called fearfully, turning to his partner, who sat 
plastered up against the wall like an egg splattered across 
it with a cannon.  Schanke nearly dove across the alley to 
reach him.

Nick's chest was heaving wildly, and his eyes snapped open 
to look at Schanke.  "Schank..." he whispered, inhaling 
sharply as he seemingly choked on his own breath.  Gone from 
his voice was the air of confidence that Schanke had always 
found.  Gone was the quiet dignity.  Only fear was there 
now.

Schanke's jaw dropped open and for a brief moment, there was 
only panic.  Sheer, blind panic.  His eyes wide, he stared 
at where Nick's trembling hands were clasped over his 
stomach, but he was able to give himself a mental shake 
when he noted thankfully that there was no blood there.  
Yet...  

"Something's wrong," Nick said, his voice breathy and 
confused as he looked at Schanke with something that Schanke 
could only interpret as unmitigated terror.  The infallible, 
indestructible, self-righteous, arrogant Knightmare had 
finally been hit.  His _partner_ was down.  

"Well of course something is wrong, Nick!  You've been 
shot!" Schanke said, trying to keep the edge of strain out 
of his voice as he fumbled shakily for his cell phone.  His 
partner had been shot...  And he looked bad.  Real bad...  
At least Knight was awake and talking; it couldn't be too 
serious, then.  Could it?  Nick seemed to at least be smart 
enough to apply pressure to the wound by himself--he didn't 
need help there...  

"No..." Nick protested weakly with a groan.  "No... 
something else is wrong...  I..." he mumbled, almost 
incoherently, sweat dripping down his face.  When his eyes 
closed and he stopped breathing for a fraction of a second, 
Schanke almost screamed.

A hand shot out and gripped his arm fiercely, and Schanke 
sighed in visible relief as his partner's pained blue eyes 
slowly opened again.  "Schank..." the whisper came, almost 
like a sob, as Nick's eyes squinted in pain.  

Schanke paused only for a second as he lifted the cell phone 
to his ear and called for an ambulance.   And then the world 
was in slow-motion again.  People swarmed into the alley as 
backup finally arrived, crowding them inward.  

"Schank..." Nick gasped again as he glanced wildly about at 
the mess of people flooding the alley.  "I can't... can't go 
to the hospital...  Something's not... right... can't go... 
to... please no... hospital... get Nat..." he panted 
incoherently.

Schanke could barely hear his partner through the din.  The 
poor guy was becoming delirious, that much was obvious, and 
it slightly disturbed him that he was seeing his normally 
unflappable partner completely and utterly flapped.  "Come 
on, Nick.  Stay with me here..." Schanke whispered nervously 
as Nick fought for breath.  This was looking more and more 
serious...  God, he didn't want to lose a partner tonight...  

"Gentlemen!  What happened?" Cohen asked, suddenly appearing 
behind them, looking down over Schanke's shoulder.  

"Not supposed... to hurt... get Nat..." Nick mumbled 
deliriously, looking at both of them with eyes wide, the 
classic deer-in-headlights pose.

"Greenborough didn't want to come in; he put up a bit of a 
protest.  Nick got hit somehow," Schanke summarized in 
clipped tones as he briefly looked up at Cohen.  "Nick?  
Nick?!  Come on, man.  Can you hear me?  You're scaring 
me..." Schanke said, placing his hand to Nick's forehead, 
which was clammy and cold to the touch.  Shock.  Nick was 
probably going into shock...  

Cohen knelt beside them as the crews began to scour the 
alley.  "Detective Knight?" she asked, concerned.

Nick turned his head minutely to look at her, his eyes 
glassy and unfocused.  "Nat..." he whispered forlornly, 
giving a mighty heave as he tried to stand up.

"Whoa there, Nick!  Sit still; the ambulance will be here 
any second," Schanke exclaimed, forcing Nick down with his 
hand.  He looked at Cohen, who looked back at him grimly.  
Blood was welling up around the hand that Nick was keeping 
firmly clenched to his abdomen.  

Sweat had completely plastered Nick's hair to his head as 
he leaned back against the cold brick with a pained gasp.  
"Not supposed... to hurt..." he whispered again, leaning 
his head back against the wall with a harsh, hollow-
sounding thunk.  The sound made Schanke wince.

"All right, people.  Stand back, please..." 

Schanke sighed with relief at the wanted interruption.  The 
paramedics were there, finally.  A tall, brown-haired man 
split off from the group that was heading towards 
Greenborough and walked over to them.

"How long has he been down?" the medic asked as he crouched 
over Nick with a concerned look, placing a hand on Nick's 
forehead.

"Can't... no hospital..." Nick was mumbling softly.

"Ten minutes?" Schanke guestimated worriedly as he stared 
down at his rapidly deteriorating partner, praying silently 
that everything was going to be ok.

The medic nodded and put an oxygen mask over Nick's mouth.  
"No!" Nick cried, turning his face weakly away, but the 
medic caught his chin without too much effort and placed the 
strap around the back of his head.  

The look that Nick gave Schanke then made him want to shrink 
back into the pavement.  So much pain... and fear...  For a 
brief instant, Schanke almost thought he could feel a 
connection between him and his partner, and the whole world 
around them when silent.  A flash of light...  A pulsing 
sensation...  He just stared into those deep pools of blue 
agony, and was lost.  Something was wrong...  He couldn't 
breathe all of the sudden...  His throat was closing...

"Continue compression!" someone shouted from behind him, and 
Schanke was ripped from his strange connection.  Glancing 
about, he saw a pair of medics working fruitlessly to save 
Greenborough's life, and he couldn't help but shudder as he 
saw the murderer's eyes staring sightlessly up towards the 
sky, oblivious to the activity around him.  

"Ntspposedtohurt..." Nick whispered as if he were drugged, 
swaying his head from side to side.

Schanke looked back down at his partner.  The medic had 
ripped off his shirt and was carefully feeling around for 
exit wounds now.  Nick was so out of it now that he wasn't 
offering any protest other than slack-jawed, incoherent 
mumbling.  His eyes were drooped, and lifeless, his forehead 
cold and sweaty like an old washrag.  He was dying...

Schanke watched grimly as a second medic joined the first 
and helped get Nick onto a backboard.  "Can I come in the 
ambulance?" Schanke asked hopefully, suddenly feeling way 
too helpless.  He gripped Nick's slack hand as they wheeled 
him to the waiting vehicle, but it didn't look as if Nick 
even knew what was going on anymore.

"I'm sorry, sir, but you're going to have to ride in another 
vehicle.  We can't allow that..." the medic replied 
sympathetically with a shake of his head.  

"Nat..."  He barely heard the mumble from underneath the 
mask as Nick's hand was ripped from his own and the 
stretcher was lifted up into the ambulance.

Schanke stood back as the back doors were shut in his face, 
his hand still outstretched from Nick's lingering, sweaty 
touch.  He felt his stomach sink with dread as he wondered 
silently if that would be last the time he'd ever see Nick 
Knight.  He didn't want that image to be his last of his 
partner...  He didn't want that...  

"Come on, Detective, I'll take you in my car..." Cohen said, 
placing a hand consolingly on his back.  "Don't worry, 
Knight's a fighter.  He'll be all right," Cohen assured him 
as he flopped himself down in the front seat, but the rest 
was a blur.

*****

It was dark, and strangely warm.  He reached out, nearly 
expecting to be able to touch the blackness that had settled 
around him like a blanket, but he was greeted with empty 
air.  

An odd experience, to say the least.

"Oh, Nicholas...  What _are_ you doing?" LaCroix's voice 
filtered unexpectedly through the murk, reaching out and 
curling around his conscience like soft tendrils of mist.

He turned around, but it was blurry.  He couldn't see all 
that well.  "LaCroix?" he asked, confused, peering into the 
darkness beyond.  A warm breeze blew over the silence that 
extended between them, whistling softly in the emptiness.

"Not really," the apparition finally replied as light began 
to outline it, making it come into full view, and at once 
Nick was terribly disoriented.  That certainly _looked_ like 
LaCroix to him.

"I don't understand..." Nick replied, squinting against the 
light that surrounded his Sire's look-alike like a strange 
and ghastly halo of pale fluorescence.

I NEED X-RAYS NOW!  WE HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHERE THIS BULLET 
WENT!  HOW ARE HIS STATS?

Nick turned around and searched the darkness behind him, 
surprised, and curious, at the intrusive, disembodied voice 
of a female he couldn't recall ever hearing before.

NOT GOOD.  THIS THING REALLY WREAKED HAVOC.  CONTAMINATION 
IS A DEFINITE.  LOOKS LIKE WE'VE GOT A RUPTURE IN THE 
BLADDER...  THE CATHETER IS RETURNING BLOOD...

"They're talking about you, Nicholas..." 'LaCroix' said 
softly, taking a step towards Nick.  "You're going to die, 
you know," he stated matter-of-factly as the voice faded 
into a faint whisper in the background.

"What are you talking about?  What's..." Nick began, turning 
back to the apparition, but 'LaCroix' interrupted him.

"You're mortal, now, Nicholas.  Mortals get hurt..." 
'LaCroix' explained sympathetically, shaking his head.  Now, 
it almost seemed as if the darkness was pulsating around 
him, like an undulating chamber of nothingness.

Nick swallowed hard.  Was that what was wrong with him in 
the alley?  He had felt so strange...  So fragile... "What?  
How?" he asked, praying for some better clarification, but 
he received none.

"Come with me..." 'LaCroix' commanded softly, taking Nick's 
arm and attempting to pull Nick into the murkiness with him.  
Into the unknown...  

"What?  No!" Nick exclaimed, viciously throwing the thing's 
hands off of him.  

'LaCroix' shook his head disapprovingly.  "Mortals die, 
Nicholas.  Shall we not waste time with all of the aging and 
just be done with it now?" he asked curiously.

Nick's eyes narrowed, and he found himself backing up from 
the ghostly figure of his Sire standing before him.  He felt 
repulsed by this thing, whatever it was.  This wasn't like 
any near death experience he'd ever had before, assuming 
that that was what it was.  What was going on?  "Who the 
Hell are you?" he snapped, very interested in receiving some 
answers. 

"I am no one important.  The real question we should be 
asking ourselves is, who are you?" 'LaCroix' queried with a 
raised eyebrow.

Nick growled, frustrated.  This was getting more and more 
dreadfully confusing with each new question. "What?"

"Do you _really_ know what you want, Nicholas?" 'LaCroix' 
answered with a question, disapproval riddling his voice.  

"Of course I do!  Let me go back!" Nick exclaimed, suddenly 
coming to the conclusion that whatever this thing was, it 
was the source of his trouble. 

"Oh, Nicholas," the thing commented with a pitying chuckle.  
"I'm not the one holding you back..."  It paused briefly.  
"You are..." 

Nick's eyes widened, and he automatically protested.  
"That's not true!"

'LaCroix' smiled, but the smile turned into a grimace as the 
apparition began to melt before Nick's eyes.  "You can't 
just take a little taste, can you?  You have to have it 
all..." it growled as it disappeared, leaving Nick once 
again in the murky darkness alone.

"Wait!  How do I get out of here?" Nick yelled, his voice 
echoing strangely into the darkness beyond as he spun around 
on his feet and looked blindly about.

"I don't know, Nicholas.  It's your mind, your thoughts, 
your boundaries.  You figure it out..." the disembodied 
voice of LaCroix replied.  "I sincerely hope you realize 
what you're doing..." it warned cautiously.

PUT HIM UNDER!  LET'S GO!

And then it all faded to silence.

*****

"I... he never said anything was wrong.  It was so sudden--I 
didn't even realize he was hit until just before 
Greenborough charged..." Schanke mumbled tiredly, staring at 
the floor forlornly from the waiting room chair where he 
sat.  He clutched the bridge of his nose in a pincer-grasp 
as he felt the exhaustion beginning to set in.  He was 
developing a headache, and a bad one at that.

"Schanke, don't beat yourself up about this.  You did 
everything you could, and now it's out of your hands..." 
Cohen said softly.  "Hey, Greenborough's dead.  You did some 
good tonight, Detective..." 

Schanke sighed tiredly.  "Captain, to be quite honest with 
you, I'd let twelve Greenboroughs loose if it meant one 
Nick got to live..." he replied, knowing that it was selfish 
of him to think such thoughts.  Twelve Greenboroughs would 
leave a hefty trail of blood and bodies behind them, but 
then, he was sure the amount of people Nick saved on a 
regular basis cancelled that out.  Even so, there was no 
justification.

Cohen, however, didn't have a chance to answer him.

"Where is he?  What happened?" a frantic voice cried as the 
clicking of rapidly approaching heels drowned it out.  
Natalie came running up to the pair, a look of pained 
confusion on her face.

"Calm down, Nat..." Schanke said softly, trying to be a 
voice of reason.

"No, I will _not_ calm down!" she cried.  "WHERE THE HELL IS 
HE?!" she yelled, bordering on hysterics.  Schanke realized 
that she probably hadn't been told anything other than that 
Nick had been shot and was en route to the hospital.

"He's in the operating room.  They put him under about 
ten minutes ago..." Schanke explained, strangely calmer than 
he felt.  Perhaps, he could be strong for her.  That, and 
after Nick woke up, he could go yell at him for the whole 
'just friends' facade...

"WHAT?!" she practically shrieked, and Schanke was taken 
aback by the strange fact that she found those words more 
frightening than comforting...  Beginning to pace so fast 
that she was sure to run a trough into the floor if she kept 
her speed and determination up, Natalie looked like a caged 
lion.  

Cohen stood up.  "Doctor Lambert, that won't help things.  
Sit down," she commanded sternly, her face necessarily cold.   

"You don't understand..." Nat whispered as she was guided to 
a chair, her hands shaking terribly.  It was the first time 
in a long while that Schanke had seen her so visibly riled 
up.  Just friends, eh? he found himself thinking again with 
a shake of his head.  He felt a pain in his chest as he 
watched her sigh and place her head weakly in her trembling 
hands.  

"Nat, I'm so sorry...  If there was anything I could have 
done..." Schanke tried to console her, very aware that there 
was a good chance that Nick could still die.  

"Where was he hit?" she asked grimly, ignoring his attempt 
to comfort her.

Schanke swallowed, suddenly feeling very guilty although he 
knew deep down that Nick's situation was not his fault.  
"Lower left-hand side.  He was...  He was pretty bad off 
when they drove away," he said reluctantly, before he 
thought to add, "He asked for you, a lot..." 

Natalie looked up then, her eyes awash with pain and 
confusion.  "Did he say _anything_ else?" she asked, a 
sudden flash in her eyes, as if she were searching for clues 
to some mystery that only she knew existed.  Schanke didn't 
understand what the big deal was.

"Nat, he was pretty delirious.  Kept talking nonsensical 
stuff about not being able to go to the hospital, things 
like that," Schanke said as he watched her eyes slowly drop, 
but was unable to include the repeated statement that 'it 
wasn't supposed to hurt this much'.  He couldn't do that to 
her.  He wouldn't even consider causing such pain when she 
was already in such a terrible state.

Natalie shook her head.  "I don't understand..." she 
whispered, but offered no explanation as she wearily sat 
there, slumped, pale, and beaten senseless with worry.  More 
worry than he had ever seen her possess before.  

Minutes passed in what seemed like an eternity.  Natalie 
just sat there, reviewing something in her head that he 
would never be able to guess at, shaking her head at even 
intervals as she came to the same conclusion every single 
time.  She was in denial.  Plain and simple.

Schanke gave up on watching her, and turned his eyes towards 
the double doors that withheld his partner's uncertain fate 
from him.  And he sat there.  Waiting.  Visibly rocketing 
skywards with both hope and dread every time the doors swung 
open, only to be disappointed each time by the sight of a 
tired intern, or candy striper, or someone else altogether.  

Glancing at his watch, he sighed.  It had been hours.  Was 
an operation supposed to take this long?  He was growing 
more worried with each passing instant, and his feet were 
desperately prodding him to just be done with it and pace 
for all the good it would do.  

Until finally, a plastic-covered foot came out, followed by 
a body--a skinny red-headed doctor who'd obviously just come 
out of an operating room.  Her step was heavy and exhausted, 
her eyes weary.  "Are you here with Detective Knight?" the 
doctor asked as she approached them.

They all nodded.  "Well," she said with a hefty sigh, "we 
extracted the bullet from his pelvic cavity.  It really 
ripped him up inside.  We had to repair some extensive 
damage to the bladder and intestines, but I think we got to 
it in time.  It's mostly a waiting game now..."

"When can I see him?" Natalie asked seriously, her shoulders 
visibly heaving with relief.

The doctor sighed, obviously very tired.  "He's been put 
into ICU.  You can see him now if you want--he's in room 
107..."  

Schanke sighed, feeling somewhat relieved.  Nick was alive, 
and if things went well, then he would stay that way.  Only 
Natalie's solemn look of grief and confusion prevented him 
from throwing his hands up in rejoice.

*****

"Natalie!"

She didn't listen to them as she took off, leaving Schanke 
and the others lagging far, far behind her.

She ran as fast she could, only stopping briefly to 
apologize to the unfortunate victims of her careless head-on 
collisions.  A thousand different explanations tumbled 
haphazardly through her mind as she flew down the immaculate 
hallways.  He was faking it--everyone had been hypnotized.  
The wrong guy had been mistaken for Nick.  

Or...

Or he really was mortal...  

The thought made her run even faster, put an extra spring in 
her step.  She didn't want to get her hope up.  Not after so 
many failures, so many setbacks...  The lidovuterine had 
only been the beginning of an ever lengthening line of them.  

She'd tried other drugs, other dietary supplements, and 
nothing seemed to have any effect.  The whole series of 
trials and failures made her feel as though the vampire was 
sitting regally, poised on a throne within Nick's mind, 
laughing at them over their foolish attempts, and the 
feeling was not one that she liked.  Not at all.

103...  104...  

The anticipation that was wickedly ripping at her heart 
threatened to tear it into bloody, shredded sinews.

105...  106...

She gasped as her breath suddenly ran away, leaving her 
flailing with oxygen deprivation, only to skid to a 
screeching halt--an impressive thing for one wearing spiked 
heels.

107...

Staring at the doorway, she suddenly found her feet making 
a stern refusal to move from their current position, and she 
almost went sprawling to the floor.  What if he was mortal?  
If that were true, that meant he would be in very grave 
condition...  Mortal bodies just weren't constructed with 
such abuse in mind.  Nick would be hurting, if he were even 
awake, which he most certainly wouldn't be.  And it would be 
a long time before he was completely healed, what with the 
damage the surgeon had described. 

He would be so scared...  Had he ever been so grievously 
wounded?  She knew from the various puckers and jagged lines 
that scarred his flesh that he had indeed been hurt from 
time to time as a mortal, but had it ever been this bad?  So 
loath was he to talk about his past, and especially about 
his life as a mortal, that she could not reach an answer, 
even as she grasped desperately at things she'd forgotten 
long ago, hidden away in the corners of her mind.

Shaking herself from her thoughts, she came to a sudden 
resolve.  She inhaled deeply and clasped her hand steadily 
around the doorknob.  It was now or never, and never was not 
an option she could ever choose.

Ever so slowly, she pushed the door open, at first only 
peering in.  It was dark except for a dim fluorescent light 
that cast an eerie glow over the room, producing shadows 
that were guaranteed to make a jumpy mind ever so much more 
paranoid.  There was a small little walkway with a bathroom 
off to the left, and the angle of the jutting wall made it 
impossible to see anything in the room beyond except for 
the very tip of the bed.

Silence gripped her as Natalie took a step into the room.  
Only the faint beeping of a heart monitor could be heard, 
tiny little blips that indicated the inhabitant of the room 
was alive.  

Alive.  

As if some force propelled her forward, she dashed the rest 
of the way into the room with newfound confidence, and 
subsequently stopped short.

She gasped.

The body lying silently on the bed was Nick--pale, and 
still, swathed in immaculate white sheets, like a long-dead 
corpse on a funeral pyre.  

She placed a hand delicately on his neck, and after some 
light searching, was greeting with a weak heartbeat 
precisely matching the blips that floated through the room.  
Overjoyed, and at the same time overcome with a new grief-- 
that her best friend was lying there so critically wounded--
she drew up a chair and sat down beside him, staring at him 
as if he were an object to be worshipped.

"Oh, Nick..." she whispered softly, for the first time 
noticing the IV line that dripped steady antibiotics into 
his system, and the various other bags collecting waste.  
Never before had she seen him look so helpless, and it 
terrified her.

She placed a hand on his forehead, surprised to find it 
warm to the touch.  Warm, and alive.  Her hand strayed and 
began to play with a lock of his curly blond hair, feeling 
at once more intimate with him than she had ever been 
before.  Nick would've never let her touch him like this if 
he were awake.

He said it was because of the beast, and what it might do 
to her, but it had always struck her as a lie...

"You sure picked a bang to come back into the world of the 
living with, didn't you, Nick?" she asked quietly, a sad 
chuckle tumbling from her lips as she leaned in close to his 
smooth face.  The lines of worry that usually creased around 
his eyes were absent.  His face was slack and innocent, free 
from the crushing weight of the guilt that consciousness 
brought him.  It was hard to believe that he wasn't simply 
asleep.  That he wouldn't wake up at any moment and snarl at 
her for the intrusion to his peaceful slumber. 

A lone tear fell hastily down her cheek.  "Damn it!  I will 
_not_ cry..." she said miserably to herself as she wiped the
salty tear away on her sleeve.  Her insides started to shake 
and tremble with the worry she had kept carefully in check 
until now, but she bit back on her tumult with ferocity.  
"Look at me, Nick.  What a mess..." she whispered to the 
motionless form on the bed as if she expected some reply.

As much as she may have wanted one, however, she received 
none.  Cradling her head in her hands, she sighed heavily, 
biting back another sob that threatened.  Damn, damn, triple 
damn.  What was she going to do?

How had this happened?  Had someone decided that it was time 
to perform some twisted miracle?  Because it certainly 
hadn't been her...  Her help hadn't done this.  Her help 
hadn't gotten Nick almost killed...  

"Man-oh-man..." a distressed whisper came over her shoulder.  

She whipped her head around at the intrusion.  "Schanke..." 
she observed mirthlessly.

Schanke's eyes widened as he swept them across Nick's 
still figure.  "He's so pale..." was all the heavyset 
detective had to say.

Natalie sighed, but gave no response, looking back at Nick.  

"Is he going to wake up soon?" Schanke asked softly, his 
voice choked.

She shrugged half-heartedly.  "I honestly don't know, 
Schanke.  The anesthesia probably hasn't worn off yet, but 
other than that, it's completely up to him..." she informed 
him.  

"This is my fault, isn't it?" Schanke asked guiltily as he 
pulled up a chair next to Natalie.  "I should've known..."

"Schanke, it was no one's fault, and especially not yours," 
she assured him, used to giving the exact same protests to 
Nick, not that he ever listened.  But her curiosity got the 
better of her.  "Should've known what?" she asked.

"That something was wrong the second that I got to take the 
lead for once.  He was having a terrible time keeping up 
with me--something was wrong before he even got shot..." he 
explained with a shake of his head.

Natalie's eyes widened a bit.  Maybe she could get to the 
bottom of what had happened...  "Schanke, what exactly 
happened?"

Schanke shook his head.  "We were going after 
Greenborough...  Nick couldn't keep up with me.  Usually 
he's leaps and bounds in front of me, but this time he was 
so out of breath he looked like he was going to faint...  It 
was too late to turn back though, and then we got into that 
fire fight.  I still don't know how Nick got hit...  He 
wasn't even in the line of fire..."

So, Nick had apparently been having problems breathing?  
Maybe he had just made the change then.  It was hard to 
tell, but he certainly had been very much a vampire shortly 
before at the morgue, which left only a small window of 
time.  "It could have been a ricochet...  Or the bullet 
itself.  They travel in a parabolic path--they don't go in 
a straight line..." she explained softly, suspecting that it 
was the former.  If the reason for his injury had been the 
latter, Nick would have probably been hit higher up because 
he would have been smart enough to be behind a barrier of 
some kind--unless he had been too distracted or disoriented 
by the change.  It wasn't like he had been conditioned to 
duck or anything.  Eight hundred years of perceived 
invincibility would be hard to reprogram, especially if he 
hadn't known what was going on in the first place.

"He was too close to the trashcan...  The bullet would've 
blown his head off if it had just sailed in an arc," 
Schanke replied with a look of disgust.

Natalie shuddered at the image, but at least Schanke's 
comment had proven that her second conjecture was incorrect.  
One fewer thing to be left guessing about...  

Suddenly, Schanke's eyes widened in a flash of 
enlightenment.  "Oh man, Nat...  What if...  What if that 
was from a different gun?"

"You said you were just chasing Greenborough," Natalie said, 
suddenly worried.

Schanke opened his mouth to reply when a nurse poked her 
head in the room.  "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to 
leave.  I can't let you stay too long..." the brunette woman 
said regretfully.  

Natalie and Schanke both nodded, getting up from their 
seats.  With one last lingering look at Nick, Natalie 
followed Schanke out of the room.  The nurse smiled warmly 
at them.  "You can come back in another hour, all right?  
Ten minutes every hour are the rules," she explained.  Upon 
receiving a mute nod from Schanke, she rushed off.

Natalie immediately turned to Schanke.  "You told me that 
you were just chasing Greenborough!" she repeated.

Schanke nodded.  "We were!  Maybe he had an accomplice or 
something?  I swear, Nat, one second I looked and Nick was 
fine, the next he was hit, and I didn't hear a shot...  I 
would've heard ricochet...  I'm so STUPID!  Why didn't I 
think of this before now?" Schanke asked, making wild 
gestures with his hands.

Natalie took a deep breath.  "Calm down, Schanke.  I'll 
just take a look at the bullet that they dug out of Nick and 
compare it with Greenborough's rounds..." she assured him, 
suddenly wondering why it hadn't occurred to her before 
either.  "But, Schanke...  If the round recovered from Nick 
was from a different gun, that means the shooter is still 
out there somewhere..."  

She saw Schanke visibly swallow.  "That's precisely what it 
means, Nat..." he commented, his face visibly paling.

Nick's nameless, faceless, would-be murderer was still on 
the loose.

*****

Natalie stared at the plastic evidence bag in her hands, and 
dread overwhelmed her.  She didn't need to do any special 
testing.  The bullet wasn't from the same gun.  The pellet 
wasn't even the same.  Greenborough's rounds were from a low 
caliber hand pistol.  This one was steel.  Armor-piercing.  
Probably from a high caliber rifle.  Possibly a sniper 
rifle.

And someone had shot it at Nick.  This was no ricochet...

"Oh, honey.  I just heard..." Grace Balthazar said as she 
came racing into the room, taking Natalie into a comforting 
hug.  "How is he?" she asked, concerned.

Natalie sighed, somewhat overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught 
of sympathy.  "He'll be all right," she whispered, not 
daring to try her speaking voice, afraid that it would 
crack.  He would be all right.  He had to be.  Eventually...

Grace released her and nodded.  "Well, the entire office is 
rooting for him.  There's already a pool for how long the 
nurses will be able to keep him in his room..." she 
commented, trying to lighted to mood.

Natalie simply didn't see the humor.  "He's not even 
conscious--I don't think they'll have much trouble," she 
whispered bitterly. 

Grace looked as though she'd been slapped.  "Nat..." she 
said, backing up a bit.

Natalie shook her head and exhaled heavily.  "I'm sorry, 
Grace.  It's just...  I'm so angry!"  Angry that some 
bastard ripped away Nick's first moments as a brand spanking 
new member of mortality.  Angry that that newfound mortality 
had already been tested.   

Grace nodded in understanding.  "Well, at least the 
shooter..." she began, but Natalie interrupted her.

"The shooter is still out there, Grace.  The bullets don't 
match..." Natalie said, swallowing at Grace's horrified 
look.  "Could you take this down to the lab?  I want this 
thing cross-checked against all the registered guns we've 
got on record..." Natalie explained, proffering the plastic 
bag towards her coworker, although she doubted the search 
would turn up anything.  No one in their right mind would've 
fired such a conspicuous type of bullet from a registered 
weapon, especially not at a police officer.  

Grace's eyes shared the same doubt that Natalie felt, but 
without another word, she acquiesced and rushed off with the 
evidence bag, realizing that the matter was urgent.

Natalie barely wasted a moment, collecting her things and 
rushing back to the hospital.  She'd already spent three 
hours in the lab finishing up the analysis of a few things 
that had been interrupted when she'd gotten the call about 
Nick.  That, and looking at the bullet.  She had had to go 
through a virtual Hell to get that thing in her hands so 
quickly.  Luckily, she hadn't been strangled by red-tape, 
but the whole process had left her quite flustered.

The time it took to get back to him seemed like an eternity, 
but she finally arrived at Nick's familiar, immaculate 
hallway.  Schanke was sitting outside the room in a chair, 
shoulders slumped.  "Schanke?" Natalie asked as she 
approached, curious.  "You don't have to be here..." she 
said, her voice wavering slightly.

Schanke shook his head.  "I know, but...  If there's someone 
gunning for Nick..."  His voice trailed off, and 
immediately, Natalie understood.  Schanke was playing 
bodyguard, as Nick had so often done for Schanke.  

"What about Myra and Jenny?" she queried.  

"They know what happened.  I called them when I went to get 
some coffee...  I told Nick hello and get well for them.  
He's not awake yet..." Schanke explained in clipped tones, 
visibly exhausted.

"Schank, go home," she commanded, but he stubbornly remained 
in place.  "I'll stay here with him," she assured him.

He let loose a huge, jaw-cracking yawn, and he looked 
upwards in thought as he contemplated her words.  But he 
still stayed where he was.  "Look, at least get some sleep 
and a shower...  You won't do Nick any good if you're too 
tired to stay upright," she reasoned.

Finally, he gave in and stood up.  "I'll be back in a few 
hours," he half-said, half groaned, leaning heavily on the 
wall briefly before shuffling off.  

"Schank?" Natalie called after him.  "Take a cab, ok?" she 
asked, concerned.  He merely nodded sleepily and was gone.

She went, once again, into the darkened room and sat beside 
his pale form.  Feeling a tinge of sadness, she noted his 
extremely ghostly pallor, almost a pasty flour white.  And 
despite how perfect a picture of bad health he painted, the 
relaxed features of his face still continued to amaze her.  
How one could look so angelic and so innocent in sleep 
always surprised her, especially when the difference was so 
severe as Nick's

She lay her head down on top of her hands, resting her chin 
gently next to his shoulder.  Turning to the side, she 
gasped at the sight of his chest rising and falling, rising 
and falling, all of its own volition, and despite her worry, 
she was unable to suppress a small smile.  That was a sight 
that she could get used to very easily.  Easily indeed.

"What have you done to him?"  The cold whisper shocked her 
from her pleasant thoughts.

LaCroix.  She had never met him before, but this individual 
fit the bill, and his voice was as rich in person as it was 
on the radio.  At once, she felt very nervous, and she 
unconsciously gripped at Nick's limp hand.

"I didn't do anything, LaCroix," she said acidly, rising to 
her feet in hopes of leveling off some of the intimidation 
his height was providing to her.

"Nicholas is lying in a hospital with a heartbeat and a 
near lethal wound.  I somehow find it hard to believe that 
you had nothing at all to do with this situation..." he 
replied reasonably, not advancing, but certainly not backing 
down either.  His face was cold and unyielding, but his eyes 
showed a scathing contempt for her that she found almost 
palpable.  Why did this man have such reason to hate her?  

"LaCroix, I assure you, that if I did anything that caused 
this, I am completely unaware of it," she challenged 
truthfully, determined not to back off.

LaCroix smiled slightly, a small quirk of his lips that 
could have been easily interpreted as a sneer.  "Indeed," he 
replied, suddenly stepping forward, so sudden that she 
jumped in surprise.  He smiled again--a strange, wolfish 
smile like a cat sizing up a mouse, and she immediately felt 
foolish.  He had managed to get her to show her discomfort 
with the situation all too easily.

"Honestly, Doctor Lambert," LaCroix commented, disapproval 
emanating from his voice, but he grew silent as his eyes 
flitted to Nick.  

Natalie swallowed, suddenly realizing his intent.  "Don't 
you dare bring him across again," she commanded, much more 
firmly than she felt.  She could feel her heart fluttering 
madly in her chest, and she was sure that LaCroix was 
perfectly aware of it.

He raised an eyebrow at her audacity, but remained silent, 
daring her to state her mind.  

"Look, at least wait until he's awake.  Let him make the 
choice..."

LaCroix remained silent as he pondered her words, and 
Natalie felt strangely like as though she were under a 
microscope, subject to his every observation.  

"LaCroix, don't!" she whispered harshly, praying that he 
would listen.  She couldn't let Nick's centuries-long wish 
be destroyed like this...  She looked wildly about for 
something, _anything_, that could be used to deter the 
ancient vampire should he choose to take Nick, but came up 
with nothing.

His eyes narrowed, and he regarded her for a moment.  
"Doctor, I have no intention of bringing him across against 
his wishes.  I do not wish to hear him complain for another 
eight centuries..." LaCroix finally stated quietly, looking 
down at Nick's still form with... pain?  Regret?  Natalie 
tried to interpret the minute changes in his expression, but 
they were so slight that she wondered if she were imagining 
them.

"But, why?" Natalie asked, dumbfounded.  Alarm bells were 
ringing ferociously in her head like air raid sirens.  This 
was not the LaCroix that she expected.  This was _not_ the 
LaCroix that she had heard Nick discuss with such turmoil 
and frustration.  The man that she was looking at could 
_not_ be trusted.

"Because I know what he wants," came LaCroix's cryptic 
response.  "And I think that Nicholas needs to discover 
himself, for himself..."  

Natalie smiled.  "Well, I'm glad you've finally realized 
what Nick's been trying to tell you for years on end," she 
replied haughtily, although deep in her mind she felt wary.  
Very wary.  This had been too easy.  

"Indeed," LaCroix replied, his lips turned upwards in a sly 
smile, but the way in which he said it gave it a strong 
lack of either confirmation or denial, and it scared her.

She swallowed.  "I must admit that you surprise me," she 
replied calmly.

He quirked an eyebrow.  "Good.  It is always preferable to 
be unpredictable in the eyes of an adversary," he stated, 
still looking at Nick.

Her chest constricted at his comment.  So, he thought her an 
enemy?  "I'm only an adversary because you make me one.  If 
you would just let Nick go, this wouldn't be an issue," she 
ground out through her molars, barely resisting the urge to 
snap at him.  Hell, she wanted to throttle him!

The vampire was silent for a moment.  "No," LaCroix finally 
replied.  "You are an adversary because you cause Nicholas 
more pain than I ever could."  

But before she had a chance to question him, he was gone in 
a quiet gust of air.  When his absence finally registered, 
the tension in the room disappeared as if it were air 
gushing out of a pricked balloon, and Natalie collapsed back 
into her chair.  She didn't have the energy to contemplate 
why LaCroix had said and done those things.  

"That was a close one," she told her silent companion, 
yawning as the adrenaline withdrew from her body and was
replaced by bone-weary fatigue.  "I'll just put my head down 
a for moment," she argued with herself, placing her chin 
down on top of her hands beside Nick, much as she had right 
before LaCroix had arrived.

Rising and falling...  She drowsily found herself marveling 
at Nick's sleeping form once more.  "Just a moment..." she 
mumbled as her eyes fell closed of their own volition and 
did not open again.

"Jss a mmnt..." she slurred, lulled into unconsciousness by 
the beeping of Nick's heart monitor.

"Ma'am it's time to..." the nurse poked her head in the room 
again and smiled at the sight.  "Well I suppose we can let 
the rules go this time," she whispered conspiratorially at 
the pair of sleeping forms, and then went off to do more 
pressing errands.

*****

Beep.  Beep.  Beep.

He became distinctly aware that he was awake, and that he 
did not wish to be.  The very quiet beeping only served to 
agitate him.  He felt weak, and tired, and his whole body 
hurt.

Warmth.  There was warmth on his face...

He cracked open an eyelid, only to be greeted with a 
stabbing ray of sunshine.  For a brief moment, he felt the 
beginnings of panic, until he realized that although he felt 
warmth smooth across his face like a blanket, there was 
nothing else.  No blinding pain, no burning sensation as his 
insides incinerated into dust.  And, he found that the 
feeling was rather pleasant.

So tired...

He opened his other eye and allowed his lids to droop lazily 
as his pupils adjusted to the light, surprised to find that 
his eyes didn't hurt from such brightness and that they 
adjusted quite aptly.  As the last wisps of unconsciousness 
left him, he realized how dry his throat was, and how badly 
his abdomen hurt, as if he were recovering from a vicious 
stab wound to the gut.

Trying to lift his hand to examine the damage, he was 
surprised to find that he simply couldn't.  He felt as if 
his arms were two-ton weights.  Why was he so weak?

<Something's wrong.> 

<Well of course something is wrong, Nick!  You've been 
shot!>

He gasped as the memories assaulted him like physical blows, 
beating his brow painfully and drawing a terrible sweat.

<No...  No... something else is wrong...  I...> 

He was afraid.  Afraid and alone, and Schanke was helpless 
to help him.

Schanke, don't call the ambulance...  Don't call...

<can't go to the hospital...> 

Panic!  The Enforcers couldn't know about this...  The 
doctors would immediately know that he wasn't human.  He 
couldn't go to the hospital... 

Schanke, please...  Please...

<get Nat...> 

She'll know what to do.  

Fear.  Shock.  It wasn't supposed to hurt like this...

<Ntspposedtohurt>

He panted furiously.  

Think reasonably!  Forcefully, he slowed his rapid breaths, 
calmed himself down, let the trauma slip from his mind.  
Memories.  That was all.  The stuff of dreams and faint 
recollections that haunted each and every one of his eternal 
nights, and that was all...  All it ever was.  Just 
memories.

His eyelids drooped again.  Such a heavy weight for such 
small pieces of flesh...

So tired...

There was something he wanted, he could tell.  Something 
deep within the pit of his chest was screaming for relief.  
Dry.  Cold.  He felt dry, exhausted...  His throat was 
cottony, his tongue like sandpaper, and he yearned 
desperately for something to soothe it.  Thirsty, that was 
it.  Dreadfully thirsty.  And at the same time, he could 
feel nothing of the bloodlust.  The beast was gone.

He was mortal.  

In a flash of brilliant enlightenment, he realized that the 
incessant beeping was monitoring his own heart.

"Nick?" 

He started at the sleepy utterance, turning his gaze to his 
right for the first time since he'd woken up.  "Nat?" he 
asked, or at least, he tried to.  All that came out was a 
cracked, wheezy breath of air because his throat was so 
parched.  He looked at her with confusion.

She looked excited, but tired.  "You're awake!" she stated 
happily, more ecstatic that he could ever remember her 
being. 

"Thirsty..." he rasped, finally managing to utter something 
that she could understand.

Natalie bounded up from her seat and flew into the bathroom, 
and Nick could vaguely hear the water running.  He closed 
his eyes, the battle to keep them open requiring far too 
much effort.  So tired...

"Nick?" Natalie whispered, under the impression that he had 
fallen back asleep.

He slowly opened his eyes, surprised.  He hadn't heard her 
approach at all.  Were his senses so blunt now that he 
couldn't hear a simple footstep in the same room?  That was 
going to be something he had to get used to...

She tipped his head up and gave him the precious liquid from 
a clear plastic cup.  Never before had he ever thought water 
could taste so delicious.  He swallowed greedily, wetting 
his throat and mouth with the cool elixir.  Sadly, it was 
gone all too quickly.

"More?" Natalie asked, concerned.

"No," he replied weakly, despite the fact that he wanted it.  
The water had only whetted his thirst, it seemed, but he 
needed to figure out what was going on...  That was more 
important.  

She looked at him expectantly.  "How do you feel?" she 
asked anxiously.

Terrible.  Absolutely terrible.  "I'm okay," he replied 
hesitantly, his voice quiet.  He could not manage anything 
louder.  He hadn't felt like this since he had been injured 
in the crusades.  "What happened?"  

"You got hit.  The bullet decided to bounce around in your 
abdomen for awhile," Natalie explained grimly.  "We think 
the shooter is still on the loose."

"Greenborough got away?" Nick asked, perplexed.  He could've 
sworn that Greenborough had been taken down by Schanke, but 
then, his memory was a little fuzzy.

"No--we suspect that someone was sniping at you guys."

Nick suddenly grew worried.  That would either mean someone 
was intentionally gunning for them as a stand-alone job, or 
that Greenborough had an unknown accomplice.  "Schank?" he 
asked.

"He's all right.  Actually, he was keeping vigil outside 
your door until I sent him home to get some rest..." Natalie 
said with a light chuckle.

He nodded slightly and closed his eyes.  Keeping them open 
was a magnificent feat, and he didn't really want to waste 
what little energy he had on that.  He felt literally like 
he'd been run over by a truck, dragged for twenty miles, 
thrown off a cliff and then impaled on the rocks below to 
boot.  Not to mention the fact that he felt ill--definitely 
not a pleasant sensation, and growing more unpleasant by the 
moment.  Nausea or being gored.  It was hard to decide which 
was worse.  

But, he was mortal.  Mortal...  Soon, he would be able to go 
in the sunlight, get a tan, eat food, but for now he really 
didn't want to think about it.  For now, he was a complete 
invalid, and he would be for a while with such stunted 
healing capabilities.

"Nat, what was in that shake?" he whispered, desperately 
fighting the urge to fall back into a healing sleep.  

"Nick, there was nothing in that that hasn't been in any of 
my other shakes.  Those things aren't supposed to change you 
back, presto-chango, they're supposed to provide you with an 
adequate dietary substitute so you can stay off the blood 
long enough for you to change back.  I honestly doubt the 
shake had anything to do with your change," she explained 
with a puzzled expression.  "Of course," she continued, 
"that means that we're staring wide-eyed at a miracle from 
above, which seems just about as likely..." 

Nick could not help but think that maybe it was not meant to 
be a miracle.  Maybe he was supposed to have died in that 
alley.  The sniper had obviously been operating under that 
belief...  And strangely, Schanke had not been fired at at 
all, it seemed, although in the crossfire a stray bullet 
from a rooftop above would have been hard to differentiate 
between the ones flying directly through the alley.  Schanke 
may have been shot at and not even realized it. 

"Well, look what decided to drag itself out of near death!  
Man, Nick, I'm so glad you're awake!" the familiar voice of 
his partner invaded his contemplation.  He saw Schanke's 
elated face hovering behind Natalie.  "How do you feel?"

Nick smiled slightly.  That seemed to be the popular 
question of the day.  "Peachy," he deadpanned, but his yawn 
ruined it.

Schanke smiled.  "No offense, bud, but you look like crap," 
his heavyset partner replied.

"Next time, you can get shot, all right?" Nick replied, 
closing his eyes exhaustedly, for once continuing the 
playful banter that Schanke often offered.  

Natalie's warm hand patted his shoulder.  "You get some 
rest, Nick," she whispered.

He didn't really bother to respond.  Never before had he 
found her medical advice to be so appealing and easy to 
follow.

*****

Natalie stared at the scalpel in her hands and noticed it 
shaking slightly, even as she tried desperately to hold the 
damn thing still.  The whole idea that Nick was mortal was 
just making it so incredibly hard for her to concentrate on 
work.  Her mind just kept drifting to all the things she 
was going to have to introduce him to--like chocolate, and 
sunbathing, and...  Well, after he was back on his feet, she 
rationalized.  Right now, sitting up would probably be about 
as much as his traumatized body could muster, if even that.  

Which, of course, brought her back to the whole idea that 
some insane assassin was still out there, still very much 
alive, and still planning God knew what.  Surely, he, or 
she, had heard that Nick had survived the hit--Natalie had 
seen the headlines plastered all over the morning papers.  
Somehow, the story had leaked to the press that a gunman in 
an _attempted_ assassination of a police officer was still 
at large.

The coroner's mindset that had grown to inhabit her head was 
kicking in to full gear.  She found it odd how badly the so-
called assassination had been botched.  Any trained sniper 
would not have missed and hit Nick so low in the abdomen.  
He or she would have gone for a critical hit, say the heart, 
or the forehead, or maybe even the liver.  But this--this 
was just really unusual.

Only a happy trigger finger would have gotten the hit so far 
off the mark, because from what she had heard of the story, 
Nick had not been much of a moving target.  And people did 
not hire hit men with reputations for being happy trigger 
fingers...  

And that led her to another question.  The gunman had gone 
for Nick.  If, in some odd twist of fate, Greenborough had 
hired help, the shooter would have been going for Schanke, 
because he had been the one trying to talk Greenborough out 
of the alley.  From what she'd heard, Nick was pretty much 
out of the picture, ill from the very start of the chase.

Which meant...  The shooting did not have anything to do 
with Greenborough.  The hit was aimed expressly at Nick, and 
the hit was not meant to kill.  And that, to her, made 
absolutely no sense whatsoever.  Why use a hit man to _not_ 
kill the target?  

Something was wrong with this picture...  Very wrong...

"Nat!" Grace cried boisterously as she came busting into the 
room without even bothering to knock.  "I got the reports 
back from the lab.  The bullet didn't match any of the guns 
on record."

Natalie's face fell.  The news was as she had expected it 
would be.

"But," Grace continued when she saw her coworker's 
crestfallen face, "we did get fingerprint matches!"

Natalie threw the scalpel on the tray and visibly jumped 
with excitement.  "You're kidding.  Please tell me that 
you're kidding!" she exclaimed.

With a grin, Grace shook her head.  "Aliyah Kaldereski.  
She's on the record for one DWI, two counts of assault, and 
various other misdemeanors."

Natalie creased her brow.  A petty criminal, at best.  
Didn't really seem like a professional hit woman.  Another 
strange piece in a bizarre puzzle.  "Are you sure that it's 
correct, Grace?" she asked hesitantly.

Grace just looked at her.  "Well, I could have them run the 
test again... but...  I don't really see how a computer 
could mismatch fingerprints..." she replied.

"Oh, Grace.  I'm sorry.  It's just that this case is so damn  
strange!  Never mind, I trust you," she responded with a 
smile, dismissing her coworker with a slight nod.

Natalie quickly walked over to the phone and hit speed-dial 
number three.  

"Detective Schanke, Metro PD, 96th Division," a gruff voice 
said after only two short rings.

"Schank, it's Nat.  We managed to pull some fingerprints off 
of the bullet the doctor extracted from Nick," she stated, 
much more calmly than she felt.

"No!  You're jerking my chain!" Schanke replied, with far 
much more hope in his voice that he had probably desired to 
let on.

"Nope, Schank.  This is a live one.  Aliyah Kaldereski.  
A-L-I-Y-A-H K-A-L-D-E-R-E-S-K-I.  She's got a rap sheet, 
too," Natalie said slowly into the receiver.  She could hear 
Schanke scribbling on a sheet of paper.

"Hmm-mmm," he mumbled as he finished his notes and typed 
some stuff into his computer, to bring up the record.  "Wow, 
that seems..."

"Strange?" Natalie interrupted, finishing his sentence for 
him.

"Yeah," Schanke confirmed after a long and baffled pause.

"Listen, Schank.  This has been bothering me for a while.  
If this woman were an accomplice, she would've tried to hit 
you, instead of Nick.  But if it were an assassin, then Nick 
wouldn't have been hit where he was hit.  At least, that's 
my own, possibly warped, reasoning..." Natalie trailed off, 
trying to reason with herself that she was just going 
insane, and that there really was some reasonable 
explanation for all of this.

"Yeah, I've been thinking that, too," Schanke replied with 
a confused tone in his voice, his mental gears almost 
palpably cranking.  "I guess I'll have to go bring this 
girl in and see what she has to say," he continued, a slight 
touch of venom entering his voice.

"You do that, Schanke.  You do that," Natalie concluded, 
because she was just as curious as Schanke obviously was.

*****

She was glaring again...

Schanke crossed his arms in a classic Superman pose, trying 
to intimidate the slight woman who was sitting before him.  
He found the fact that this little drink of water was even 
capable of hefting a gun quite hard to believe, let alone 
two counts of assault, and she had come in completely 
willingly, as if she had known that she was going to get 
caught.  

Her dark, gaunt features were framed by straight, jet-black 
hair, although he doubted that it was naturally that color.  
Standing just short of five feet, clad in black leather, 
copious piercings, pasty white makeup, four inch spike-
healed boots, and a more than slightly revealing 'thing that 
should have never ever been classified as a top', she was 
the paradigm of all that was stereotypical Goth.

Just the thought that someone would willingly wear such... 
stuff... gave him the heebie-jeebies.  It was wrong--that's 
what it was.  She had even had fake fangs stuck in place 
with adhesive when she had answered the door, like she 
thought she was some sort of femme fatale vampiress.

The sicker thing about it was that she had been with a guy, 
who she had dismissed quite quickly upon Schanke's arrival.  
Apparently the fang thing was a fetish.  The thought made 
him shiver.  There were weird, weird, weird, people on this 
Earth.  Times like this made him want to grab a souvlaki and 
hide away in his house with his quirky, but mostly normal, 
family of three.  

"So," he finally began, "do you think you could tell me one 
more time?  Were you hired to make a hit on my partner?"

The girl nodded mutely--several of the chains that adorned 
her neck rattled slightly at the movement.

"Would you mind elaborating, or shall we use the pulling 
teeth questioning method?" Schanke added, irritation seeping 
into his voice.  

Aliyah sighed.  "Look, some dude hired me to shoot your 
partner, but not kill him, all right?  I don't know why, or 
who my employer was, just that he gave me a shit load of 
money, and I don't really care about the rest," she replied 
haughtily.

"Uh huh.  So what did he look like?" Schanke asked.

"Who?" she asked dumbly, a pierced black eyebrow raised in 
question.

"Your employer," he replied, grinding his teeth in 
annoyance.  This girl had the open appearance of being 
cooperative, but she wasn't giving him the half of it, and 
that fact bugged him immensely.  

She shrugged theatrically.  "I don't know."

"You don't know..." Schanke repeated, disbelief dripping 
from his voice, as he sat down heavily in the chair across 
from her.  This was unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable.
"What, was this hiring through correspondence or something?  
You know, assassin-by-mail sort of thing?" he replied 
incredulously.

"No," the girl said, suddenly looking confused, as if she 
were grasping for straws that were simply not there to 
grasp.  "I remember the conversation perfectly, but...  I 
can't remember his face..." she continued, her voice 
trailing off into oblivion.

Schanke threw up his hands.  This girl had some screws 
loose, that was for sure.  "Well, tell me about the 
conversation then."  

"I was at a bar," she began softly.

"Which bar?" he interrupted, trying to get _some_ piece of 
useful information out of her.

"I don't know," she replied.

"Great," Schanke said sarcastically before motioning with 
his hands for her to continue.  "Go on," he prodded.

"I was at a bar and this guy just sat next to me and asked 
me what I'd be willing to do to make a million dollars.  I 
told him I'd do just about anything, except kill myself, 
cuz then, well, you can't really use the money if you're 
dead..." she continued.  

Schanke fought the terrible urge to break out laughing.  Not 
only a Goth, but a ditz...  The two didn't seem to mesh 
well.  "Good reasoning..." he deadpanned, trying desperately 
to keep a straight face.

She didn't seem to notice.  "Anyway, he pulled out this big 
wad of bills and said they were mine if I trailed your 
partner and shot him, as long as I didn't kill him."

"And you don't remember what this guy looked like, or what 
his name was?" he asked again, realizing that he was going 
to get nowhere.  The girl was either dumb as a post, or she 
was a damn good actor.  Either way he was on the losing side 
of the battle.

"No...  It's...  fuzzy," she said absently.  "I may have had 
a little too much to drink that night or something."

"You think?" he asked incredulously, unable to contain 
himself.  "And what, did you purposefully leave your 
fingerprints so you'd get caught?"

She shrugged.  "I forgot to wear gloves--so sue me...  The 
money will be worth it anyway, even if I'm out of 
circulation for a few years..."

Schanke rolled his eyes at her shamelessness.  Some 
people...  "Look, Miss Kaldereski, if you think of 
_anything_ while you're in lock-up that could help me, let 
the guard know and he'll come get me.  All right?" he said 
as if he were talking down to a child. 

She just smirked.  "Don't think I don't know what you think 
about me, Detective.  Even if I could help you any further, 
I wouldn't..." she replied nastily, standing up to be led 
out by the guard.

Schanke sighed.  This was not turning out well at all--and 
some loon was still out there with his sights on Nick.

*****

Two weeks.

He sat trembling on the floor of the large bathroom, praying 
that a nurse would not discover him cowering there in the 
darkness.  Two weeks of mortality and he was already sick.  
He had barely managed to walk the distance from the bed to 
the bathroom, and the pull on the stitches in his abdomen 
had been really uncomfortable, although it had not hurt 
nearly as much as the first time the nurse had forced him 
out of bed.  His wounds were definitely healing, if not way 
too slow for his tastes.

Two lousy weeks.

"Oh, God," he groaned as his stomach spasmed viciously and 
his straining abdominal muscles seemingly ratcheted up his 
torso.  Reflexively, he leaned over the bowl and let loose 
his entire dinner.  His head was swimming, and his vision 
was carpeted with little black dots.  Stomach literally doing 
flip flops in his abdomen, he clung to the rim of the toilet 
as if it were a life raft, his only salvation, but the acrid 
smell of vomit and the taste of bile in his mouth just made 
him feel worse.

His stomach heaved wildly, but luckily nothing came up this 
time.  This had been the first time he had been allowed to 
eat something remotely solid, and he was paying for it 
heavily.  

"Nat, I promise _never_ to make fun of you when you have the 
flu aga..."  His sentence was woefully interrupted as his 
innards heaved and more of his stomach contents emptied into 
the bowl.  

He leaned back shakily and sat there, eyes closed, praying 
silently that his churning innards would calm down.  This 
wasn't normal, was it?  He was injured, not ill, and here he 
was losing his guts like the worst case of the flu ever 
recorded.  Finally, his stomach calmed down and he dared to 
stand up, stumbling very slowly back to bed.

Two weeks.  

He shook his head miserably as he settled himself back into 
his bed in hopes of getting some small semblance of sleep.

Maybe it would get better soon.

******

A dead end.  That's where he was.  A complete and total 
impasse of galactic proportions.

"Are you going to eat that last donut?"  

Schanke looked up from his work to his temporary partner, 
Jacob Michaels.  He was a good guy, but he just wasn't Nick.  
The man was as friendly and polite as they came, but Schanke 
wouldn't trust his life to him in a fire fight for any 
amount of money in the world, and when it came to partners, 
that was a bad thing.  A _very_ bad thing.  

He had told Captain Cohen about the problem, and she'd been 
understanding about it, but she simply didn't have the 
personnel to dish out temporary temporary partners on demand 
like that.

"No, go ahead," Schanke finally responded, slightly 
crestfallen.  Nick never would have stolen the last jelly 
donut.  Of course, Nick really wouldn't have stolen _any_ 
donut, because he didn't eat anything but those disgusting 
health shakes that Natalie made for him, but that wasn't the 
point.

The point was that they were nowhere.  After they'd dragged 
in Miss Kaldereski, the leads had gone dry.  They were no 
closer to solving who was behind the whole scheme to get 
Nick in the hospital than they had been before they had 
gotten her in custody.

What Schanke needed was for Jacob to just get one of those 
Nick-patented 'I'm off somewhere in the Pink Planetary 
Nebula, check back later in a few minutes' looks and then 
dash off, only to miraculously come back a few hours later 
with the entire case solved and the criminal bagged and 
tagged.  He sighed.  Sometimes Nick's eccentric mind was 
such a benefit to his now glowing case record that he 
wondered if he ever solved any on his own anymore.

Schanke stared at Jacob as he ate the jelly-donut with 
excruciating slowness, surprised to find that he was 
actually becoming critical of the fact that Jacob had brown 
hair instead of blond now.  Finally, Jacob stopped his 
powdery feast.  "What?!" he said, irritated, "I asked if you 
wanted it..." 

Schanke's mouth fell open.  "Uh, it's nothing, never mind.  
Enjoy," he quickly said, tearing his eyes away from the 
delectable snack item that had been so viciously ripped from 
his grasp by inescapable politeness.

"Uh huh.  You had that look again," Jacob commented dryly.

"Look?  What look?  I don't have a look..." Schanke hastily 
denied.

"The 'damn, I wish Nick was here instead of Jacob' look," 
Jacob said, his voice sounding slightly hurt.

Schanke immediately felt guilty.  "Look, Jacob, I'm sorry, 
you're a great guy and all... but a guy like Nick...  Well, 
he just grows on you, that's all.  He's a hard act to 
follow, and I'm sorry if I've been trying to compare you to 
him."

Jacob just nodded.  "Better you than me, I suppose." 

Schanke raised an eyebrow.  "What do you mean?"

Jacob smiled.  "I've just heard some interesting things 
about The Knightmare.  You know, that he scares the perps, 
that he's hard to get along with, really aloof, you know, 
the standard precinct gossip."

Schanke shrugged.  "Yeah, well, let me tell you something, 
and Nick would kill me if he ever heard me say it, but, all 
of that's just an act.  Yessiree, just call him Mr. Facade.  
The Nick I know is the most friendly, loyal guy I've ever 
known."

"Why would he kill you if he heard to say that?" Jacob asked 
curiously, his brow furrowed in thought.

"Because I think he _wants_ to be thought of as 'The 
Knightmare'.  That way, he doesn't have to let anyone in.  
He's a very private individual.  The epitome of a loner.  I 
think he's been burned before, and I think he's just afraid 
of it happening again so he just shuts everyone out.  Except 
Nat, maybe," Schanke explained, surprised at his own 
insightfulness.  It was amazing what terrible hunger 
produced...

"Why would you think that?" Jacob replied.

"Well, Nick has _never_ told me about himself, at all.  
Hell, I rattle off about Myra all the time, but do you think 
I've ever heard one word from him about his personal life 
when it wasn't forced?  It's like pulling teeth with him.  
He won't even tell me who Janet is," Schanke commented, 
mispronouncing the woman's name without realizing it.   

"No matter how much I grill him about it," he continued 
after taking a breath.  "I get the impression that they've 
been pretty serious before though.  I've known the guy for 
years and I _still_ don't know anything about his family or 
his past, or even very much of his present.  But that's 
Nick.  And despite all of that, I still would trust him with 
my life, if it came down to it, that is.  I'm just sorry I 
couldn't come through for him when it counted..."  Schanke 
finished guiltily.

Jacob looked at him sympathetically.  "Well, hey, he's 
coming back soon, isn't he?  He's been in the hospital for a 
month already, but just think about how much worse it could 
have been.  We could be permanent partners, you know..." 
Jacob stated matter-of-factly, trying to console Schanke.

"Yeah, yeah, he does come back in two weeks.  He gets a week 
off after he gets out of the hospital..." Schanke replied 
softly, silently praying that two weeks from then would 
arrive a lot faster than it seemed to be doing. 

Fourteen more days without his good ol' partner to back him 
up.  Well... to lead on in a gung-ho-like fashion while 
Schanke followed, hoping against hope that Nick's strange 
mind was in the right gear and not driving off to who-knew-
where on a lead that he wouldn't disclose even if he were 
given Chinese water treatment.  Yup.  Those were the good 
ol' days.

"So how is he doing?  Have you been to see him?" Jacob 
asked.

Schanke smiled.  "He's actually doing pretty well.  Healing 
up right on schedule like the punctual guy he is, actually.  
Last time I saw him he was pretty adamant about never 
wanting to stay in a hospital again.  Can't blame the guy 
though, I doubt he's ever been in one long-term before.  I 
don't think I can recall the last time I've ever seen him 
sick.  Nick was Mr. Indestructible Energizer Bunny before 
this..." Schanke replied.

Jacob smiled.  "Yeah, I've heard that about him, too.  I 
don't know, I'm still pretty glad I won't have to keep up 
with him when he gets back.  After a month and a half off 
from work, the guy is bound to be springy."

Schanke just groaned.  "I hear you there!  I just pray that 
Cohen doesn't try to stick him with some fluff desk job...  
Heaven help the precinct if that happens!" he exclaimed.

"A Knightmare, eh?" Jacob responded with a chuckle.

"A Knightmare..." Schanke confirmed, realizing with an 
inward groan what a terrible understatement that was.

*****

Everything was dark, and, sightless as he was, he had been 
slightly dizzy on the car ride over.  He shook his head, 
wondering when the last time was that he had even suffered a 
hint of motion sickness, even _contemplated_ suffering a 
hint of motion sickness.  A long time, that was for sure.

"Nat?  Can I take the blindfold off yet?" he questioned, 
reaching upwards towards his brow.  The damn thing was a 
starchy cotton--very scratchy and uncomfortable, even to his 
dulled mortal nerves.

"Nope," came Natalie's succinct reply, followed by a loud 
door slam. 

"Nat?" Nick asked blindly.  She had gotten out of the car, 
and he could vaguely hear her shuffling around to his side 
on what he was barely able to determine as sidewalk, but it 
was still quite disorienting to be suddenly shoved into 
relative silence like that.

The car door to his left was pulled open, and he quickly 
readjusted his balance before he fell, mentally cursing 
himself for leaning so heavily on the door with his forearm.
"Sorry, Nick.  Didn't realize you were leaning on that," 
Natalie said with a chuckle as she grabbed hold of his arm 
and guided him gently out of the car.  Although he'd been 
freed from the hospital, he was still not completely healed.  

He could hear faint laughter off to his left, and a group of 
people talking a fair distance off to his right.  A wafting 
breeze tickled his cheeks and ruffled his hair as he tilted 
his head, trying to gain his bearings entirely through 
hearing alone.

"Why _am_ I blindfolded, anyway?" Nick asked playfully, not 
really wanting to admit how strange it was to feel so
disoriented.  As a vampire, all of his senses had been 
enhanced, so having one handicapped had not been nearly so 
critical as he was finding it now.  Now, he was spending all 
his energy on not tripping or bumping into anything.  He 
desperately hoped that his apprehension wasn't appearing on 
his face.  

"Because this is your first day out of the hospital, and I 
want it to be special!" Natalie exclaimed.     

"Nat, the sheer fact that I'm out of the hospital makes it 
special," he replied mirthlessly, trying not to groan at the 
thought of being back there.  There was not a chance in Hell 
they would ever drag him back to that place.  He now fully 
understood the concept of bad hospital food--not to mention 
the total lack of privacy, something which, as a vampire, 
he had grown to value above almost all other things.  
Truthfully, he could now say that he hated hospitals.   

"Just be patient," she replied cryptically, guiding him 
slowly across...  Well, the ground was soft, kind of mushy.  
Grass?  Possibly a field...  It was an open area, that much 
he could tell because of the breeze blowing through.

"Now, stand right there!" she said, excitedly.

Nick complied, waiting patiently while he heard her bustle 
about him.  There was a light rustling sound, but he could 
not for the life of him identify it.  After a brief period, 
he simply gave up trying to figure out what she was doing 
and quietly listened to her setting stuff out onto the 
ground.      

"All right, you can take off the blindfold now," she said 
happily, although Nick was able to detect a hint of slight 
apprehension in her voice. 

Hesitantly, he removed the blindfold and blinked a few 
times, letting his eyes adjust to the light.  After eight-
hundred years of darkness, his eyes were very sensitive to 
the light.  He had found that it gave him headaches, and 
had often had to ask the nurse to close the blinds in his 
room.  

Slightly frustrated, he sighed as things finally came into 
focus.  They were in a park, and Natalie had spread out a 
huge blanket and a picnic basket underneath the lovely shade 
of a medium-sized tree.  His stomach immediately curled at 
the sight of all the food that she had set out, and more was 
still peeking out from in the basket.  

"It's a, uh, welcome to mortality picnic.  I thought we 
could finally celebrate..." Natalie mumbled, her face 
falling when she saw his face.  "You don't like it..." she 
sighed disappointedly, crestfallen.

He rushed to reassure her.  "Oh, Nat, I'm sorry.  I was just 
surprised.  I love it!" he exclaimed, sitting himself 
gingerly down on the large tablecloth.  At the same time, he 
wondered how he was ever going to eat all of that food...  
He had managed to hide his slight problem from the nurses, 
but he doubted that Natalie would miss it after a while.  
Already, he had lost a bit of weight.  His stomach just 
seemed incapable of making the transition to mortality along 
with him.  Perhaps it had been inactive for simply too long.  
He doubted that anyone had ever contemplated what would 
happen when dead organs were essentially reawakened after 
eight-hundred years.  

"That's all right," Natalie interrupted his thoughts, 
seemingly bashful as she sat down on the mat next to him.  
Why she would ever have reason to feel that way around him 
puzzled him, but Nick was not given time to contemplate it 
as she plunged onward. 
   
"So how does it feel to be out in the sun?" she asked, her 
voice slightly awed.  She was staring at him intently, as if 
she were memorizing every curve of his face.  

He flashed a smile, watching the sunlight dance playfully 
off her brunette curls.  She was so beautiful in the light, 
more so that he could have ever imagined.  "It feels 
wonderful, Nat," he stated truthfully as he leaned back on 
his hands and basked, truly feeling its warmth on his face 
for the first time in a very long while.  He sighed.

She grinned.  "I'm glad," she replied honestly.  Stuttering 
briefly, she seemed at a loss for words as he turned back 
to look at her.  "It's just..." she began, "it's just so 
incredibly amazing!" she finally blurted out with a blush.  
"I was so worried at first, but then when I saw you lying 
there, and it sounds silly, I know, but the only thing I 
could focus on was the fact that your chest was rising and 
falling...  Here, have a leg," she said playfully, giving 
him a breaded drumstick from the chicken bucket.

"Uh, thanks," he replied softly, not taking his eyes from 
her.  Reluctantly, he bit off a piece and swallowed.  The 
savory meat tasted wonderful, but he doubted the feeling 
would last all that long.  

After a lengthy, comfortable silence, Natalie started again.  
"Nick?" she began, extremely hesitantly.

He raised an eyebrow in query, silently answering her 
request for his attention as he took another bite of 
chicken.  The stuff tasted almost heavenly, and he simply 
could not resist the temptation to take another bite, 
despite the fact that he was well aware of the 
ramifications.

"There was another reason I wanted to do this..." she said 
hesitantly.   "I wanted to...  What do you...  Is there an 
us?" she suddenly asked, after stumbling over a few false 
starts.

He almost choked on the bite of chicken he had in his mouth. 
"Us?" he asked in surprise.  He had not expected their 
conversation to take this turn so quickly, although he had 
at least been expecting it.  Their relationship, and lack 
thereof, had pretty much been dictated by the fact that he 
was a vampire, which he wasn't any longer.  Nothing was 
holding him back now, and she had been bound to bring it up 
sooner or later, especially lately when he had sensed an 
increase in the romantic undertones of their exchanges.

She sighed, visibly distressed at his startled expression.  
"I'm sorry--that was stupid.  I shouldn't have brought that 
up.  I don't want to ruin what we already have..."

"Nat," he began softly, but she continued to babble 
nervously, not really paying any attention to his softly 
spoken voice.

"I mean, what was I thinking?" she said with a bitter laugh, 
throwing up her hands.  "This is obviously unrequited.  Why 
would a former vampire ever want..."

"Nat," he said a little bit more forcefully, putting the 
half-eaten drumstick down beside the bucket on his napkin.  

"This is just a dead end... hmmm?"  She finally finished 
ranting and looked up at his face, pausing long enough for 
him to get a word in aside from her name.

He drew in a deep breath and looked at her intently, briefly 
distracted by her large, blue eyes--so innocent, so 
lovely...  He wondered offhand if she had ever stopped to 
realize just how beautiful she was.  She probably didn't 
even realize the sheer elegance that she had.  

"Nat," he began.  "If you want there to be an us, then there 
is," he stated quietly, not tearing his eyes from hers so 
that she could see that he meant it.

Her eyes widened a bit as she digested his words.  "I..." 
she whispered, startled at his candor, and looked at her 
hands.  She seemed to be at quite a loss for words lately.  

Nick smiled and cupped her chin softly in his hand, bringing 
her wavering eyes back to look at him.  "Nat, do you want 
there to be an us?" he asked seriously. 

"God, yes," she replied fervently, nodding.

"Then there is," he whispered and placed his lips gently on 
top of hers. 

Although surprised at first, she responded quickly.  Her 
arms wrapped around him and her fingers dug deeply into 
his shoulders as he pulled her closer into a tight embrace.  
Gripping her head firmly with his hands as he savagely 
crushed himself up against her, he pulled them roughly up 
into a kneeling position. 

They slammed up against each other as if an insurmountable 
magnetic force were pulling them together, trying 
desperately to get more of each other.  "Nick..." she 
mumbled between his soft caresses and fervent attention, 
practically collapsing into him.

He paused his attention to her briefly enough to whisper, 
"What?" beside her ear, so lightly that her head jerked in 
surprise as his breath tickled her earlobe, before he 
continued to tease and lick her warm flesh.  Almost with 
minds of their own, his hands migrated lower down to the 
small of her back, and then lower...

"We can't..." she replied breathlessly as he slid his cool 
lips slowly down her neck, an area that had been ingrained 
as an spot of erogenous appeal for so long he found the 
habit hard to break.

She gasped, her fingers clinging tightly to the small 
scrunches she'd made with the fabric on the shoulders of his 
silk shirt.  "Doctors said... take... it easy," she managed 
to moan, her tone one of blissful, frustrated pleasure.  

"Screw the doctors," he mumbled, squeezing her lightly, his 
eyes closed.  He inhaled her soft scent, his attention 
entirely devoted to her.  

"But," she protested, but he captured her lips with his own, 
effectively silencing her as he teased her with his tongue 
until she accepted the offer.  He darted enthusiastically 
into her mouth as her lips parted to welcome him in earnest.

Bliss--the only word to describe how he felt.  After years 
of denying himself, he found himself suddenly unable to 
reign himself in.  All of his pent-up emotions were 
exploding in rapid-fire succession, all onto her in a fiery, 
hungry passion.  Heaven, he was sure, would have to feel 
like this.

Until she reached up and pushed him off none too gently.  

"Nick," she panted, flushed and obviously quite aroused. 
"Can we at least move this to a more _private_ area?" she 
finally managed to get out, once she had caught her breath.

Eyes darting left and right to the various people milling 
around, Nick suddenly recalled that they were in the middle 
of a very public area.  "Um, yeah," he replied sheepishly as 
he hastily helped her pick up their picnic food and mat.  

This was _far_ from over.

*****

Schanke slammed his hand down on the desk.  "This isn't 
making ANY SENSE!" he growled under his breath, staring at 
the paperwork sitting in front of him.

Jacob looked up from his own, very large stack of paperwork.  
"Don, relax, man.  You're not going to solve anything with 
that frame of mind.  I think you've been looking at that for 
too long..." Jacob tried to soothe Schanke, but it didn't 
work.

"No!" Schanke snapped, but then he grew more calm.  "No, I 
can't stop looking.  I OWE it to Nick to solve this one..." 
he added, frustrated.

Jacob looked moderately peeved, and he threw his pencil 
down on the desk.  "Fine, then.  Destroy yourself from 
stress, see what I care, it's not like I have to deal with 
you after Friday..." he replied harshly, throwing his hands 
up in the air.    

"Detective Donald Schanke?" 

Schanke looked up to see a mail carrier standing above his 
desk with an expectant look upon his face.  Intent on 
staring over the records of the conversation he had had with 
Ms. Kaldereski, Schanke practically let them fly from his 
hands in surprise when his eyes met the carrier's, and he 
couldn't help but see Jacob sniggering at his nervous 
reaction.

Trying to look nonchalant, Schanke quickly regathered his 
wits and raised an eyebrow.  "Yes?" he asked.

The carrier placed a small brown package none too gently on 
the desk.  "I need you to sign for this, sir."

Schanke met the man's obsidian eyes and felt his chest 
constrict.  Something seemed...  "Sir?  You need to sign 
this," the carrier added, an impatient look spreading across 
his face as he glanced at his watch.  

Schanke looked to Jacob, but his younger partner was still 
laughing under his breath.  The barely contained expression 
of merriment was spewing forth from Jacob's twinkling eyes, 
even if the muscles in his face kept him looking like some 
small semblance of seriousness.  "Um, yeah," Schanke 
muttered, fumbling for a pen.

The carrier smiled and thanked him, although it looked like 
more of a smirk than a smile to Schanke.  The muscles around 
the carrier's eyes remained icy cold, partially hidden 
behind a mop of greasy, dusted-brown hair.   

Schanke shrugged as the carrier hurried off, marveling at 
the people that the postal service seemed to hire these 
days, and looked down at the package sitting on his desk on 
top of his mounting pile of paperwork.  The breath caught 
short in his throat when he saw the return address.  

"Jacob?  Is this some kind of joke?  Did you send this?" 
Schanke asked suspiciously as he turned to package over in 
his hands, noting that the contained smile was still evident 
on Jacob's face.  

Upon hearing Schanke's words, however, Jacob's upturned lips 
flattened out and the sparkle in his eyes dimmed.  "What?  
No, I was just laughing at you.  Not stressed--yeah 
right..." he muttered as he stood up.  "Why, what is it?"

Schanke looked down again.  "I don't know.  The return 
address is missing..." he explained warily.

Jacob tensed.  "You don't think it's a bomb, do you?" he 
asked softly.

Schanke thought for a moment.  His rational side was telling 
him to get the package checked out before he opened it.  
Yet, despite the alarm bells ringing off in his head, his 
fingers slipped to the tape and started scissoring through 
it with his nails.  The clear scotch tape came off of the 
thick brown paper easily, and he ripped into the packaging 
as quickly and carefully as he could manage.

With a series of several light thuds, a stack of snapshots 
and a folded piece of notebook paper fell out of the package 
and onto the table.  Both Schanke and Jacob squeezed their 
eyes shut for a moment before they realized that nothing was 
going to explode in their faces.

Cautiously, Schanke cracked one eye open, and then the 
other.  He picked up the deck of photos and looked at the 
first one, blinked, and then looked at it again as he felt a 
numbing coldness spreading through his limbs.

There, in the blurry darkness, was one tiny figure slumped 
up against something, and another had his arm extended out 
in front of him, pointing into the darkness at something 
outside the range of the photo.  

The second shot was a close-up.  A pale, slack-jawed face 
framed with sweat-pasted blond hair, an eerie glow cast upon 
the skin by the dim streetlamps

Schanke never made it to the third shot as his hands began 
to shake and he dropped the pile of snapshot after snapshot, 
each of Nick at some particular angle.  Each more gruesome 
than the last.  There had to be at least thirty of them.  
Possibly forty. 

"I just might kill him, next time.  Teasing you guys just 
ain't the trip it used to be..." Jacob mumbled, reading from 
the small note that had accompanied the photos.  "Don, 
it's..."

"It's a goddamn sicko, that's what," Schanke whispered, 
turning pale.  "Man, the mail carrier...  Jacob, get the 
mail carrier..." Schanke groaned as he swallowed thickly.  
He should have known that that feeling he had been getting  
was something other than just his overblown imagination.  

Jacob nodded and ran off without a word.

*****

Natalie couldn't believe it.  The whole situation had to be 
a dream.  One moment she had been doubtful of a friendship, 
and the next she had been wrapped around Nick as if she were 
an appendage of him, rather than a separate individual.  
They had made it to the lift before they couldn't keep their 
hands off each other any longer, and somehow they had 
managed to make their way up to the bedroom, but it had been 
quite a slow trip, with many interruptions.

"May I?" she felt Nick whisper into her ear, his hot breath 
tickling the skin of her earlobe.  She felt him fumbling 
with the buttons of her blouse, and she could only moan in 
response, leaning back to expose herself to him.  The motion 
was one of trust, absolute acceptance of the situation, and 
she could honestly say that she had never done so for any 
other man.  She was his and only his.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said with a soft chuckle as he 
kissed her.  She groaned in pleasure as he slid down her 
neck and then to her shoulder.  There was a moment of 
bitter chill as he took off her top, but then his warm hands 
were all over her, squeezing, rubbing, touching...  She 
doubted she would ever feel cold again.

Running a hand through his flaxen mane of unruly curls, she 
grabbed him tightly and held him close, almost not wanting 
to let the foreplay continue, so content was she that she 
was finally sharing even this much with him.  She kissed 
him, sucking fervently at his upper lip and then moving to 
his lower before she plunged her tongue into his welcoming 
mouth.  

His roving hands found their way to the clasp of her bra, 
and soon her naked skin was pressed up against the soft silk 
of his shirt.  Her pleated skirt had also somehow ended up 
on the floor, bunched up at her feet, although she didn't 
recall how or when.  But she didn't care.  

"Oh, Nat..." he groaned softly as she firmly clasped his 
buttocks.  

They crashed onto the bed, freefalling backwards onto the 
mattress.  Barely paying attention as they bounced back up 
into the air, the ministrations continued.  "Nat, please, 
let me see you..." he finally managed to groan, backing up 
slightly.  

He lay back on his side, propping his head up on his hand.  
His eyes softened as she stilled for him, but she started to 
get a bit flushed after he continued to stare as if she were 
some well-sculpted Greek statue.  "Nat, please don't be 
embarrassed," he implored her.  "You're exquisite, like a 
fine wine..." he added sensuously, smiling strangely like 
the cat who'd just eaten the canary.

She smiled back at him, noticing for the first time how 
uneven their state of dress was.  "Let's just see how you 
like being on exhibition," she commented playfully as she 
began to attack the buttons of his black silk shirt with 
a certain desperation she had never felt before.  Lord, how 
she wanted him...

He laughed heartily, and soon his large, warm hands captured 
hers and worked the buttons with her, helping her.  She 
gasped at the unexpected contact and briefly paused, 
catching his soft gaze in her own.  "You have no idea how 
long I've wanted this..." she whispered as she slid the 
shirt off his shoulders, exposing his bare chest.  

He smiled warmly.  "Probably as long as I have..." he 
hazarded, and she could only grin in response.

She marveled at the healthy curves of his pectorals as he 
softly heaved breath after glorious breath.  He was alive.  
Really alive.  The thought took some getting used to.  

Placing a hand on his bare skin, her fingers glided to his 
left nipple and lightly traced the nail of her index 
finger around the areola.  She was exceedingly pleased at 
how quickly it puckered in arousal, and his chest, which had 
been evenly rising and falling before, was now raggedly 
heaving in response to just that light touch.

His hands clasped around her waist and tried to pull her 
towards him. She could tell that he intended to capture her 
in another one of his mind-blowing kisses, but 
mischievously, she resisted.  "Stop that," she scolded 
playfully, batting at him.  "Let me drive for a while."      

"Nat..." he rasped.  His eyes, while they held the same 
amount of affection as they had throughout the encounter, 
had grown slightly more tinged with desperation.

"Good things come to those who wait," she whispered back, 
and she couldn't help but laugh when she saw him 
immediately strain to remain still.  The whole struggle was 
a lost cause, but at least he was giving the effort...

"Now," she began, "what would happen if I..."  She didn't 
finish her sentence, letting her hands do the talking for 
her.  She slid slowly down his chest, down to the supple 
skin of his abdomen, which was now wildly expanding and 
deflating as Nick fought for a single, steady, oxygenated 
breath.

And then everything halted.  Nick sucked in a breath as if 
he'd been burned, but the look on his face was not one of 
pain, rather one of embarrassment.  Natalie belatedly noticed 
that her hand was running over the puckered scar where the 
bullet had penetrated his skin.  It was rough, and scabbed, 
and ugly.  But, she didn't care.  None of that mattered as 
much as Nick seemed to think it did.  

"Nick, it's all right..." she assured him with a light pat, 
which seemed to have a calming effect on his worries, but 
she didn't really give him time to dwell on it.  Fumbling 
only momentarily with the top button of his jeans, she 
slipped her hand down and grasped his semi-erection.  With 
just that slight touch, he grew firm and hard in her hand, 
and Nick moaned pitifully as he began to painfully fill his 
pants. 

Having mercy, she took her hand out briefly and slid his 
pants slowly down his waist, carefully avoiding bumping his 
now painfully throbbing member.  She turned her head back to 
look at him and was gratified to see that he was no better 
off than a drowning man flailing for a last breath.  His 
eyes were closed, his breath ragged, and still she continued 
the sweet torture, sliding his briefs down his legs with 
such painful slowness that even she grew frustrated.  

Her panties, which miraculously still remained on her, were 
soggy with excess lubrication, and at the sight of Nick, so 
willingly at her mercy, her sex throbbed with anticipation.  
Even she was breathing heavily now, but she forced herself 
to calm down.  There was no way that she was going to let 
this experience end because she and her partner were too 
sexually deprived to have some patience.

She slipped her hand back down and cupped his balls, rolling 
them lightly between her fingers as she reached down with 
her other hand and firmly gripped his shaft.  The effect was 
instantaneous.  Nick flailed desperately, clawing at the 
sheets before he regained what little equilibrium he had 
left.  "Nat..." he complained, panting.  "Please, let me..." 

"Nope, this is my show, for now," she said slyly, trying not 
to let him see how hard she was finding it to restrain just 
herself, let alone him.  She'd have to be sure to give him 
kudos later for his self-control.

"You've got... got to be... kiDING me..." he panted 
breathlessly, accentuating his speech as she stroked him, 
running her fingers lightly along the underside of his 
length before firmly gripping him once again.  

"Nope," she replied.  

"The best... hand... job...  I've had...  in centuries... 
and you won't even... let... let me play..." he rasped, 
looking painfully at her, small beads of sweat forming at 
his brow, but from his words she could tell that it was in 
good 'fun', if that were the correct word.  She had no 
desire to make this a less than pleasurable experience.

Smiling, she merely replied, "That's what makes it good." 
She rolled his length firmly in her hands, rubbing as she 
saw fit, careful not to be too rough, but also not making 
the mistake of being too weak as she'd heard was the common 
error of women in her position. 

He groaned and gyrated in her hand, unable to keep himself 
still any longer as he ground his hips relentlessly towards 
her working fingers.  She could tell he was close now, and 
she accordingly returned her attention to his shaft, 
twisting it lightly before moving her hands firmly from the 
base to the tip in an increasingly fast and repetitive 
motion.  The friction built wonderfully.  He arched back 
wildly, clawing at the sheets.  

"Nat, please...  I can't...  I..." he groaned weakly before 
she sent him completely over the edge with a well-placed 
squeeze.  He cried out as he thrust wildly in her hands, his 
orgasm sending him into sweet oblivion.    

She let herself fall onto the bed next to him as he lay 
there breathing heavily, eyes closed.  After several moments 
of silence, Nick finally managed to recover his voice.  
"God, Nat...  That was..."

"Good?" she asked, a twinkle in her eye.

"Spectacular," he purred.  "I only owe it to you to repay 
you..." he added with a lopsided grin.  She realized only 
too late what he had planned, and shrieked in surprise as 
his fingers descended upon her, tickling her mercilessly.

And just when she thought she would die from laughter, he 
captured her mouth with his, his hands roving over her flesh
in such sensuous, thrilling patterns that she began to 
shiver.  "Nick... please..."  

"Hmmm, now that sounds familiar," he growled huskily.  She 
arched backwards as he massaged his way down her torso.  He 
was turning out to be much more aggressive than she ever 
would have expected.  

Surprised, she could see that he was already almost 
completely erect again.  "Nick, my, what virile parts you 
have!" she exclaimed playfully. 

He smiled.  "All the better to pleasure you with, ma'am," he 
deadpanned with a mock salute, reaching briefly to the 
nightstand for the condom he'd put there before things had 
gotten too serious.  Despite the raging hormones, they'd 
managed to stay sane enough on the trip back to make a quick 
stop at the drugstore.  

She laughed in response.  "Need any help with that?" she 
asked, wiggling her eyebrows provocatively.

"No, I think my friend here has had enough of your feminine 
wiles for one day," he replied with a silly grin, focusing 
his attention momentarily towards the piece of latex in his 
hand.  He quickly unrolled it down his length, almost making 
her wonder where on Earth he'd learned that.  Granted, he 
wasn't entitled to the Mr. Morality award, but she doubted 
he had had a lot of opportunity with mortals, and that was 
the only circumstance she could think of that would require 
a condom...  

He didn't really give her a chance to ponder the idea 
further, because as soon as he was finished, he was upon 
her.  She could only observe breathlessly, her hands in a 
death grip around his tense lower back, as he took a nipple 
into his mouth and sucked, teasing it gently with his tongue 
with a calculated swirl.  "Nick!" she cried as her teeth 
began to chatter wildly, so dizzy was she in the sensation.  
But as soon as she thought she had his patterns figured out, 
his mouth trailed to the middle of her cleavage, and then 
downward, moving with deliciously tantalizing slowness when 
he reached the dip between her ribs.  Carefully, he made a 
ring around her navel and then made his way back up to her 
mouth.

She gasped as he continued his relentless assault.  "Oh, 
God!" she cried when his hands roamed to her sopping inner 
thighs and stroked her firmly.  She felt her panties slip 
down her legs as he pulled them off.  "Please..." she 
whimpered, completely amazed at how quickly he had turned 
the tables on her.  She was now as submissive as he had been 
only moments before.  

"Are you ready, Nat?" he groaned, showering her with soft, 
butterfly kisses.  The sweet sensations made her feel such 
unparalleled neediness that she suspected she would go out 
of her mind soon if he didn't do _something_.  Her whole 
lower abdomen was now tight with anticipation.  Tight, and 
ready, and waiting, and wanting, but ever the gentlemen, 
he'd actually bothered to _ask_.    

"Yes, yes, please..." she managed to sigh deliriously.

Her words were all the encouragement he required.  And with 
swiftness she hadn't realized he still possessed, his length 
plunged into her and filled her, impaling her.  She felt 
split in two.  Trying to keep the dizzying swirls of passion 
from making her faint, she cried out.  And all at once she 
felt whole, connected to Nick in ways she'd never felt 
before.  

His hands and lips resumed their lustful attack on her as he 
began to thrust.  Slowly at first, rocking evenly, she found 
she could easily rise to meet him.  He was dipping 
completely in and out of her, almost pulling out of her to 
his tip, only to plunge deep within to the hilt once again.  
The friction generated such heat that she felt like she was 
burning apart from her very core.  She panted wildly, 
returning his kisses as he offered them, and offering some 
of her own.  

Breathlessly, she found it harder and harder to maintain his 
virulent pace.  Somewhere in the midst of her ecstasy she'd 
missed the fact that his attentions had stopped, and he, 
shortly followed by she, became completely slave to sexual 
desire.  The tightness within her was gloriously painful, 
and she cried out with each one of his powerful, pistoning 
thrusts, but the rush of blood was so thunderous in her ears 
that she could no longer hear his own loud groans.  

And all at once, her world crumbled down around her, and 
drowned her senses.  She felt her straining muscles all 
unclench at once in blissful, heart-stopping climax, shortly 
followed by Nick's loud scream of triumph and one final, 
jarring thrust.  Most unexpectedly, however, as she felt him 
twitching with abandon within her, he collapsed on top of 
her and she felt his mouth at her neck, sucking desperately 
at the flesh until he softened and slipped out of her.  

She said nothing as he sank down beside her, completely 
spent.  Did some of the vampire linger?  She grew instantly 
curious, but was too exhausted to care.  Feeling her limbs 
slowly turn to mush as she lay there, she realized that it 
didn't really matter right then.  Nothing really mattered 
except the fact that she was there, in his strong arms, 
despite all the forces that had seemed allied together to 
keep them apart.  After a long and terrible uphill battle, 
they had won.  Finally.  And it felt damn good.  "I love 
you," she whispered, and snuggled deeply into his arms.  

"I love you too, Nat" he replied softly, already heavy with 
sleep, but awake enough to give her a reassuring squeeze.  
She smiled, her heart giving a little flutter at his words, 
ones that she had longed to hear for so long and yet never 
had, and allowed the rhythm of his soft breathing, deep and 
steady, lull her to sleep. 

*****

She did not, however, remain asleep for long.  A sound awoke 
her, and her eyes snapped open in surprise.  "Nick?" she 
murmured sleepily as she turned and reached out beside her, 
only to have her hands meet cold, silken sheets.  

Hearing the strange sound again, she lazily opened her eyes
and looked around the dark room.  Everything was as it 
should be, except for the fact that Nick wasn't there.  
Sitting up, she glanced sidelong at the digital clock which 
read in blaring red numerals, '1:02 AM'.  

"Nick?" she called out, louder this time, growing slightly 
nervous when she received no reply, or any indication that 
he was there.  She stood up, wincing as her feet hit the 
shocking cold floor.  

The sound came again, muffled as though it were underwater, 
and this time, Natalie was awake enough to identify the 
location of the source.  She glanced around nervously, 
looking for some possible weapon she could use, fear rising 
in her chest.  Something was wrong, and it was already a 
well-known fact that someone was gunning for Nick.  What 
if...?  She didn't even want to finish the thought.  Not 
now.  

Sighing, she realized there was absolutely nothing available 
that she could use, so she took a deep breath and found her 
resolve.  She crept up to the door of the bathroom and poked 
it so lightly that she was surprised when it swung open with 
ease.  So prepared was she for a crazed axe murderer to leap 
out from behind the shower curtain and shish-kebob her on 
the spot, that several moments passed before the sight 
before her registered in full.   

Nick was curled over the toilet bowl like saran wrap, 
bare-chested and quivering, in a pair of old sweatpants that 
were at least a size too big for him.  She could practically 
see his ribs ratcheting upwards, rippling under his pale, 
supple skin as he heaved ferociously.  From the sound of it, 
he had lost his stomach contents a long while ago, and his 
innards were just refusing to calm down.  

"Nick?" Nat whispered, rushing to his side.  She'd never 
seen someone look so ill, and for the first time ever, she 
saw an individual take on a truly greenish cast.

"Nat, I'm fine...  go back to bed..." Nick groaned, not 
looking up at her, and not once letting his white-knuckle 
grip of the white porcelain loosen.

Such an understatement, such a downright lie--Natalie would 
have smacked him if it were not for his current, and very 
poor, condition.  "Nick, you're not fine!" Natalie exclaimed 
worriedly, massaging his quaking back.  "You're anything 
_but_ fine!"

He would have answered, but he was racked with a terrible 
bout of dry heaving, looking for all the world that he was 
suffering from the worst flu she had seen in her life.  But 
she knew that he wasn't sick, and there was no way something 
like the flu could've hit him so fast, at least not that she 
knew of.  

"Nick?  What happened?" she asked, fearing that perhaps he 
had somehow ingested some poison or toxin, something--
anything logical that would explain why he was suffering.  

After several long moments, he sat back on his haunches 
and looked at her darkly, rocking on the balls of his feet 
like a buoy in a wind-swept lake.  "Chicken..." he replied 
weakly, his voice barely above a whisper.  

She raised an eyebrow in disbelief.  "Chicken?" she asked 
incredulously. 

"From the picnic," he added.  "I haven't been able to keep 
much down since... since..."   His sentence was interrupted 
when his stomach spasmed wildly, and he clawed his way back 
like a drowning man to his previous hunched position over 
the porcelain bowl.  

Natalie's eyes widened, realizing for the first time that 
he looked a lot thinner than usual.  She had attributed it 
to his injury, but if what he was saying were true, it was 
malnutrition...  "Nick, why didn't you _say_ anything?" she 
asked frantically.  "You could lose too much weight, or 
become dehydrated, or, or _worse_!  You have to _think_ 
about those things now..." she cried, all the while 
wondering what on earth could have caused this anathema to 
solid food.

"I thought... thought it would go away..." he whispered 
pathetically, wisely not meeting her eyes as he put forth 
his weak excuse. 

"Well, you still should've told me!" she remarked 
indignantly, but immediately softened when she saw his 
pained, nauseated look.  Groaning inwardly, she shook her 
head.  He was so prone to keeping things to himself that 
sometimes everything just got a bit out of hand...

Without another word of complaint, she settled herself down 
next to him and started rubbing his back, hoping that his 
stomach would finally calm down.  As Nick's heaving slowly 
quieted, she thought about dragging him out shopping later 
and giving him an introductory tour of the drug store, only 
to find herself wishing fervently that she had done so 
sooner.  She simply hadn't thought he would need anything 
like that so quickly after his release from the hospital.

She should have realized that such a major transition wasn't 
going to be a walk in the park.  There was no quick fix--it 
just wasn't possible.

A heavy sigh perforated the newfound silence, and she was 
relieved to find that he was finally relaxing.  As she 
leaned herself up against the cool glass of the shower 
stall, he let himself fall back into her embrace, and she 
found herself again in awe of the warmth that his skin 
generated--the feel of the light rise and fall of his chest 
within her arms as his lungs brought air to his body.

She ran her hand up the smooth skin of his abdomen and was 
gratified with a light shiver.  Warm breath flowed softly 
over her arms as he groaned, although whether it was from 
pleasure or not, she could not tell.  "Nat..." he said 
quietly, shifting lightly in her embrace.  "What's wrong 
with me?" he asked, worriedly.       

"Nick, your body has been put through some terrible stress.  
Not _only_ is your heart working at about, gee, six-hundred 
times the rate it's been going at for the last eight 
centuries or so, but you've got systems coming back online 
that haven't been in use for just as long...  I don't even 
want to get _into_ the fact that an armor-piercing bullet 
decided to wreak havoc with you..." she explained, 
subconsciously gripping him tighter. 

He remained silent, quivering slightly in her arms.  

"Nick?" she asked softly, laying her chin to rest on his 
shoulder as he curled his lithe body like a cat.  

"It's just," he paused, unable to find the words he needed 
to complete his thought.  A small noise emanated from the 
back of his throat, like he was trying to say something but 
couldn't quite get it out.  "Hard," he finally finished.  

Natalie nodded.  "I can imagine," she replied.

"No, Nat.  I really don't think that you can," he responded 
darkly.  The words that had be meant to console him had 
obviously been taken the wrong way, but he heaved a sigh and 
immediately apologized.  "Sorry..." he said, realizing how 
biting his words must have seemed to her ears.

But she understood.  Eight-hundred years of habit had to be 
erased, and she could imagine how difficult it was, but she 
doubted she could make an entirely accurate picture...  She 
kissed his well-muscled shoulder lightly, gliding her lips 
across his bare skin, but she couldn't help noticing how 
much he began to shiver as she met the juncture between his 
neck and his shoulder.  

Pausing a moment, she felt his breathing increase, and with 
a sly grin, she bit down lightly with her teeth, running her 
incisors along the pulsing bulge of his jugular.  She 
stopped as a gasp emanated from his lips--a desperate cry 
of... pleasure?  He flailed in her grasp, and she licked her
lips, surprised that she could get such a reaction out of 
him from a simple playful nip.  

Her own burning curiosity was simply too much to contain.

"Nick?  Is that... area... still... _good_ for you?" she 
finally managed to blurt, surprised at her own shyness about 
the subject.  Usually, it was Nick who would avoid such 
intimate conversation.

She could almost feel the sheepish grin burning its way 
across his face, even though she couldn't see it.  "Err... 
it would appear so," he replied softly, and she could see 
the pinkish flush of embarrassment spreading over his skin.    

"Is that..." she began, managing to stop herself from 
marveling at the fact that he could blush now, "is that why 
you tried to... to bite me?" 

He stiffened, his muscles turning tense and rigid, and she 
could almost feel the air around them turn frigid.  "What?" 
he asked, amazement flooding his voice.  "I didn't..." he 
began, but when he wrenched his neck around and saw the 
angry red blotch on the skin above her jugular, he stopped 
cold and just looked at it in horror.  

Nick stood roughly, not meeting her gaze as he mumbled a 
terse apology and exited, leaving Nat sitting on the cold 
floor alone and bewildered.  She shook her head.  What on 
Earth had just happened?

Steadily, she rose to her feet and walked back out into the 
bedroom.  Nick was there, roughly pulling on a pair of jeans 
at the same time as trying to pull a sweater over his head, 
and truth be told, he just didn't have the coordination to 
manage it.  He tripped and cursed lightly under his breath, 
but before she could even blink an eye, he had righted 
himself and was working on his socks.

"Nick?  What did I say?  I was just wondering..." she tried 
to explain--tried to tell him that it didn't matter.  

His eyes darted to her sharply, and she felt strangely like 
a bird caught in the stare of a snake.  She heard a low, 
strange noise emanating from his throat, almost as if he 
were trying to growl, but couldn't quite muster the vocal 
agility to do so--another strange remnant from his recent
conversion.  "Nat, do you have _any_ idea, how long I've 
_dreamed_ of biting you?" he snapped as he yanked on his 
wristwatch.  

Natalie felt as though she had been slapped across the face, 
the biting sting of his words bringing a flush of hurt to 
her cheeks.  "No," she replied tersely, unable to see where 
he was going with this conversation.   

He stared a moment, his gaze hard and cold, but something 
in his eyes was telling her that this was a front.  Pain 
lingered in the cool blue depths of his eyes like a silk-
screen curtain.  "I did--a lot.  I used to dream about it," 
he said, his voice suddenly breaking.

"Nick, that's nothing to be ashamed of..." Natalie whispered 
in reply.  She was well aware of the sexual nature of the 
bite, Hell, she had _seen_ the effects of the blood on him, 
the state of arousal it put him in... 

"Yes.  It _IS_," he practically growled.  "You're not some 
sacrificial lamb.  You're a _person_," he stressed.

She sighed, attempting to approach him, but he shied away.  
"And so are you..." she tried to reason with him.

"Then why did I try to bite you?" he asked coldly, and she 
remained silent, unable to come up with an answer.

"I'm stuck, Nat.  I'm obviously not a vampire anymore, but 
I still think I am one.  Nat, I _still_ have those dreams, 
I _still_ have those desires.  I can't..." he muttered, but 
didn't finish his sentence, spinning on his heels suddenly 
and stalking out of the room as his temper finally won the 
battle.

Natalie watched him go, wanted desperately to chase after 
him, but knew it would not be of any use.  He needed to 
blow off steam.  He needed... help.

And she wasn't so sure that she was the one who could give 
it. 

*****

Nick stormed out into the frigid air, yanking on his duster 
at the last minute.  The reasonably warm weather from 
earlier yesterday that had permitted him and Natalie their 
picnic seemed to have disappeared into oblivion.  His breath 
clawed outward from his mouth like misty, gnarled talons, 
and he was surprised to realize that the bitter chill 
actually _hurt_.  His nose and ears and fingers stung as he 
attempted to cover himself more, but the action was of no 
use.  The air was freezing, and now so was he.

He growled in frustration as he fumbled shakily for his keys 
and sat down roughly behind the wheel of his beloved green 
car.  The car started with ease, despite the cold weather, 
and he was out on the streets driving mindlessly before he 
even realized he was actually out in traffic. 

Taking his usual illegal parking space in front of The 
Raven, he got out and was greeted with the smell of sweat 
and the heat of writhing human bodies as soon as the bouncer 
granted him entry, although not without a strange look.  He 
surveyed the dance floor, thinking it strange that he still 
thought of _them_ as mortals.  What the Hell was he, if not 
mortal?  

He noticed several vampires lingering in the shadows, 
looking at him strangely, almost with contempt as they bled 
back into the darkness and out of sight.  Doing his best to 
ignore them, he sat at the bar and put his head in his 
hands. 

The place didn't even have the same feel anymore.  With his 
dulled senses, the music and the dark atmosphere were less 
jarring and more annoying.  He found that he could not see 
well into the dark mass of moving bodies--he was barely able 
to identify the movement as that of dozens of different 
individuals rather than one giant, coiling snake.

His ears and nose burned as they finally began to warm back 
up, a rather unpleasant sensation, and he suddenly found 
himself wondering why on Earth he had come here.  There was 
nothing here for him now.  There hadn't really been anything 
here for him before.  Even as a vampire, he had not been of 
the social type.  Loud atmospheres like this had just made 
him uncomfortable, and now he found them even worse.  

He sneezed as his stinging nose finally returned to a 
comfortable temperature.

"Ah, Nicholas.  I suppose that it would be appropriate to 
say, God bless you, now, would it not?" a familiar voice 
oozed.

Nick felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end, 
and his breath caught in his chest.  So this was what a 
racing heart felt like...  He had long forgotten.  
"LaCroix," he stated neutrally, not looking at his Sire as 
he sat down beside him, and yet, a part of him was glad that 
his master had taken notice of him.  He didn't know why.
  
"So, how does it feel?" LaCroix asked softly, motioning to 
the bartender for a drink as he spoke.

"How does what feel?" Nick replied noncommittally.  He had 
been foolish to think that LaCroix would not have noticed 
his change.

LaCroix stared at him coldly.  "Do not be coy, Nicholas.  I 
am well aware that you are no longer amongst the undead," he 
said smoothly, as if he were discussing the weather.  "I 
felt you turn.  A most... unique experience." 

The silent energy crackling between them was almost 
palpable, and Nick was slightly startled when the bartender 
appeared.  Before he walked wordlessly away, the dark man 
set down a glass of what Nick was sure was the 'house 
special' down in front of LaCroix.  Nick, however, could not 
help but notice the bartender's strange glance in his 
direction before he left.

"The Community is _reeling_, Nicholas.  A few would even 
like to know how you did it..." LaCroix continued calmly.  
"As would I..." 

Nick raised an eyebrow in surprise.  How had the entire 
Community heard about this?  He wasn't trying to broadcast 
it or anything.  Hell, this was the first time he had even 
seen a vampire since he had been shot, at least, it was the 
first time he was aware of.  "I don't know, LaCroix," Nick 
finally replied after taking a deep breath.  "It just...  
happened..." he explained lamely.

LaCroix, to Nick's utter surprise, smiled, his lips 
stretching wide slyly--not a gesture of happiness by any 
means.  "You do not sound particularly _happy_ about this.  
Dare I begin to give you, ah, what is it these days?  An 'I 
told you so' speech?" he asked, taking a sip of his mixed 
blood wine.

Nick eyed the glass as the cool neon lights sparkled off of 
it as though through the facets of a crystal.  He felt his 
chest constrict at LaCroix's words.  He had not come here to 
argue.  "I don't want to fight with you, LaCroix," he stated 
simply, looking glumly in to his hands.  Why had he come 
here?  If he wanted to avoid a confrontation, walking into 
his Sire's den, practically crawling with the Community, was 
not the way to go about things.

"It would be a rather moot point to fight with me, Nicholas.  
You would lose," LaCroix replied simply, but the menace in 
his voice was not lost on Nick.  

Nick's eyes narrowed, but he felt pain--pain at this subtle 
rejection.  "Please, LaCroix, I didn't come here to 
argue..." he pleaded, looking squarely into his Sire's cold 
blue eyes. 

"Then why _did_ you come here, Nicholas?  Get to the 
point..." LaCroix stated, his voice growing somewhat 
irritated.  

"I..." Nick began, but he could see that excuses were 
pointless.  LaCroix was merely tolerating him now.  "Never 
mind," he whispered.  "I'll go," he continued dejectedly, 
rising to his feet, but as he turned, a cold hand gripped 
his shoulder firmly.

"Nicholas," LaCroix called after him softly, and Nick turned 
to meet his eyes.  An apology was not spoken--LaCroix would 
never do that--but Nick could tell that it was implied.  
There was a pause.  The sounds that surrounded them 
seemingly came to a silencing halt as LaCroix pondered 
something, and Nick found himself missing the link that used 
to exist between them.  He was staring a blank wall now--he 
could not tell for the life of him what his Sire was 
thinking, but he prayed that the tacit truce they had 
reached still remained intact.

"Come, we can talk in my office..." his Sire finally stated.

Nick felt as if a weight lifted from his chest, and he 
sighed in relief as LaCroix led him through the crowds to 
his back office.  The loud bass of the music was muted to a 
dull background noise as LaCroix swung the door shut behind 
them, as if someone had placed a pillow over the speakers.   
Nick watched apprehensively as LaCroix seated himself 
regally at his desk, motioning silently for Nick to sit as 
well.

Cold silence sat upon them like a blanket, LaCroix merely 
staring, taking occasional sips from his wine goblet, and 
Nick floundering to think of something to say.  

"Nicholas, if you wish to talk, please do so.  Otherwise, I 
have other engagements..." LaCroix finally prodded.

Nick sighed.  "I...  I don't know what to say.  I don't know 
what you want me to say..." he finally admitted, looking 
down at the floor, the grandfather clock, anything but 
LaCroix's steely eyes.

His Master did not respond, but Nick could feel his stare 
boring into his head like a laser.  "Please, LaCroix, I 
just...  I don't know what to do."

LaCroix took a breath, clasping his large hands in front of 
him on the desk.  "Nicholas, if you expect me to give you 
impartial advice, I sincerely doubt that you will leave this 
meeting feeling satisfied..."

Nick slumped in his seat.  "Do you think I was right?" he 
asked, feeling hot, salty tears form in his eyes, but he 
denied them their right to fall, squinting his lashes shut 
tightly until the tight feeling in his chest lessened.  

LaCroix quirked an eyebrow, but otherwise remained 
expressionless.  "Nicholas, I do so hope that you do not 
expect me to answer that seriously..."

The heat of a bright red flush spread over his cheeks, and 
Nick cringed further backwards into his chair.  He hadn't 
come for ridicule--just an honest answer--an idle wish, to 
think that LaCroix would actually provide him with one. 
"Please," he prodded, "do you think that I was right to 
search for my mortality?"

"No." 

The answer was quick, and cold--as he had expected.  

"Please, if you cast aside the fact that you're so obsessed 
with keeping me under your tight leash, can you really, 
honestly say that my wishes were wrong?" Nick asked, 
practically begging to hear what he so desperately wanted 
to, but he did not receive his wish.

"Yes," LaCroix responded calmly, barely taking an additional 
second to ponder the question on the grounds of the extra 
condition that Nick had put forth.

Nick felt as though he were deflating, his resolve slowly 
dissolving into the woodwork.  "Why?" he asked, barely 
biting back the threatening wave of emotions.  He was headed 
for a cliff, and he wasn't so sure that he could stop in 
time.

LaCroix actually appeared to plan his response in advance, 
this time, taking a few seconds to ponder the question.  
"Nicholas, as much as I admire your many strengths, your 
greatest weakness is that you do not see consequences very 
well.  You have lived the majority of your life as a 
vampire, and I do not see how you can expect to revert to 
form so easily.  Mortality is not synonymous with 
redemption.  I wish that you would realize that..." LaCroix 
replied carefully, as though he expected Nick to explode at 
any moment.  

Nick looked at LaCroix, his eyes pleading.  "Please... help 
me...  I can't...  I'm still thinking like a vampire, even 
though I'm not.  I don't...  I don't know how to handle 
this..."  He needed help.  Badly.  And he didn't know who to 
go to for it.  Somehow, he had managed to delude himself 
into thinking that LaCroix would actually provide him with 
advice.  

LaCroix sighed, looking somewhat pained despite his stony 
expression.  "Nicholas, the only aid that I can give you, 
you would not be willing to receive," he stated, resigned.  

Nick felt like his world was crumbling down around him.  He 
nodded and got up, accepting LaCroix's tacit dismissal with 
dismay, shoulders slumped.  

And as he closed the door behind him, like a sixth sense he 
felt several pairs of unseen eyes on him.  He shrugged them 
off, but he couldn't help but wonder what had ever possessed 
him to come.  

LaCroix was the last person on Earth who would ever 
willingly help him become comfortable with his newfound 
mortality.  

He should have known.

*****

"Where did you go?" Natalie asked softly as he slid the door 
of the lift open.  

Nick was slightly startled that she was waiting for him 
there on the black leather sofa.  "You waited for me?" he 
asked dumbly, shrugging off his coat as if it were an 
unwanted second skin.

She nodded silently, reaching out with her hands, motioning 
for him to come to her.  He gratefully complied.  "Where did 
you go?" she repeated as he settled himself next to her.

"I saw LaCroix," he replied, and he felt her stiffen.  "Just 
to talk," he quickly added.  

Natalie swallowed.  "And what did he say?"

"Nothing helpful," he stated glumly.    

"Ah," she replied after an awkward silence. 

"Nat, I'm sorry I ran out like that.  I didn't...  I didn't 
think," he finally stated, the apology rushing out as if his 
mind's floodgates had been released.  

Natalie grinned at him.  "Nick, it's all right.  You're 
going through a tough time.  I didn't realize how tough 
until you left and I had a chance to think about it."

Nick leaned over, encircling his arms around her.  "I 
just...  I don't know how to stop thinking like a vampire," 
he stated softly, pausing.  She turned to look him in the
eye, her warm eyes prodding him to continue.  "I...  I kind 
of miss it," he finally admitted, turning his eyes down 
towards the couch.       

But to his surprise, Natalie actually smiled.  "Nick, it's 
all right for you to miss it.  It's _all right_.  I would 
expect you to...  Please don't be ashamed...  The vampire 
was a part of you for a _long_ time.  It will take time to 
get used to being mortal," she stressed, emphasizing her 
words with a kiss.  

He sighed as he leaned back, her advice grounding him and 
making him feel sane, just as it often had before.  "Thank 
you, Nat.  Thank you for understanding..." he replied 
sincerely.

"Hey, that's my job.  Isn't it?" she replied with a laugh.  
"Now come on.  Us mortals need sleep..." 

He grinned as she pulled him to his feet and he allowed her 
to lead him back to bed.

***** 

"Nigel Evans."

Schanke blinked as a rap sheet at least ten pages long 
appeared before him.  The picture matched the supposed mail 
carrier to the 't'.  A shiver ratcheted down his spine at 
the look of those cold, black eyes staring back at him from 
on the paper.  Damn.  DAMN!  

He slammed his hand down on the desk.  "I let him get away," 
he whispered vengefully, trying to ignore the biting fury 
nipping at the back of his mind.  

Captain Cohen looked at him calmly, although from his years 
under her command, Schanke was able to identify a small 
quiver of worry flutter about the corners of her mouth and 
subtly around the lines clawing outward from her eyes.  
"They caught him once in the States for a minor offence," 
she began.  "He was released shortly after.  Since then, 
he's been leaving a trail of maimed police officers from 
California to New York.  It seems he's made his way across 
the border and into our jurisdiction."

Schanke felt sick to his stomach, and from the look on his 
temporary partner's face, so did Jacob.  "But...  Why?  Why 
go through all this trouble just to hurt people?"  

Jacob hissed in a breath.  "Well, if I were an evil weirdo 
like this, I might find myself getting off on the power-
trip," he stated sarcastically, his voice wavering slightly 
with revulsion at the thought.

Schanke looked at Jacob in disgust, but Cohen silenced him 
before he had a chance to retort.  "Detective Michaels 
basically just paraphrased the first line of the psych 
report.  I don't know...  I suppose nearly killing someone 
and then letting them go would give you a feeling of 
superiority--especially if it's a police officer.  A police 
officer is someone who has been trained to defend himself, 
and..."

"The bigger the game, the better the trophy," Schanke 
finished.  "Man, that's sick.  Really sick..."  Cohen 
shrugged, detached, and returned to her office, leaving the 
detective work to them where it belonged.

"One thing I don't understand, though," began Jacob, "is why 
on Earth he would hire some Goth bimbo to do the shooting 
for him?"

Schanke swallowed heavily as the answer occurred to him.  
"Because he wanted to take the pictures..."  

"Because who wanted to take pictures?"  The quiet voice came 
from over Schanke's shoulder, startling him almost out of 
his skin before he was able to recover.

"Nick?  When?  What?  You're not supposed to be back until 
Monday!" Schanke exclaimed, leaping from his chair and 
grabbing Nick in a huge bear hug.  Nick, surprisingly, 
allowed this, although he didn't return the gesture and 
merely stood patiently, and very stiffly.

"Ah, I got restless," he explained hesitantly as Schanke 
finally got the message and backed away.  "Nat told me to go 
to work or she'd make me take part in some fool culinary 
debacle..."  Nick's face was serious, but it looked for all 
the world to Schanke like his doom-and-gloom partner had 
just made a joke.

Schanke grinned stupidly.  "Well, this is just no good..." 
he babbled sarcastically.  "I had a welcome back party all 
planned out and..."  

"You're kidding," Nick stated, interrupting Schanke's soon-
to-be diatribe.

Schanke shook his head.  "Nope.  Oh, uh, Nick, this is Jacob 
Michaels, your temporary replacement..." he said, 
introducing his blond partner to his brunet one.  
Immediately, he could tell that there was no love lost 
between the two.  Nick remained detached and forcefully 
cheerful as he shook Jacob's barely accepting hand.  

He shrugged.  Nick was back in form--nothing new there.  
"We're just discussing your would-be assassin.  Turns out 
he's not an assassin, just a very sick loon on the wrong 
side of sadistic," Schanke explained.

Nick raised an eyebrow.  "Schanke?  Is there actually a 
_right_ side of sadistic?" he asked, but his usual mask was 
destroyed by the twinkle in his eyes.

Schanke merely rolled his eyes in response, choosing not to 
say anything as Nick sat down at his desk and ran his hands 
slowly across the surface.  "Ah, I never once in my life 
thought I would be happy to see this much paperwork," he 
stated woefully.  

"Stir-crazy?" Jacob interjected with a grin.

Nick looked up and regarded him for a moment.  "Nothing 
but," he responded.  

Schanke didn't miss how Nick's eyes darted to him before 
sweeping back to Jacob.  His partner had never been one to 
hand out trust on a silver platter, and he suspected that 
this was just another one of those instances of Nick's 
patented extreme caution.  Schanke shook his head.  He 
would have paid a month's salary to learn why Nick was so 
damn closed off.  

"So," Nick began. "Do we have a possible location of this 
guy?  Anything other than an ID?" 

"Nope.  He got away.  We can't get anything out of Miss 
Kaldereski.  She's just been one big fountain of sarcasm 
and sly smiles.  No info there," Jacob answered before 
Schanke had a chance to respond.

Nick shrugged, his face reverting to type--a complete 
emotionless mask.  Schanke couldn't even tell if Nick was 
bothered by the fact that they were discussing the people 
who had nearly killed him.  Hell, if their positions had 
been reversed, he didn't even want to think about the 
emotional possibilities of that one.

"Well, maybe I can make a trip down to lock up and have a 
word with Miss Kaldereski.  Maybe she'll talk to me," Nick 
stated absently, his eyes getting an odd, faraway look to 
them.  Schanke almost wanted to leap for joy.  Whenever Nick 
went into one of his space-out sessions, usually good things 
came of it...

Jacob, however, only chuckled.  "You think you can actually 
get more out of Goth-babe than Schanke and I could?  That'll 
be fun to see..." he stated sarcastically, the obvious 
tension between the two finally bleeding out through his 
biting words.

Nick looked at him harshly.  "I'm a good interrogator," he 
stated simply, but the coldness in his voice was enough to 
wipe the smile from Jacob's face.

Schanke wanted to scream.  Jacob was a good guy--a friendly 
guy, but his machismo need to best Nick was painfully 
obvious.  He had obviously heard too many rumors about the 
unflappable Detective Knight and was utterly determined to 
prove them incorrect.

Jacob's posturing was still evident, and the fact was not 
lost on Nick.  While the smile had been wiped clear off his 
face, Jacob's stance was anything but submissive, and his 
fists were visibly clenching and unclenching.  Nick merely 
stared at him, unblinking.  "What?" he asked calmly.

"Nothing," Jacob replied, obviously disappointed that Nick 
wasn't taking the bait.

"Guys!" Schanke finally blurted out, "Cool it!  All right?  
We don't need--"

His words were cut off by the shrill, whining ring of his 
phone.  Schanke stared daggers at Jacob.  At least Nick was 
keeping his cool.  He reached down slowly picked up the 
phone.  "Detective Schanke, Metro Homicide," he stated 
gruffly, not tearing his eyes away from Jacob, who at least 
had the decency to back off once he had been scolded.  "Can 
I help you?"

There was silence on the other end of the line.  

"Hello?" Schanke asked, slightly annoyed.  This was not a 
good time for pranksters.  Although, he couldn't really 
think of a good time for pranksters either...

"Did you like the photos?  The lighting was bad, I know..."

Schanke's blood ran cold at the grating whisper--the voice 
of their fake mail carrier.  "What do you want?" he asked 
harshly.  Nick and Jacob both looked up at him 
questioningly.

"Let's just say I've graduated up from maiming, to killing.  
I like you.  You're a good target.  Come get me?" Nigel 
asked, his voice repulsively saccharine.  

Schanke frowned in disgust.  "Listen, Mr. Evans," he began.  
Jacob perked up at the sound of the name, but Nick didn't 
seem to know what to make of it.  "If you think I'm just 
going to traipse down to your little hideout and let you 
take potshots at me, you're dumber than I thought," Schanke 
stated angrily--stupid, arrogant bastard. 

The disembodied voice laughed cruelly in response, echoing 
strangely through the wires as though it were amplified 
poorly.  "Which is precisely why I'll just move on to 
another city and do damage there if you don't.  You wouldn't 
want that on your shoulders, now would you?" 

The hair on the back of the Schanke's neck stood on end, 
and he swallowed hard.  The bastard was playing a guilt trip 
on him!

"Fine," Schanke snapped harshly as he picked up a pen and 
sifted through the papers on his desk for something to write 
on.  "Where are you?"

"I'm sitting here with a pretty little thing, some whore I 
dragged off the street.  She's really scared.  Aren't you 
scared?"  Schanke could tell the question was not directed 
at him.  Nigel laughed at her unseen response.  "She's 
shaking.  I can feel her hot skin trembling under my 
fingers..." he added, and Schanke barely identified a small 
whimper in the background.  

"I might just have to kill her.  You wouldn't want her to 
die, would you, Detective?" Nigel asked snidely.

Schanke squeezed his eyes shut.  This situation was 
degenerating quickly.  It had gone from an idle threat to a 
hostage situation...  "No.  No I wouldn't," he stated 
honestly.

"It's a pity that your job makes you care for such trash."

Schanke growled into the phone.  "I would care anyway.  Get 
to the goddamn point, Evans!"

"My point is that if you come with the entire police squad 
to just storm the building and arrest me, then I'll have to 
kill her.  Come by yourself.  Or with whoever your partner 
is right now.  I don't care.  But if I see one siren, one 
helicopter, one news crew, one ANYTHING, I'll blow her 
fucking head off.  Got it?" Nigel asked all too sweetly.

"Yeah.  I've got it," Schanke stated, restraining himself 
from saying anything incendiary.  The last thing he needed 
right now was a shouting match, or even worse, a dead 
woman...

"Good.  Come to Dufflaw and Samor--you'll know where to go 
when you see it.  Be there in thirty minutes or she's wall 
paste."  The line was cut as he abruptly hung up.

Schanke sighed and wrote down the address as the dial tone 
kicked in, and the phone slipped from his shoulder to the 
desk with a loud thud.  "So, what's the what?" Jacob asked 
nonchalantly before Nick could get a word in.

"We have a major problem," Schanke said.  "Grab your keys.  
We've got to go..."  

Jacob looked at Nick, who wordlessly complied, and then back 
at Schanke worriedly.  "Don, shouldn't we tell Cohen?"

"We're doing that on the way out.  Come on," he stated as 
Nick grabbed his coat from the rack and threw it over his 
shoulders.  He glanced at his watch.  Twenty-seven minutes.  

They were running out of time...

*****

Nick took a deep breath and stared at the dark, crumbling 
warehouse, unable to stop the dreadful pounding in his 
chest, and angry at the very same time that it was pounding 
at all.  This was a routine apprehension of a fugitive, not 
something that should be generating this level of anxiety.  
And yet still, the feeling was there.  

The only streetlight still functioning was flickering on and 
off as if a child in a fit were flipping the switch on and 
off, until after a few prolonged and agonizingly labored 
changes from dark to light and back, it went out entirely.  
The sudden failure bathed them in such blackness that he 
felt like someone had wrapped an opaque black cloth over his 
eyes.  He gasped, startled at how limited human sight was in 
such conditions.

"Nick?  Nick, are you all right?  I swear, I can take care 
of this if you want..." Schanke said from beside him as he 
pulled out his pistol.  

Nick swallowed as he tried to adjust to the chilling air and 
pitch-black night.  Routine.  Lots of people had shot him 
before...  This wasn't any different.  "I'm fine, Schank," 
Nick snapped, trying to ignore Jacob's disbelieving snicker 
as he pulled out his own trusty Beretta 9mm.    

Schanke rolled his eyes in response.  "Fine, then.  I trust 
you'll take the back, as usual?" he asked sarcastically.  

Nick simply nodded and Schanke responded by stalking off,  
but the sight of his partner's back disappearing into the 
darkness made him cringe.  He had not meant to be so mean.  
But there was no time for that now...

Jacob stood there with an arrogant smile.  "I guess I'm 
going with you," he stated.  

Nick resisted the urge to clock him.  Stupid young rookies 
always tried to posture him when they heard of his loner-
hero status in the precinct, and it was something he felt 
that he could do without.  "Look, Michaels, I don't need 
this right now.  Lay off," he warned, and luckily, Jacob 
was wise enough to nod and keep silent.

Nick squared his shoulders and stared into the darkness, 
searching it for any form of movement as he slowly slipped 
behind to the rear door like a cat denied its grace.  His 
progress was slow as he felt his way around the rubble and 
debris, and he found himself stumbling on quite a few 
obstructions.  On a particularly sharp piece of broken 
bottle, he cursed as tears came to his eyes, his cloudy 
breath coming in a few short, pained gasps.  Jacob yelped 
behind him as he kicked up some glass shards.  At least the 
rookie was having the same difficulties--a small comfort.

Schanke was probably already cuffing Nigel and on his way 
out, this was taking so damn long.  Nick sighed and finally 
fumbled his way to the door, squinting through the darkness 
in an effort to find the handle.  Luckily, the door swung 
open freely on its hinges, and Nick stepped into the 
relative warmth gratefully.

"Come and get me..." 

The whisper licked up the back of his neck like a wisp of 
smoke, and Jacob gasped behind him.  Startled, Nick darted 
his glances about, thankful that at least instead of 
complete darkness, there were now dim shadows.  Papers, 
trash, and other obstructions in the path of the hallway 
were barely identifiable, but at least partially visible.  

About twenty or thirty feet ahead of him in the hallway, 
he could have sworn he saw a blur move across the grimy 
carpeting.  He squinted, desperately trying to see what he 
knew that he simply could not.  Walking down the hallway, 
he sniffed the air like the predator he used to be, and was 
only granted with a musty smell of slowly rotting wood and 
the tangy scent of Jacob's rather strong aftershave.  

He reached a small flight of stairs with a flickering 
fluorescent light buzzing softly above, giving the shadows 
such an eerie cast that the sight made him shiver.

"Come on..."

A blur went past the top of the stairs and disappeared into 
the cavernous hallway beyond.  "Did you see that?" Jacob 
whispered from behind him nervously, his voice quivering.

Nick nodded curtly and motioned for him to be quiet.  He 
closed his eyes and tried to get a sense of his opponent, 
and was immediately frustrated when the only heartbeat he 
was able to identify was his own, thumping madly in his 
chest.  He stepped slowly up the stairs, training his gun 
on the shadows, silently daring them to move.  

Hearing the small taps of his and Jacob's feet hitting the 
stairs echoing strangely like thunder in the empty hallway, 
Nick felt his own heart rate step up a beat, and his anxiety 
flared.  This was the real deal.  One lucky shot and he was 
dead for real this time.  

He would have contemplated it further, but fate, the cruel 
creature that she was, seemed to have other plans.  A blood- 
curdling scream sliced through the air and speared him 
viciously, impaling his trembling flesh.  Without a thought, 
he bounced on his feet, intending to take off towards the 
source at vampiric speed, Jacob be damned.  Luckily, he 
caught himself before his utter lack of acceleration sent 
him careening to the painfully hard floor.

With a silent curse, he took regrouped and took the steps 
two and three at a time, as many as he could without ripping 
his lower body in half.  Jacob followed him, all protest 
gone from the former upstart.  With a brief glance back, 
Nick could see that the rookie's face had gone white as a 
sheet.

Through the dark halls they ran, checking each of the rooms 
quickly before moving on to the next, guns carefully 
extended to deliver a silencing blow, should one have been 
necessary.  Small beads of sweat formed and dripped hastily 
down Nick's pale forehead, a few temporarily blinding him 
with a salty sting, but he wiped his eyes on his sleeve and 
continued onward.  The woman had screamed--she was in 
trouble.  He had to get there.  There was no time to stop 
because of a sweaty brow, no time to stop because of the 
pulling twinges of pain in his abdomen, no time to stop and 
wonder where Schanke was, or if Jacob was still fumbling 
along behind him like the rookie that he was.  

Two floors up, by the third flight of stairs, the muscles in  
his quads and calves were burning so badly that they seemed 
to be singing a silent symphony of pain, throbbing right 
along with the almost healed hole in his gut.  For a moment, 
the wave of agony was so intense, that he thought he was 
going to die screaming right there.  Giving himself a 
nanosecond of rest, he peered back and saw that Jacob was 
struggling behind him a few yards back--the look on his face 
one of terror and determination.  Nick doubted the man had 
ever been under fire before, let alone in a hostage 
situation.

He forced himself up the last flight of steps to the fourth 
floor.  There were no more left.  They had to be there 
somewhere.  He prayed silently that Schanke had already made 
it and was diffusing the situation.

The second door on the left made him stop in his tracks.  
The greasy man he had seen in the mug shot earlier, Nigel 
Evans, was standing there, the muscles in his neck bulging 
with strain.  His trembling left arm was latched around a 
small blond woman who was, luckily for her, unconscious.  
"Nick, stay where you are!" Schanke warned from inside the 
room.

Nick's eyes followed Nigel's outstretched right arm, and 
then along the invisible path his gun made straight to 
Schanke's forehead.  He could hear Jacob panting softly 
behind him, and he stood there in silence, his Beretta 
extended out in front of him to Nigel.  Schanke took a deep 
breath--Nick could see the sweat pouring down his face.  

"Well, Detective.  It took your lackeys four floors to find 
me.  Fat lot of help they are, eh?  At least you've been 
chasing me since two...  I like a good rush," Evans taunted, 
not moving an inch.  The click of his pistol as he cocked it 
with his thumb echoed through the room, only the sounds of 
Schanke's, Nick's, and Jacob's panting accompanying it.

Nick met Evans's eyes, locked gazes with him.  The world 
around them seemed to snap into the distance, like looking 
through the wrong end of the telescope.  He felt his muscles 
tense as he stared intently.  "Evans, put your gun down," 
he whispered soothingly, his voice soft, cold, and monotone.  

Evans stared, his eyes narrowing slightly.  

Nick stared back.  

"Put it down, Evans.  That's the only way out of this," Nick 
stated again, looking down the muzzle of his Beretta 
straight into the man's eerily black eyes--like cold puddles 
of congealed tar. 

The gun in Evans's hands moved a fraction of a millimeter 
before a wide, sadistic grin spread across the man's face, 
and he laughed.  Nick would have been happy if he had lived 
through his near millennium without ever hearing that 
sound--that cold, uncaring, soulless cackle of superiority.

"What the Hell do you think you are, a goddamn hypnotist?" 
Nigel giggled.  

And then, their little two-person world shattered with the 
ear-cracking roar of a pistol firing. 

Slow-motion.  

Schanke blinked, shying to the side.

Nick shook his head, recovering from the lost connection.  
The woman in Nigel's hands slipped to the ground with a 
dull thud, and Nick dashed into the room, launching himself 
at Evans.  In mid-air, he managed to fire his gun before it 
was knocked away from him.  

Another thunderous crack, followed in short succession by 
another.  So confusing... who was shooting?  

Flesh to flesh, Nick's fist impacted with Nigel's sweat-
slick cheek as he grabbed his shoulder with the other hand 
and pulled him down to the floor. 

A stab of pain.

Nick winced.  "What?" the voice echoed through his ears.  He 
felt as though he were in a cave.  "Not fully healed yet?"

Another stab of vicious pain.

He could hear a thud.  The sound of someone pummeling him.  
Strange to realize all you were hearing was the sound of 
your own flesh being beaten...  And then just when Nick 
thought that he was surely going to lose, the beating 
stopped.  He grabbed his gun up from the floor and managed 
to backhand Evans across the face, but Evans had stopped 
moving, his eyes turning glassy and lifeless.  

Nick finally saw the blood burbling out of a small hole in 
his opponent's chest.  Apparently, his mid-air shot had hit 
Evans after all.  

He shoved the body off of him and let out a groan.  Jacob 
was on the ground, still and cold, lying not far from the 
dead hooker.  Schanke was stumbling awkwardly to his feet.  
"Nick?" he asked, his voice wavering slightly.

Nick stood up silently, ignoring the sirens in the 
background.  Of course.  Cohen had said she would give them 
a twenty minute head start and then she would send backup.  
Twenty minutes.  That was all this had been... 

"Nick, are you all right?  Are you hit?" he heard Schanke 
asking him, but it was all running together in his mind as 
one big long monosyllabic howl.  

His Beretta slipped loosely from his fingers and bounced on 
the floor.  He blinked, his eyes falling back on Jacob.

Burning.  

His eyes were burning.  The world blurred into one big dark 
impressionistic blot of black paint. 

"NICK!"  Schanke was upon him now, his hands rubbing all up 
and down his front and back, checking for any injuries.  
Nick silently complied, swaying as Schanke's handling made 
his weight shift back and forth from foot to foot.  

"Nick, come on.  Snap out of it..."

"I'm fine," he heard himself say.  Was that his voice?  It 
sounded so cold...  And he wasn't fine.  Far from it.  But 
his words were a necessary lie.  

Schanke sighed in relief.  "Jeez, I thought you were going 
to go bonkers on me.  Nick?  That wasn't your fault--don't 
think that that mess was your fault..." he commanded softly, 
his words trying to reassure, but they did nothing of the 
sort.

Schanke didn't know the half of it.  

"I know."  Another lie.  

And as officers and paramedics and cacophony flooded into 
the room like a riptide, he let the lies keep falling from 
his lips.  Like a waterfall, they spurted from his mouth--
until he doubted he was anything more than a walking half-
truth--but lies were the only way to escape their prying, 
mercilessly meddling, concerned eyes.  

The only way to spare them.

*****

"Nick?" she called softly as she slid the door open, almost 
as though she expected anything louder would shatter him.  
Although, from what she had heard, anything but utmost 
caution probably _would_ shatter him.  

Jacob was in intensive care, paralyzed from the waist down.  
The woman had been dead before she'd hit the ground.  Evans 
was Swiss cheese.  The bullet Nick had gotten him with in 
the chest had ultimately done him in, but both Schanke and 
Jacob had also hit him, one in the thigh, and the other in 
the side, close to where Nick had been hit.  Ironic justice, 
almost.  But no one deserved to die.  

She peered into the darkness, squinting in an attempt to 
find him.  Two small ivory-white candles were melting into 
oblivion on the mantle, and another set of three were placed 
on the piano, but otherwise, the absence of light made 
Nick's loft look like a giant void of despair.  

"What do you want, Nat?"  Nick's voice sounded cold, 
resigned.  Like he had given up.  

"You, Nick," she stated hesitantly as she finally found a 
lump on the leather couch, almost completely camouflaged by 
the darkness.  "I want to help you."

"You can't help me, Nat.  There's only one person who can do 
that, and it's not you."

She felt frustrated at his words, wanted to pick him up and 
shake some sense into him, but she managed to reply softly, 
"Well, then who?"

He didn't reply.  

Carefully, she made her way across the floor, sifting 
through the blackness and making her way to sit beside him.  
His eyes were glittering softly in the darkness as the weak 
candlelight reflected off them.  Staring.  He was simply 
staring, although not at anything in particular.  Had she 
not known that he were mortal, she would've thought him a 
vampire, so still and cold was he.  

"Nick, talk to me..." she pleaded, placing her hand on his 
arm, praying that the small gesture would be enough to pull 
him out of his funk.

He sighed.  "I tried to hypnotize him.  I didn't even 
realize it until it didn't work..." he finally admitted, his 
voice strangely choked.

"Nick, it's all right," she tried to assure him, "It will 
take time to get used to being mortal.  What happened wasn't 
your fault.  From what I've heard, Evans was a time bomb 
just waiting to go off.  What happened was _his_ problem.  
_HIS_ fault.  Not yours.  Never yours."

"Yes, it is, Nat.  It is my fault.  They died because I 
can't be a mortal like I'm supposed to be.  Some poor boy, 
not even twenty-five yet, is bedridden for life because I 
_can't_ be a mortal like I'm supposed to be," he whispered.  
He turned to her, his eyes glistening, but when he blinked, 
all the emotion was wiped away and he was a mask again.

"Nick, you just need _time_," she stressed.  

His brow furrowed in the dim light.  He almost appeared to 
be in pain.  "No," he said, looking down into his lap like 
a scolded puppy.

She looked at his resolve.  Saw his face.  Saw the hidden 
pain.  The slumped shoulders.  The bags under his eyes, as 
if he had wasted a lot of time mulling over something.  And 
suddenly, everything fell into place.  "Nick, no.  NO!" she 
cried, gripping his shoulders and shaking him hard.  "You 
can't!  You can't, you can't, you can't!" she moaned, a 
mantra.

He looked at her coldly.  "I have to, Nat.  This isn't me 
anymore," he said, gesturing to himself.  "I'm not meant to 
have this gift.  I'm _damned_," he said, as if it were a 
simple, every-day fact.  

Her chest hurt.  It felt like the world was collapsing on 
top of her, with her mind as the focal point, like a black 
hole being sucked in on itself.  "Bastard," she said coldly.  

He blinked, but gave no other indication that her insult had 
in any way affected him.  

She felt the anger burning beneath the surface, as though 
her blood had turned to cinder and ash, a slow ooze of lava, 
ready to explode.  And suddenly, she couldn't contain it any 
more, did something she never, ever thought she would ever 
do. 

She slapped him.  Hard.  Across the face.  The kind that 
stings like tiny knives, slashing at the flesh.  

"You can't!" she cried.  "Just because you're having a hard 
time doesn't mean you can just give up!  You're not a 
quitter, Nick.  I KNOW you're not.  What makes you think 
that you can just back out on a miracle?  SOMEONE obviously 
thought you should be mortal.  Why can't you see that?" 

He looked at her, shocked, his hand on his cheek where she 
had hit him.  She could see the tears welling up in his 
eyes, and he looked away quickly, unable to meet her gaze.

"It hurts," he admitted quietly.

Natalie couldn't help but feel guilty.  "I...  I'm sorry," 
she said softly, her vision blurring as tears finally came 
to her eyes.  

Nick turned to her.  "Not that.  I deserved that," he 
assured her.  He placed his hands on his chest.  "This 
hurts.  Nat.  I can't deal with this," he whispered 
gratedly, his hands thumping his chest softly.

Her eyes widened in realization.  "What, Nick, did you think 
that mortality was a one-way ticket to happiness?" she asked 
incredulously.  "Did you think your guilt would just go 
away?"  She snapped her fingers, eyebrows raised.  "Like 
that?  It's not that simple!"

There.  A tear finally fell from his blue eyes--finally 
escaping his seemingly omnipotent control.  "No, it's not 
that simple, Nat," he admitted.  "I'm still guilty.  I still 
need to atone, and I just can't do that like this."

She felt like she had been struck.  So that _was_ how he 
felt.  

"Nick, if you want to be happy, if you want redemption, you 
have to fight for it.  Don't just give up like this.  Don't 
think that getting brought back across will solve 
anything..." she cautioned, shaking her head.
       
He took a deep breath.  Blinked a few times.  "Nat, if 
anything, this whole mess has proven to me that I'm better 
off a vampire.  I've lived all but a blink of my lifetime as 
one.  If I don't need to be mortal to save my soul, perhaps 
it's best that I'm not one."

"But," she began, but he interrupted her.

"Nat," he grabbed her hands and clasped them in his own.  
"I'm just not _meant_ to be mortal.  Maybe I used to be.  
But not anymore."

She shook her head.  Felt the tears streaming down her face 
at the calm defeat in his voice.  "You can't..." she 
whispered.
         
He looked at her, his mind obviously made up.  "I have to, 
Nat.  I have to..." his voice trailed off as he looked at 
her forlornly.  

And her heart crushed in her chest.  She had lost him.  The 
fact was obvious to her now.  Fate, it seemed, felt it 
necessary to deal them another cruel blow, but a very small 
part of her, to her horror, was agreeing with his words, 
even as the rest of her shook with denial.  

A sob fell from her lips.  "When?" she asked, almost fearful 
of the answer.  

"As soon as I go to the Raven," he admitted softly.

She nodded, looking into his pained eyes.  "I..."  The words 
were lost on her lips, refusing to make any coherent sounds.  
This was good-bye.  They couldn't be together with him as a 
vampire.  He had made that all too clear in the past.  

She bit her lip, trying to prevent it from quivering.  

"Nat, I have to go," he said, gently shrugging off her 
shaking hands, but she refused to let go.  "Nat, please," 
he added, a small hint of desperation entering his voice.  

She stood up with him, staring into his gorgeous blue eyes, 
ran her hands through his soft blond curls.  All was silent 
for a moment while she stood there pondering what she was 
about to lose.  As though a magnetic force were attracting 
her to him, she felt drawn to him, felt a momentous urge to 
take him in her arms for all she was worth and never let go.  

The urge became too great.  She kissed him.  Lightly at 
first, relishing the warmth that he offered her, and to her 
surprise, she found him responding to her, his hands 
clutching her as though she were a lifeline.  

Inhaling his comforting scent, she took a deep breath and 
kissed him harder.  Let her hands roam to his belt buckle.  
"Nat, we shouldn't..." he moaned softly.

"I don't care," she replied, a hint of frustration entering 
her voice.  "Just let it happen."  

With a small whimper, somewhere between one of pleasure, and 
one of pain, Nick collapsed helplessly against her and they 
fell to back to the couch.  She bucked underneath him, 
accustoming herself to his weight as his hands ran down her 
torso, slipping under her blouse.  Where she felt his cool 
fingertips brush against her, sweet and soft like a feather, 
she felt as though tiny explosions were casting off from 
each point, setting her skin alight with passion.  Slow 
burning fire spread out through her veins and warmed her to 
the very tips of her fingers.

"Nick, please," she moaned before he captured her mouth with 
his, writhing on top of her as though he were in agony, but 
he made not a sound.  

Somehow, all of their clothes made it to the floor--she 
didn't really care how.  All was silent as the world blurred 
around her and collapsed into primal desperation.  His hands 
were all over her, touching her, holding her...  His lips 
screamed across her flesh--nipping, sucking, teasing.

She almost cried out with pleasure when he entered her.  
Almost.  As if at the last moment she realized that even the 
smallest noise would break the spell...  He was so gentle...  
She felt as though she were being caressed from the inside 
out with exquisite silk.  Slow, and deliberate.  A far 
different tone from their last union.

And when the silence exploded with his and her coupled 
releases, she gripped him tightly, clawed at him as though 
letting go would be forever.  And it would be.  She knew 
that this was the last time, that this was good-bye.  He 
moaned softly, sucking desperately at her neck like he had 
before until, finally, he fell on top of her, ridden with 
exhaustion. 

She felt him quivering on top of her, trembling, and she 
rubbed his naked back soothingly, clutching his head with 
her other shaking hand.  "Shhh, it's all right," she 
whispered.  He was crying--even though he wasn't making any 
noise, she could feel it.  She didn't think she had ever 
seen him cry before, and she lay in astounded silence, 
letting his emotions run their course.

They stayed interlocked for a long time.  The candles had 
long since melted down to the brass base of their holders, 
enveloping her and Nick in complete darkness.  His tense 
muscles slowly relaxing, she felt his trembling slow and 
eventually stop, but she did not dare let herself fall 
asleep.  If she did that, then the night would end that much 
faster--something she really wasn't ready for.  So she lay 
there, caressing the back of his head softly.

She stared upwards at the ceiling, listening to his soft, 
rhythmic breathing--felt his chest filling her embrace only 
to exhale again.  "Why did you have to make it so hard?" he 
whispered into her neck, and then he fell silent--she 
doubted he was still awake.  

A tear fell down her cheek.  "Because I love you," she 
replied.  But she doubted that he had heard her.

*****   

He stared across the empty dance floor and couldn't help but 
wish Janette were still there.  But she had left him alone--
left for parts unknown.  And now it was just him and 
LaCroix, left to spar.  

"Nicholas," LaCroix said calmly, stepping out of the shadows 
as if he had simply materialized from the darkness.  "Not 
that I do not enjoy your company, but what brings you here 
at this hour?"

He wasted no time.  If he didn't do this now, then he 
wouldn't have the strength to do it at all, and he would be 
miserable for the rest of his life.  <Because I love you...> 
Closing his eyes against the pain, he tried not to think of 
her last words to him.  

"I want you to bring me back across," Nick stated softly, 
unable to meet his Sire's eyes.  And he waited silently for 
the ridicule to start.  The I-told-you-so's.  The painful 
admission that he had been wrong to want mortality.  

But LaCroix said nothing of the sort.  "Are you sure?" was 
all he asked.  With barely a swish of air, LaCroix was next 
to him, staring intently into his eyes.  

Nick nodded mutely, afraid that if he opened his mouth, too 
many old wounds would come to the surface.  Too many 
skeletons.  Too much pain that had never really gone away.  
Too much guilt...

"Perhaps you will listen to me in the future?" LaCroix 
inquired, his voice rising in question.

The silence was tangible.  Nick couldn't bring himself to 
respond.  

LaCroix chuckled softly.  "I did not think so," he said.  
"You do realize that you are willingly coming back under my 
wing.  That you are willingly sacrificing all that you have 
sought to part with me for?"

Again, a mute nod.  He clenched his jaw.  <Mortality is not 
synonymous with redemption.  I wish that you would realize 
that...>  Nick thought back to Jacob, still, and cold, and 
pale, much like Nick himself had been weeks before.  People 
were dying because of his own foolish wishes.  He had wanted 
an ideal that had never existed.  He had wanted mortality in 
the way that he had idealized mortals to be.  Innocent and 
pure and lovely in God's eyes.  But he felt just as ugly 
inside as he had before.  The guilt was still there, grating 
at his soul, even more so now that his own stupidity had 
felled such a young individual.  

Mortality was... a sweet thing, a wonderful thing that, had 
it come much earlier, he was sure he would not have had the 
strength to relinquish, but it wasn't for him.  At the rate 
he was going, he would get himself killed because he would 
forget to duck at an important moment, or because some 
disease that he hadn't been exposed to yet would wreak 
havoc, or whatever weakness his eight-hundred years of being 
virtually dead had brought him.

And then where would his chance to atone be?  He would be at 
death's gate, but unlike the last two times, without a 
choice other than to be stranded in the wasteland or be 
judged, condemned, and burning in Hell.  And truth be told, 
that scared him more than he would have liked to admit.  He 
didn't want to call himself a coward, not hardly, but it 
still rang desperately in his ears as true.  

Was it a weakness, that he didn't want to face his crimes 
just yet?  The balances were far from being in his favor, 
and yet, how many times had Natalie told him that 
forgiveness was how God worked, and that if he had truly 
wanted it, absolution was his?  How many times had she 
insisted that he was punishing himself for no particular 
reason other than he felt comfortable, at home, wallowing?

He was not Natalie.  He had been raised on a different set
of beliefs.  Who was right?  He didn't know, didn't think 
he ever would, but the simple fact was that _he_ didn't 
think he deserved forgiveness.  Even if Natalie were right, 
he wasn't even ready to forgive _himself_, let alone ask 
forgiveness from God.  Maybe in the far future, but 
certainly not now.  And he knew for certain that he would 
truly regret it if he were to let mortality take his life 
away when he wasn't ready--before he had truly gotten to the 
point where he could say that he was okay with everything, 
that he felt he had fulfilled everything he had been set on 
Earth to do, and that he was comfortable with the life he 
had lead and its outcome.  

A hard goal.  Some would say impossible, especially for 
someone like him.

A goal that would most likely take more than the half a 
lifetime or so that he had left, if he were lucky enough to 
have even that long--not to mention the fact that his body 
seemed to be informing him, more and more lately, that he 
wasn't supposed to be a mortal.  At least not now.

Was that so wrong?  Too much to ask?

Did that make him a coward? 

"You were right, LaCroix.  You were right.  Please don't 
punish me any further..." he pleaded softly.  

LaCroix sighed.  "Ah, Nicholas.  I was not intending to 
punish you--not this time, at least," he stated softly, and 
Nick could feel something hiding in his words.  Pain, 
perhaps?  And then Nick felt his Master's hands on his 
shoulders, turning him around, tilting his head to grant 
access to his jugular, kneading the soft skin above his 
pulsing vein... 

A brief snarl emanated from his Sire's lips before he felt 
the pain of his fangs digging into the junction between his 
neck and his shoulder.  Nick cried out, or at least, he 
thought he did.  His legs threatened to give out beneath him 
like deadweights, but LaCroix's firm grip refused to let him 
fall. 

Falling...  He was stationary and yet he felt as though he 
were falling into an endless abyss.  Weightless...  His 
fingers reflexively curled inwards, his nails viciously 
cutting his palms to shreds as his body went rigid.  
Blinking, his vision began to blur into one big mess of 
color, and salty tears streamed down his face.  He bucked 
in LaCroix's grip as he felt his life draining out of him, 
being sucked out forcefully from two tiny pinprick wounds.  

It HURT.  

More than it had the first time.  More than he had ever 
expected it would.  

His arms spasmed reflexively, his jaw clamped down, but 
LaCroix's grip was too strong.  He felt as though his 
shoulders were caught in a vice, and when the images began 
to buffet him, the soundless cry of agony that fell from his 
lips rumbled through his head like thunder.  

The world screamed around him as the blood of thousands dyed 
his vision crimson.  There was crying, and pain, and 
destruction, and terrible things.  But amidst it all, were 
two points of light, sitting there like they owned all they 
surveyed.  Brown and gold flowed together in a braid of 
woven color.  

Nick reached out and grabbed one of their hands--felt flesh 
contact flesh, warmth meeting frigid death, and then 
everything disappeared in a blinding flash of light.   

Silence.  Except for the wind, there was silence.  

The hostile brilliance of the sun beat down on his brow like 
a physical blow, and he immediately brought his hand up to 
shield himself.  

"Nicholas.  Welcome back," a calm voice echoed through the 
sandy valley of death.  

Nick whipped around and saw the small rectangle of light.  
Before it, a cloaked being stood gracefully, as if its feet 
weren't even touching the ground--floating.  "LaCroix?" he 
asked hoarsely.  Where had his voice gone?  

The being shook its head.  "Do you wish to be judged?" it 
asked.  "Is this your final visit to this realm?"

"No, I...  I need to go back..." Nick stated forlornly.

The figure did not move.  The glowing door did not retreat 
into nothingness.  "You are troubled," it said.  "Do not be 
so..."

Nick resisted the urge to laugh.  "If you saw the mess my 
life is currently, you wouldn't say that..." he replied 
cynically as he sat down on a dusty rock, waiting for 
LaCroix to call him back.

"You know what you want, now.  That is better than where you 
were before.  That was all we ever sought to do," it said 
simply, robes flowing gracefully as it bowed.

Nick nodded hesitantly.  "I guess there is that..." he said 
absently, before looking up at the figure, and then it 
occurred to him that the guide had said something else.  He 
felt his stomach sink in his torso.  "You.  Did you change 
me back?" he asked.

The guide was silent for a moment.  "No.  I am only a guide.  
I have not the power to do something so monumental..." it 
replied, but Nick could almost feel the warm smile glowing 
underneath its hood.   

"But..." he began.  

"Nicholas...  Come back to me..." LaCroix's voice rumbled 
through the valley, pleading his return, interrupting Nick's 
slowly forming question.  

Nick turned to the guide, pleading for an answer to his 
unspoken question.  "You must choose," it stated softly.    

He inhaled deeply, knowing that he was to be left guessing.  
"I choose to return."  

As soon as he said the words, the desert faded to black.

THE END

Thanks for staying with the story until the end!  Anyway, 
I'd love to hear what you thought!  All of your wonderful 
feedback on my last couple of stories is what kept me going 
on this one, and I'd like to thank the scads of you that 
sent it--it keeps up my inspiration :)

Diane Harris (aria5@vt.edu)