From: Lisa McDavid Deuces Wild, or, To have One's Cake and Eat It Too: A Forever Not Challenge Story by Lisa McDavid "Toronto what?" asked Nick, staring dubiously at Natalie across the stack lab report binders which she had just set down on his desk. "Toronto Trek. It's an annual convention of Star Trek and other science fiction and fantasy fans." Natalie hitched up her purse. "Come on, Nick! It sounds like fun even if Amy's class at the Academy didn't have an entry in the exhibits." "The Academy? I thought Amy was in public school." Natalie sighed and visibly began to explain in words of one syllable. "She is. The Star Fleet Academy is a sub-organization for young fans. It promotes science studies. Gordon got Amy into it last year and she's gone in for physics big time." Nick smiled at Nat. For the first time his vampire hearing had detected no hesitation at the name of Amy's stepfather. Nat didn't begrudge Sarah Lambert her happy second marriage, but it had taken all of the past three years to accustom her to the fact. "Then it's a good thing Gordon's a physicist," he said lightly. "All right; it might be fun, at that. What time shall I pick you up?" ************************************************************************* "Nat, we're going to miss Amy's presentation if you don't hurry up." Nick made room for two Klingons in Star Fleet uniform just as a young man in old-fashioned evening clothes tripped over his own cloak and careened against Nick. "Sorry!" The word was lisped around fangs before the ersatz Dracula disappeared into the crowd. Nick glanced wildly around but there had distinctly been a mortal heartbeat. He didn't know which was more unsettling, now that vampires were fashionable again, the Bela Lugosi cliche or the Emily Weiss Byronics. Natalie's laughter recalled his attention. "Nick, look at this!" She held up a button from the dealer's table. It depicted a classic movie vampire flat on his back with a stake in his chest. The caption read: "He's undead, Jim." Nick's nose wrinkled in his special grin. "Hey, I want one of those." *********************************************************************** By the time they reached the Academy exhibits room, Nick was clanking nearly as much as he had in his mortal days in armor and Natalie was murmuring about changing the name on her medical license to Frankenstein. The front of Nick's shirt resembled a dealer's display board. "I'm not dead, I'm metabolically challenged" accompanied "It doesn't have to make sense, it's policy," "I'm fully functional," "My race was assimilated by the Borg and all I got was this lousy button," and "Children of the Night, shut up!!!" At least, Nat consoled herself, the thunderstorm which had broken just as they made it safely into the Regal Constellation Hotel's parking garage would make a raincoat imperative if they stopped anywhere afterward. Amy's Academy class had the biggest exhibit: a full-scale replica of the transporter from the original Star Trek. Natalie stood beaming with auntly pride while Amy, as student squadron leader, produced a detailed spiel about quarks, reverse ionizers and the Blinovitch limitation effect. Nick, bored, was beaming at Nat instead when Amy suddenly spoke directly to him. "We're going to allow civilians, for the first time in the history of live molecular transport, to take a ride." She produced the smile that was unnervingly like Richard's. "Congratulations, Uncle Nick!" Mentally vowing to subject Nat to a marathon of the cheesiest medical melodramas he could find the next time it was his turn to pick the videos, Nick joined Amy onstage. "Thank you, suc -- er, sir." Amy was still young enough to regard this as funny. "Now, if you'll just step onto the platform and stand perfectly still, while the technician adjusts the controls to your parameters." She held out a hand to steady him as she turned away from the audience and muttered, "There's a trap door. When the lights flare up, just crouch down and it'll do the rest." A peal of thunder covered her words. If Nick hadn't been a vampire, he would have needed them repeated. As it was, he smiled. "Aye-aye, Cadet Lambert." Just as Nick took his place on the transporter platform, a judgement day megabolt of lightning exploded deafeningly over the hotel. All the power zapped out. Screams clashed with the blare of alarm systems. The emergency lights flickered, providing an illumination which more closely resembled candles than anything electric. Then the hotel's generators kicked in and the regular lighting resumed. More screams erupted from the crowd around the transporter exhibit. Amy burst into tears. Nick lay unmoving on the transformer platform. Natalie called out, "let me through; I'm a doctor!" as she ran to his side. More from habit than logic, she knelt beside him and felt for a pulse. Nat hadn't turned a hair at the thunder bolt's impact. Now she cried out and dropped Nick's arm as though it had scalded her. Cautiously she bent low over him and touched his throat. Yes! He did have a pulse: shaky, erratic, but definitely a pulse. She couldn't tell for certain whether he was breathing. Nat snapped, "get an ambulance, he's alive!" and began to apply artificial respiration. In the commotion as the paramedics rushed in, no one had time to notice the blond, spectrally pale man who stood watching the crisis through deep blue eyes under hooded lids. As Nick was rolled out on a stretcher with Natalie carrying his iv-bag, the watcher made as if to follow. Then he shrugged and walked out of the room. *********************************************************************** The room at Mercy Faith Hospital was small but bright with flowers. Nick lay back against the bed, which had been adjusted to a semi- sitting position. "Two weeks? Nat, are you sure?" Natalie glanced at her watch. "Two days and five hours, actually." "Then if it was going to, to reverse ...." "It would have happened by now." She leaned over and kissed him on the lips. "Welcome back to humanity, Nick." "Oh, excuse me --" Schanke halted at the door. Nat pulled away, blushing, but Nick merely laughed and waved his partner inside. "Hi, Don. Got any doughnuts on you?" "No, just a twinkie .... wait a minute! You mean the hospital's finally got you off that macrobiotic diet of yours?" Schanke stepped all the way into the room and stopped short again. "That's sunlight coming in the window. Nat, should he have the blinds open?" It was Nick who answered. "Yep, and as soon as they let me out of here, you're going to treat me to a souvlaki before one of the Blue Jays' day games." Schanke frowned at Nat. Turning so that his left hand wasn't visible from the bed, he made the traditional spiraling finger sign for insanity and lifted his eyebrows. Nat burst out laughing. "No, he's not crazy. A team of specialists is still trying to figure out Amy's little touches to the wiring in that transporter. Nobody's sure about it, but a can of soda that was on the platform when lightning struck turned up halfway across the room and Gordon swears that for a moment he saw two Nicks and two Amys. We're still not sure whether she's going to reform school or early acceptance into the U of T graduate physics program. I'm plugging for the med school, myself." "Med school?" asked Schanke, bewildered. "With a full scholarship from me," said Nick, taking Natalie's hand and squeezing it. "Whatever the thing did when the lightning hit it, it's taken out all my allergies. Of course, I might even give Amy her scholarship if she does insist on physics, on condition that she agrees not to wear her Academy uniform to the wedding. It seems cadets are required to carry their communicators at all times and Amy's admitted to souping hers up ...." ************************************************************************* In the most elegantly expensive flat in the most expensively elegant faubourg of Paris, Janette looked up, smiling, as Nick swaggered into into the room, shadow-fencing with LaCroix. Both were roaring with laughter. Janette rose to her feet. "Nee-co-lah!" She exclaimed with tender exasperation. "You've got blood on your mouth again." LaCroix smiled paternally at his children. "Oh, give the boy time. He needs refreshers in nearly everything about being a vampire." vampire." He bowed in Nick's direction. "Not that he isn't learning fast. It only took two tries before he got a mortal mesmerized but conscious enough to leave the taste of fear in her blood." With the little boy grin that had won her heart almost eight centuries before, Nick stopped in front of Janette. She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, licking the blood away in the process. Nick caught her in his arms. "I'm going to keep right on being a messy eater if that's what you're going to do about it." He lifted her effortlessly into his arms. "Thank the Fates I got the vampire half in the split! I'll be my mortal side isn't having a tenth of the fun I am." "Oh? Do you think Detective Knight and his lady doctor have fun?" Janette traced her fingers across his cheek. "No doubt they think so." LaCroix strode to the balcony. "By mortal standards." He soared into the night. Janette shuddered eloquently but Nick laughed and let his eyes turn gold. "As if it matters," he said. "Allons, Janette -- we may have all the time in the world, but LaCroix's still going to come back before dawn." "That never worried you before," observed Janettte, kissing his ear. "Yes, but that was before we could have the waterbed while he's out." He carried her into the hall and up the stairs. "I don't know about water," Janette pouted prettily. "I get seasick." "Oh, that's all in your mind." Nick crossed the landing and nudged open one of the doors. "Vraiment? Then do you think you can keep my mind occupied?" She nuzzled his neck as he set her down. "Your mind among other things." They flew laughing into the room and closed the door. *********************************************************************