AND THE DAY CAME
I/I
By Katy Deery
gb61@dial.pipex.com

Be gentle with me or I'll cry.

It was raining.  How appropriate that nature itself should mirror
his mood.  It seemed a reflection of his pain, a million tears
for each regret, for each lost moment.  He tried only to remember
the good times, the years of happiness and fulfilment they had
shared, but always there was the despair, the desperation when
faced with a will more resolute than his own.

How many times had he offered the gift of life?  She had known of
course, known that all he really offered was an eternal death. 
But she would have been with him, and now she was not, and that
was a reality he found unbearable.

The grave was littered with floral tributes, their colours dimmed
by the darkness.  He knew that many of the people who had
attended the service thought the whole thing bizarre.  Those who
thought they knew the Knights well and were aware of Nick
Knight's particular 'skin condition' weren't surprised.  No one
ever saw Nick in the day, so it stood to reason that the funeral
of his wife would be held long after the sun had abandoned the
sky.  They were used to Nicholas and Natalie's strange lifestyle. 
It had been the talk of the town when they had first moved there.

Everyone was shocked that a man in his mid thirties should be
married, and happily at that, to a woman in her late seventies. 
It had always embarrassed Natalie, but he had never allowed her
to feel anything but loved.  That had been his greatest joy in
life, to have finally convinced her that he would always love
her, through time and tide's ravaging of mortal flesh.  He had
seen the wrinkles appear, the slowing of once firm limbs, and
hated each sign with a passion, but only as precursors of the
inevitability of it all.  He had not been ready to lose her, but
then he knew that he would never have been ready.  A century more
together would have made no difference in the end.

He felt the presence behind him, but didn't turn to acknowledge
it.  Even the strangely hesitant touch on his shoulder was
ignored.  Just a few minutes more.  That was all he asked.  A few
more precious moments before he had to say goodbye forever.

"Nicholas, it's time to leave."

The voice hadn't changed.  It was the thing he remembered the
most, a soft, insidious rattle heard over the airwaves or in his
darkest dreams.

Never forgotten, even in all these years of silence.

"I didn't realise how much it would hurt to lose her," he
whispered and wondered why it should be that this was the one
person he could ever admit that to.

"I know.  I did try to tell you."

The voice held an unexpected trace of sympathy, laced with a
measure of impatience.  It was a tone he recalled well from long
dark nights when they had argued until the first rays of dawn
latticed the sky.

"Yes, you did."  He turned and looked at Lacroix, his father, his
master.

They had not met in over forty years, not since Lacroix had
agreed to allow him the freedom to explore his relationship with
Natalie on the proviso that Nick return to Lacroix once Natalie
died.  Patience was not something he had ever associated with his
old mentor, yet patient he had been, never once interfering in
their lives together.

It was a bargain made with the devil and one he had never
expected to have to uphold, believing that Natalie would allow
him to bring her across if she was unable to find a cure.  That
she would never die and leave him alone.  But she had always
stubbornly held onto her humanity and now Lacroix had come to
claim his wayward son.

"You were right.  They all turn to dust in the end."  He knelt
beside the grave, uncaring of the wet mud that stained his
clothes.  "I'm sorry, my love.  I can't do this anymore.  I can't
live this life where there is so much pain, so much loss. 
Forgive me."

He sunk his finger into the earth as though trying to touch the
flesh buried beneath it.  Lacroix had once wished on him all the
anguish of lost love.

'He should be happy tonight,' Nick thought, and yet he could
sense only an answering pain.  Compassion was not an emotion he
associated with Lacroix, yet that was what he felt through their
bond.   How strange to draw comfort from this least comforting of
sources.

"I'm ready to go with you now," he said, slowly rising up and
letting the mud fall from his hand.

Lacroix smiled and placed a possessive arm around him.  "Better
to stay with your own kind, Nicholas.  In the end, we only have
each other."

And as Nick felt himself rise with his master into the darkness,
the rain was the only witness to his blood red tears.
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