Date:         Tue, 12 Sep 1995 09:56:59 -0400

From: Catherine A Siemann <cas47@COLUMBIA.EDU>

Subject:      Mortal Beloved



Here it is:  my first *serious* story.  It's a belated Forever Not, with

a touch of Janette Seule thrown in for good measure.  Enjoy!  By the way,

the title has nothing to do with the new Nick/Janette fraction.



You may want to wait until you've gotten part two to read this.  The

break serves no artistic/suspenseful purpose as it does in other stories

I've seen on the ficlist.



compliments, disagreements and *constructive* criticism to cas47@columbia.edu

******



Mortal Beloved

by Catherine Siemann



        The cafe bar was old, dating back several centuries, and dark,

but very charming.  There was a good deal of dark wood, much stone, and,

because it was built so close to the other ancient buildings of the

quarter, no sunlight.  It had become a hub, of sorts, for Prague's

expatriate community, which in the 2010s had continued to grow and

flourish, not unlike the Paris of a century earlier.



        The man sitting at the bar alone, bent over his book, was in his

fifties, but was still quite handsome.  Age had been kind to him, lending

only the slightest thickening to his waist, the slightest thinning to his

hair.  But the lines on his face told another story.  Etched through his

darkly tanned skin, they showed that this was a man who had seen many

sorrows.



        He had changed enough, in fact, that it took Janette fully ten

minutes before she recognized him.



        "Nicolas!"



        He looked up from his book, startled to hear the familiar voice.

He removed his reading glasses before meeting her eyes.  "Janette?  I

thought you were in Paris."



        "But this *is* the Paris of the twenty-first century, mon cher,

or so we are told.  I have been here for several years.  Do you like my

place?"



        "Very much,"  he smiled broadly, his very white, very *human*

teeth sparkling in contrast to his sun-darkened skin.  "And the music is

more to my taste than it was at the Raven."



        Janette frowned for a moment.  "But there is no music -- Ah, I

see.  Well, Nicolas, it has been some time.  I know that I left Toronto

rather suddenly, but I hoped you would understand.  I needed to put some

time and space between us.  And that was before . . . what has happened."



        "I wasn't sure you would want to see me again, after I . . . changed."



        "No," she hastened to reassure him, but she was lying.  He had

aged only twenty years, but that was more than she had seen him age in

eight centuries.  He looked so vulnerable, so tired, so old.  "No--yes.

I could never be sorry to see you, Nicolas, but I must say it pains me to

see you this way.  To see you looking so very mortal."  She touched his

face briefly, then pulled her hand away.



        "But you haven't changed at all."  He meant it as a gallantry,

aimed at Janette's beauty and her pale elegance in her red-and-black

gown, but she laughed.



        "Remember who you are flattering, cher Nicolas.  I *never*

change, therefore that is not a compliment.  You must try to do better."



        Nick looked ruefully at his reflection in the mirror over the

bar, then down at the eyeglasses lying on the bar's wooden surface.



        "And how is your . . . your Natalie?  Is she well?"



        Nick hesitated for a moment.  "She is fine."



        "Do send her my greetings.  I should have liked to have returned

to Toronto for the wedding, only you held it during the *day*, in a

*church*.  How very inconsiderate of you, Nicolas.  I should have liked

very much to have been there.  I am the nearest thing you have to a

relative, am I not?"



        Nick looked down at the bar, then suddenly up at Janette.

"Janette, Natalie and I have not been together for the last fifteen years."



        Janette looked surprised.  "Would you like to have another drink,

Nicolas?  While you tell me all about what happened with you and your

Natalie."  As she poured him a whiskey, he began.



        "At first it was everything we had both hoped, and more.  I loved

Natalie and my mortality equally, more than I had even imagined I could.

To feel the sun on my face, to wake up mornings with Natalie by my side

and know that I would leave her only to emerge into the daylight -- it

was wonderful."



*****



        "This should be the last of the series," said Nat, crossing the

room with a hypodermic in hand.  "Roll up your sleeve."



        "The last?"  Nick was taken aback.  "The last?  Nat, I had no

idea we were so close."  He held out his bared arm for her touch, and

found himself wincing just a little as the pinprick entered his arm, his

vein, and then exploded with a sensation of warmth through his system.



        Natalie grinned.  She had been observing the changes in his

reaction to the injections, ever more human each time.  "I had no idea

myself, Nick.  You know how closely I've been monitoring all your

records.  But apparently I'd been overlooking a couple of key variables.

Hadn't you noticed anything in the last several months?"



        Nick buttoned his sleeve.  "No, that is, I think I did, but I was

afraid to hope.   I've -- we've -- been disappointed to many times

before."  He turned to face Natalie, who, having come to the loft

directly from the lab, still had her hair pinned up neatly.  He reached

gently back to set it free, and she raised her hand to help him, their

fingers brushing each other softly.  Then he kissed her, carefully at

first, waiting for his vampiric reaction to take place, and when it did

not, more passionately than he had ever dared before.  Nat responded with

equal fervor, but suddenly Nick broke away.



        He ran to the window, having first pushed the button which opened

the black mechanical shades in the loft.  "Come on, Nat, come on!"  He

threw the window wide open, allowing the warmth of the sun to touch him,

freely, unapprehensively, for the first time in eight hundred years.  He

beckoned her to his side.  "I want to spend the day in the light with you.

First we'll go for a long walk in the sunlight, and then we can . . . eat

outside, at a sidewalk cafe, and then -- then we'll come home and you'll

stay with me.  You'll stay with me forever now, won't you, Nat?"



        Natalie smiled at his enthusiasm.  "Forever?"  she asked, cocking

one eyebrow.  "Is that a promise or a threat?"



        "Both."  Giddily, Nick got down on one kneww.  "Natalie, you must

know how I feel about you -- how I *have* felt about you for a long time

now.  Natalie Lambert, will you marry me?"



******



        "To," he stammered for a moment, realizing how awkward it was to

say what he needed to say, "I'm sorry, Janette.  To make love again as a

mortal, not as a vampire, was extraordinary.  Natalie and I were more in

love even than we had expected to be.  And when our daughter was born, at

the beginning of our second year of marriage, the second year of my new

mortality, we both thought our happiness would go on, oh, not forever, I

know what forever is like, but for the rest of our mortal life spans."



        "And why did it not?"



        "When Erin was born, I was thrilled, of course.  But I did not

feel the way I thought a new father ought to feel.  Instead, I felt

increasingly restless.  I had already left the police force.  The loss of

my vampire powers left me without much of what I had relied on as a

detective.  It seemed easier to adapt in some other profession, where I

would not feel the loss as strongly.  I ended up doing consulting work on

a couple of historical projects: films, architectural restorations and so

forth.  The uncanny accuracy of my historical instincts amazed the

professional historians who observed my work, first critically and then

with increasing applause.  Imagine if they had known the reason.



        But after the restlessness began, I started to accept projects

that took me out of Ontario.  Nat had resigned as medical examiner, and

had begun a general practice part-time while the baby was young, with the

idea that the practice would grow larger as our daughter did.  As I was

roaming further afield, she was becoming more and more firmly rooted in

Toronto."

*****

        When Natalie pulled up outside the house, she was pleased to see

Nick's blue Caddy in the driveway.  He'd been slated to be away for

several weeks more, and though he sometimes managed to make it home for

unplanned visits in the middle of his projects, this one had been

particularly intense.  "Look, Erin, it's daddy's car."



        The top was down, of course.  Nat smiled to herself when she

thought of the reason Nick had chosen this car in the first place: the

extra-large trunk in which he could hide if he was caught in the sun's

rays.  She had always thought the idea of a vampire with a convertible

was a trifle absurd, but now that he was a vampire no longer, Nick rode

everywhere with the top down.  He was like one of those Englishmen who

move to Los Angeles and refuse to miss a single minute of sunshine, while

their Angeleno friends keep trying to convince them of the benefits of

shade and air conditioning, or, at the very least, of sunblock.  But

while Nat sympathized with Nick' fondness for getting as much fresh air

and sunlight as he possibly could, she felt that the open-topped Caddy

was an unneccessary risk for small Erin, and always insisted that they

take her car when they went anywhere as a family.



        She ran to the door, small daughter in tow, eagerly anticipating

her reunion with Nick.  She was not thinking about the long silences of

the last months before he'd gone.  Whenever Nick went away, it was as

though their relationship returned to its beginnings, to the way it was

when he was first cured, first truly human again.  Seeing his car in the

driveway, she almost couldn't believe that she spend night after night

pouring out her troubles to a sympathetic co-worker.  It was difficult to

imagine that when she realized that said co-worker was falling in love

with her she had discouraged him, but not with the conviction that the

*happily married* Doctor Lambert-Knight ought to.



        Nick was sitting on the back deck, of course, looking dejected,

and she tried to hide her disappointment when he didn't rise to greet her.



        "Hey, Nick," she said with a cheerfulness that was partly

forced.  "Couldn't stay away from us, huh?"  Erin had already rushed

forward, with her unsteady steps, to embrace her father.



        Nick smiled weakly, as he hugged his daughter back.  "Well,

there's the good news and the bad news.  The good news is that we have a

whole week together.  The bad news is, the Newfoundland Historical Trust

has cancelled the project."



        "And why is that bad news?"  Having Nick at home instead of in

the Maritimes didn't *sound* like bad news, but Natalie had begun to

believe quite firmly in Nick's ability to create disasters where none

need exist.



        He looked serious and evasive.  "Well, I've been offered a

long-term project in England.  A National Trust restoration, that looks

like it's going to last at least two years.  I turned it down before, but

now that the Newfoundland thing's been cancelled, I don't see any other

choice."



        Nat tried to bite back her anger at not being consulted in such a

major decision.  "Well, I *do* see a few other options. . . it's not like

we're hard up for money, between your eight hundred years of compound

interest and my medical work.  I'm sure you could find *something* to

amuse yourself with around Toronto.  Or, Erin and I could come with you

to England.  Maybe I could even get licensed to practice there.  Why

can't we just *be* a *family*?"



        "I don't think it would be a good idea for you to leave your

practice, not after you've worked so hard establishing it."



        "And you *do* think it would be a good idea to be separated from

your daughter for two whole years, when she's at such an impressionable age?"



        "No, of course not.  There'd be vacations, long breaks when they

didn't need me."  It was as if he was pushing her firmly away with one

hand, while he held her close with the other.



        "Why is it that you don't want us to come, Nick?"  Natalie was no

longer trying to hide her anger.  "For as long as I've known you, all

I've heard is how much you wanted to be mortal, how much you wanted to

fall in love and start a family.  Now all you want to do is to stay as

far away from us as possible."



        Nick stood up and came closer to Nat.  "I *do* want a family.  I

*do* want to be with you and Erin.  But it's harder than I thought.  It's

hard to *be with* someone all the time."



        "Nick, you lived with LaCroix and Janette for hundreds of years.

You've live with us for a little over five.  Why is it so much more

difficult with us?"



        He reached out to embrace her, but she pushed him away.  She

wasn't playing that game anymore.  "That was centuries ago," he said.

"We didn't travel together all of those years, anyway.  We separated and

came back together.  I guess that's what I'm doing with you.  I guess

that's the pattern I understand.  Besides, I needed LaCroix to survive in

the beginning."



        "Nick, I love you.  If it was just us, maybe I could manage the

long separations.  But Erin *needs*  her father to be here for her, like

you needed LaCroix.  Or she needs him gone.  What she needs is

stability.  As it is, she isn't always quite sure who you are."  There

were tears in Nat's eyes.  She had gone much further than she had meant

to go, but she had said nothing that did not need to be said.



        Nick looked away.  "Maybe . . . maybe just because you want

something with all your heart, that doesn't mean when you get it, it's

something you know how to handle.  Maybe who I was for over eight hundred

years can't just go away in a matter of five, no matter who I *want* to

be, or who I love."  He looked at Natalie, and she thought of how, even

after all these years, it still seemed strange to see his tears run down

his cheeks, not tinged with red.  "I will never stop loving you, Natalie,

and I would like to work this out, but I'm not sure I can be the

conventional husband-and-father type.  If you need that, if you think

Erin needs that, then maybe it would be better if we separated."



        It had finally been said, what they both had known was coming.

They held onto each other now, crying freely, until Natalie felt an

insistent tugging at her leg.  "Why are mommy and daddy so sad?"



        At the end of the week, Nick left for London.  The divorce was

 uncontested.



*****



        "A year or two later Nat remarried, to a doctor she worked with.

He was a few years younger than Natalie, just out of his medical training

and anxious to settle down.  I think he fell as much in love with Erin as

he did with Nat."



        He pulled a photo out of his wallet to show Janette.  It was of a

teenaged blonde who looked uncannily like Nick.  "She calls Nat's new

husband Dad, and me . . . she used to call me Daddy Nick, now it's just

Nick.  I don't see her very often, but maybe that's for the best.  Maybe

Jim -- that's his name -- is able to give her more, emotionally, than I

can.  Nat and Jim have two other children."



        Janette looked at his weatherbeaten face.  "Nicolas, cher, it

seems to me, well . . . you are no longer one of us, but perhaps you will

always be too much one of us to become one of the mortal kind.  Oh,

physically, yes, but in your mind?  your heart?  Perhaps it is not possible."



        Nick murmured something under his breath.



        "What was that?"  Even with her vampire hearing, Janette had been

caught unawares.



        "`After such knowledge, what forgiveness?'  It is a line by a

poet called Eliot.  He wrote a lot about sadness and loss.  I read him

often, now.  But, Janette, what I cannot understand it this -- when you

left me, after eighty years, I was devastated.  I loved Natalie as I have

loved only one time before, with you in the beginning, but when I finally

had her, it only lasted five years."



        "Who knows?  Maybe for a mortal lifespan you shared as much as

you and I shared in an immortal span.  Maybe you have learned what I knew

those many centuries ago, that you cannot hold someone too tightly.  Or

maybe, like so many, you have learned that when you get the thing you

most desire, it crumbles to dust in your fingers.  Our kind have always

known that."



        Nick buried his head in his hands for a moment.  "I loved Natalie

-- I love her still -- but I couldn't be what she wanted, after all.  I

thought what I wanted most was not to have to move on, not to have to

leave the mortal friends I loved, the *woman* I loved, and what did I do,

as soon as things got difficult?  As soon as I *made* them difficult?"



        "I would not take it so hard, mon cher.  I have heard, from my

mortal customers, that many men who have never been vampires behave in

the same way."



        "But they have not given up so much for it!"



        Janette was startled at Nick's sudden intensity.  "This is the

first time I have ever heard you regard what you used to call your `cure'

as a sacrifice.  Nicolas, I would bring you back across in a moment if

that was what you wanted --"



        "Which it isn't," he quickly interjected, but Janette was not so

sure from his tone that he was telling the truth.



        "-- but it has been strictly forbidden.  I am the only one of our

kind who would even take the risk of speaking with you, and that is only

because the Enforcers understand that I have such a history with you that

I could never abandon you.  If I were to bring you across, there is

nowhere we could hide, no place we could rest in safety for a moment."



        And then came the inevitable moment, the name which had remained

unspoken.  "And what about LaCroix?  Would he abandon me?"



        Janette looked troubled.  "I was wondering when you would mention

our master.  Nicolas, LaCroix has not been seen since that morning when

you first saw the sun."



        "Is he--?"  Nick could not finish his sentence.



        "Dead?  Did he walk into the sunlight?  I do not know.  He knew

that I was in Paris, and I expected that he would come to me after he saw

that Dr. Lambert had found the means for your cure, and that you could

not be dissuaded.  I thought he would return to his more faithful child.

But instead, he simply disappeared.  Not one of our kind has seen him or

heard of him from that morning forward."



        "LaCroix . . . disappeared?  Gone?"  Nick's expression was

uncomprehending.  A universe without LaCroix was almost incomprehensible.



        "But Nicolas, is that not what you always wanted -- we always

wanted?  To be free of him?"



        Nick seemed to have aged another twenty years when he looked at

her again -- not in his face, but in his eyes.  "I thought I killed him

once, and all I felt was triumph.  Now I may have killed him in fact, and

all I feel is . . . empty."



        "Another drink, Nicolas?"

        "No, I should be going.  And from what you've said, I'm probably

placing you at risk even being here.  Janette. . . I . . . I am so glad

to have seen you again."



        He rose to go, and she inclined her cheek to be kissed. As his

lips brushed her skin, he felt it icy to the touch, felt the not-human

thing she was, his sister, his lover of so many centuries.  The not-human

thing he once was.



        Nick Knight turned and walked away.  After all the centuries, all

the identities, it was the last name he would ever bear, the one that

would be with him at his end.  Down the stone passage, at the end of

which, Janette knew, he would walk into sunlight.  She stood at the bar,

looking after him and knowing that she would not follow.



        She felt a touch on her bare shoulder, and reached up to return

the caress with a gloved hand.  A handsome vampire with long dark hair

and pale green eyes stood behind her.  "So that was the famous Nicholas,

the only one of our kind ever to cross back over?"



        Janette smiled.  "In the words of that mortal film of which you

are so fond, `Of all the gin joints in all the world, he had to walk into

mine.'"



        "But you are not thinking of following him?"  The green eyes

darkened slightly.



        "No, not when I am perfectly happy here with you, mon amour.

Nicolas made his decision twenty years ago, when he chose Natalie, and

the daylight, over me, and the night.  And although I wished then that he

had chosen differently, once the hands of time began to run for him

again, he was torn away from me in a way that all the centuries before,

all the lovers between, could not have done."  Nicolas was not old yet,

but soon he would be, and that was more than Janette thought she could bear.



        Janette's lover was satisfied at her words, and did not see the

sadness in her eyes as she spoke.  For many nights afterwards, she

half-expected Nick to return, but he never did.



FIN