From catheboo@CCO.CALTECH.EDUSat Feb 10 13:05:56 1996 Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 10:53:30 -0800 From: Swordsister To: Multiple recipients of list FKFIC-L Subject: One Man's Freedom (1/1) One Man's Freedom by Catherine Boone catheboo@cco.caltech.edu The rain was fat and grey, and it splattered on his jacket when it hit, trickled in rivers down the sleeves, and dripped its way to the wet concrete. It was so bitterly cold outside, he kept forgetting that it would be. Be the death of him someday, of that he had no doubt. He fidgeted a moment, digging the toe of his boot into the ground and wondering if he should leave. He didn't know why he had come here, there were so many other things that he could be doing... important things that he *should* be doing... but now, an hour before he left Toronto, he found himself here, staring at the iron gates of the cemetery towering over him. So forbidding, even when they were wide open. As if they knew him for what he was, and resented his existence, a thing which death had no power over, who flaunted his strength just beyond their reach. So many dead, collected all in one place... there was very little in this world that made a vampire feel his mortality. This was one. He'd known some who never came near cemeteries, simply on the principle of the thing. He'd scoffed at the time. He shouldn't have. But now, ah now, the gates glimmered in the rain, reflecting light, pure light, he couldn't tell where from. Well, while he was dallying here, all the good it was doing him was getting him soaked to the skin. All this apprehension was foolish, at any rate. And for the first time that he could remember, he stepped inside the cemetery. It didn't hurt. A spark of wry humor lit his eye and twitched a corner of his mouth, to think that he had expected more. As he wandered among the stones, he took care not to slip on the wet grass or step into any of the growing puddles along the path. Wouldn't do to take a bad fall and spend a month in the hospital, when he had a plane to catch, now would it? Beginning to feel the chill of the weather already, he took out a pair of warm gloves from his pocket, and pulled up his collar a little bit higher. He really ought to buy a coat with a hood, if he's going to be traipsing about like this in the rain... but in an hour, he wouldn't really need it anyway, would he? No matter. On an impulse, he looked up into the sky, and watched the rain sweep by: tiny stars descending to earth, against the backdrop of an angry sky. He supposed there was a lesson in that, but he wasn't sure he wanted to learn it. An angry sky drops the rain to make a mirror of itself on earth. To see the stars in that reflection, well... an angry sky had susatained him for long enough that he didn't want to know if the stars still shone. But he had only an hour, and time was shorter than it used to be. He began to walk faster over the muddied path, rubbing his hands together in a vain attempt to keep them warm through the gloves. He searched endlessly, it seemed,looking here and there, the names of countless stangers passing before him, in death as they always had in life. Until one. And just as one stranger had stood out so easily from the rest, such a long time ago, so now did his tombstone. It was as black as the sky, the inscription a shadow against the darkness. No matter how closely he peered at it, he couldn't make out the words. That was all right, though. He already knew what it said. Nicholas Knight 1959-1996 Free At Last He had promised Nicholas once, a long time ago, that they would never die. And for a while, no price was too high, to pay for such a gift. He had so looked forward to the future, those days. They would have risen to such heights, they would have done it all, the three of them. They were going to be so happy... but then came the changes. His gift became a curse, himself a demon, his promise a condemnation. So intent was he to rid himself of this damnation, so eager to reclaim his humanity, that Nicholas did not consider the consequences of success. He almost smiled at the thought. Since when had Nicholas *ever* considered the consequences? But he had been a fool himself, to allow him to remain on such a foolish quest, and he knew it. Even while Nicholas was told that the blood was everything, that it was the blood that must be conquered, he did not realize... How, how could he not see what was to come? "I told you... the same blood that runs in you, runs in me, and in Janette, in all our family. We are bound, Nicholas. Tied, and no amount of denial could break that bond. I taught you that, but you didn't listen. You never listened, even before. And now..." The anger, the betrayal that had overpowered him those first few years of mortality, that had caused him to send Nicholas to an early grave, no longer shook in his voice. Nicholas. The unlucky focus of his rage, the one responsible for his new life. He had left Nicholas far, far away, in the desert. So angry, was he, that he actually flew Nicholas to Arizona, under the guise that the sun was so warm there. It was so easy to convince him. All he had to do was tell him what he wanted to hear. It was so easy... and so he had left him, there in the desert. No water, no food, unconscious, he had driven away to let Nicholas have his most fervent wish: to die in the sun. His fair skin to blister and burn, slowly, so slowly; his mouth to parch from a thirst that would grow to outstrip any bloodthirst he had ever known. He hadn't even thought about it, while it was happening. It was the strangest feeling. No anger, not during the whole time he was doing it. From nearly the first moment, he had been struck with a great calm. It was simply what he had to do before he could move on. There was time for anger later. This was cold revenge, of the purest form. But all that had been so long ago. Long since, anger had been replaced with age, and a perspective he had never hoped to see. He murmured his final words, and even as he said them, he wasn't sure if they were meant to be a blow, an exlanation, or a regret. "In your haste, my Nicholas, it seems you have doomed us all." Lost in his thoughts, he had not noticed the rain stopped until the sun began to peek through the holes in the clouds, shining down on his face for a moment. It was a welcome warmth to him, and he raised his hands in an attempt to warm them too. But it also served to remind him of the time that had passed. He had stayed too long; if he didn't go back now, Janette would come looking for him. As it was, she was standing outside the car waiting for him, her dark shining hair showing the first signs of gray, her face betrayed by wrinkles that were never meant to be. The only part of her left unchanged was her eyes, deep pools of blue that were as beautiful as the first day he had met her. She took his hand when he came near, and opened the passenger door for him. "All our goodbyes have been said?" "Yes. We can go now." The storm had already passed over them, it seemed. The blue sky slowly broke through the gloom in all the majestic glory Nicholas had imagined. The rain had made the roads slick and bright as the sun shone down upon it. No, there was nothing more to be said. Perhaps, one day, he and Nicholas might meet again. Then he could have all the time in the world to tell Nicholas all the things he wouldn't, while he was alive. So many things he had kept back, and now that it was too late, he wondered if it was truly for Nicholas' benefit that he had done so, or for his own. No matter. The past remained the past, it was the present that was important, now more than ever. Lacroix settled into his seat, and waited, with characteristic patience, for another kind of immortality.