Return-Path: Delivered-To: ishmael@fkvoyage.win.net Received: (qmail 41643 invoked by uid 1001); 26 Apr 2003 19:49:34 -0000 MBOX-Line: From sentto-396628-938-1051385896-ishmael=fkvoyage.com@returns.groups.yahoo.com Sat Apr 26 19:49:33 2003 Delivered-To: ishmael@fkvoyage.com Received: (qmail 33833 invoked from network); 26 Apr 2003 19:38:30 -0000 Received: from n12.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.67]) (envelope-sender ) by nb-205.win.net (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP for ; 26 Apr 2003 19:38:26 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-396628-938-1051385896-ishmael=fkvoyage.com@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [66.218.67.192] by n12.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 26 Apr 2003 19:38:16 -0000 X-Sender: daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com X-Apparently-To: NNfic@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_6_6); 26 Apr 2003 19:38:15 -0000 Received: (qmail 45199 invoked from network); 26 Apr 2003 19:38:15 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m10.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 26 Apr 2003 19:38:15 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO web10410.mail.yahoo.com) (216.136.128.123) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 2003 19:38:15 -0000 Message-ID: <20030426193815.19607.qmail@web10410.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [137.140.1.105] by web10410.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Sat, 26 Apr 2003 12:38:15 PDT To: Nickn'Nat FanFic , ForeverKnight FanFictionList From: April French X-Yahoo-Profile: daomir_darkfell MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list NNFic@yahoogroups.com; contact NNFic-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list NNFic@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 12:38:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [NNFic] Crash and Burn (1/2) Content-Type: text/html; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-PMFLAGS: 34079360 0 1 P359E0.CNM Crash and Burn--a Forever Knight story By April French Author's Note: Written in response to all the people who threatened me with bodily harm after I posted 'My Immortal'... The fluff monster must be appeased at all costs! Plus, it's either write or study for finals. ::shudders:: The song belongs to Savage Garden, N&N belong to totally undeserving people. I love praise, I enjoy comments, I hate being bashed. This'll be archived at my site, http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html (check out the new layout!) with all the others. Permission to archive is given to FKFIC, FKFIC2 and the FTP site. All others must first bribe me with Oreos. ~~~ Crash and Burn (1/2) He leaned heavily on the railing, clenching it between his hands until the metal threatened to buckle. This had been his home once, years ago. He had had many dwelling places in his lifetime, but this place, this loft had been one of the few that had truly felt like a home. He had left it--left everything behind--for her. He knew he was risking a lot by coming back. Twenty years was a dangerously short time between going away and coming back. At least it was for a vampire. He had returned to Toronto, with the slim hope of seeing her one last time. But not in his wildest dreams had Nick expected to look down from his old second floor and see his beloved Natalie wandering forlornly around the loft. His breath caught in his throat as she ran her fingers over the ornate dragon on the fireplace. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he made note of the fact that she had grown older; she had a few more wrinkles and many more grey hairs. A thought closer to the surface ran along the lines of wanting to throttle LaCroix for keeping this from him. But to see her at all. And alive--! "You took the better part of me, Nick," he heard her murmur, before she lay down on his dusty, moth-eaten couch. As fast as he could manage, he was beside her. "Natalie..." When you feel all alone And the world has turned its back on you But she was already asleep. The very sight of her, so exhausted but still so beautiful. Nick dared to brush the tips of his fingers softly across her cheek. Give me a moment please to tame your wild wild heart Never. He had never wanted to leave Natalie behind. That much he remembered. The nights leading up to his sudden and traumatic departure were... fuzzy, to say the least. Anguish, sudden and brief ecstasy, and intense pain. After that, darkness. I know you feel like the walls are closing in on you It's hard to find relief and people can be so cold LaCroix, damn his eyes, had not been sympathetic. But for once--or perhaps, finally--Nick had understand, after a fashion. He had allowed LaCroix to tend to the great wound he had inflicted, and then he had gone wherever the old Roman had dictated. But no more. When darkness is upon your door And you feel like you can't take anymore Careful not to wake her, Nick pulled Natalie into his arms and sat on the floor, cradling her. Let me be the one you call If you jump I'll break your fall Lift you up and fly away with you into the night Natalie hadn't meant to fall asleep, but the dust had gotten into her nose and eyes, and made her very sleepy. Slowly, as she swam back up towards consciousness, she marveled at how comfortable she felt, almost as thought she was lying in someone's embrace. She had had this dream before, and knew what would come next. "Nick," she whispered. Now was the part where she would open her eyes and see only the ceiling. But she fought the impulse, and was rewarded with the sensation of a pair of lips brushing her forehead. If you need to fall apart I can mend a broken heart Natalie struggled to stay in the dream; it was one of those wonderful dreams where, half-awake and half-asleep, you could see and hear and feel whatever you wanted. The floating sensation of sleep was slipping away, but still the arms held her. With a wordless moan, Natalie gave in, and opened her eyes. Nick began to cry. If you need to fall apart I can mend a broken heart If you need to crash then crash and burn You're not alone "I'm still asleep," Natalie said, not trying to move from his grasp. He was so comfortable. "No. No, you're not." Nick gathered her closer to his chest and Natalie, in a daze, did not resist him. "You left," she said, quietly accusing. She had no energy for more. "I know. Believe me, I've never made a bigger mistake in my life." "Why did you leave?" "I... don't remember." Natalie stirred at last. "You don't remember?" Nick shook his head. "From the time Tracy was... shot, to well after I'd been taken from the city, my whole memory is a blur." The woman in his arms slumped back, disappointed. He remembered nothing? "Then why did you come back?" "I wanted to see you again. I--I <needed> to see you again." "It's a good thing you didn't remember that last night, then. Otherwise, you would've been looking for my headstone." Nick's arms suddenly tightened around her. When you feel all alone And a loyal friend is hard to find You're caught in a one way street With the monsters in your head "I thought you had been dead these twenty years," he whispered hoarsely, burying his face in her hair. Natalie felt wetness on her head, presumably from Nick tears of blood. "And LaCroix never gave me a reason to think otherwise. How--?" "I wish I knew," Natalie said. "All I know is that I woke up in a hospital bed one day, with the doctors claiming a miracle that I escaped a massive stroke or some other complication of near total blood loss. Apparently, someone left me on their doorstep." Reluctantly, Nick let her go so she could stand up. He made no move to rise himself, content to gaze upward at the vision that had sustained him for so long. "I'm glad," he said softly, tasting the tears that were still trickling down his face. End Part One April French daomir_darkfel@yahoo.com ===== ~Forever Knight: The Sons of Lilith~ http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html ~The Corvina~ http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/index.html "And we shall exist by amusing ourselves, by dreaming of monstrous loves and fantastic universes, by complaining and quarreling with the pretenses of the world..." --"The Flash of Lightning" by Arthur Rimbaud __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com

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-- End -- Return-Path: Delivered-To: ishmael@fkvoyage.win.net Received: (qmail 46267 invoked by uid 1001); 26 Apr 2003 19:55:32 -0000 MBOX-Line: From sentto-396628-939-1051385940-ishmael=fkvoyage.com@returns.groups.yahoo.com Sat Apr 26 19:55:31 2003 Delivered-To: ishmael@fkvoyage.com Received: (qmail 36000 invoked from network); 26 Apr 2003 19:41:30 -0000 Received: from n33.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.101]) (envelope-sender ) by nb-205.win.net (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP for ; 26 Apr 2003 19:41:20 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-396628-939-1051385940-ishmael=fkvoyage.com@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [66.218.67.197] by n33.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 26 Apr 2003 19:39:00 -0000 X-Sender: daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com X-Apparently-To: NNfic@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_6_6); 26 Apr 2003 19:39:00 -0000 Received: (qmail 24900 invoked from network); 26 Apr 2003 19:39:00 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 26 Apr 2003 19:39:00 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO web10402.mail.yahoo.com) (216.136.130.94) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 2003 19:39:00 -0000 Message-ID: <20030426193900.93751.qmail@web10402.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [137.140.1.105] by web10402.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Sat, 26 Apr 2003 12:39:00 PDT To: Nickn'Nat FanFic , ForeverKnight FanFictionList From: April French X-Yahoo-Profile: daomir_darkfell MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list NNFic@yahoogroups.com; contact NNFic-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list NNFic@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 12:39:00 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [NNFic] Crash and Burn (2/2) Content-Type: text/html; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-PMFLAGS: 34079360 0 1 P773A0.CNM Disclaimers in first post. Crash and Burn (2/2) It was very dark in the loft, Natalie realized peripherally. The steel blinds were tightly shut, as they had been ever since the loft had been closed up. "I didn't sell it," she heard herself say. "I couldn't find the... the energy to." A better word might have been 'strength,' that she had never been able to find the inner strength to sell Nick's home--her second home--to some stranger, but she shied away from using it in front of him. Nick nodded. "I'm glad you didn't sell it. I had hoped you would live here, but... I understand why you could not." When hopes and dreams are far away and You feel like you can't face the day "I couldn't even stay in the city." Now why had she told him <that>? It would just make him worry, and if they only had a little while, she did not want him to spend it worrying about her. "Where have you been?" "Oh, here and there. London, Paris, Vienna. New Orleans. I'm in Seattle now." "Still playing cops and robbers?" "No, teaching again. Better to get to the root of the problem. Besides, I've missed it." "Archeology?" "Music." "As who?" "Nicholas Constable." Nick shrugged. "It seemed less pretentious than other names I've used. Natalie nodded. Then she asked, "Why are you here?" "I told you. I wanted to see you." "No, Nick. I meant to say: Are you crazy?" There was just enough light to see Nick cock his head at her in that endearing little-boy fashion. "It's only been twenty years; you told me that the Enforcers forbid returning to a city before a century has passed." Nick finally stood, and there was something in his posture that struck Natalie. Not as defeated, exactly, but as more cautious than she remembered him being. He walked the few feet over to the piano, and pulling something from his pocket, he kindled a tiny hell in his hand and lit the candles sitting there. "Come here," he asked her. Hesitating slightly, Natalie walked into the circle of light cast by the candelabra in Nick's grip. He took her hand and drew her close. "Look at me," he whispered. It was hard to tell by candlelight, but Natalie could almost swear that there were silver strands in his gold hair, that it was not as thick as she remembered it to be. The brackets around his mouth were much deeper, to be sure, and not from any trick of the light. "What happened?" she whispered, reaching up to touch his face. Nick nuzzled into her palm like a man starved. "Your skin..." He kissed her fingers, and his lips were warm. Natalie moved her hand to his neck, searching for the pulse with professional skill. "Your heartbeat--you have a normal heartbeat. Nick, you're--" She feared to say the word, afraid that speaking it aloud would make it untrue. He smiled, making the lines around his eyes crinkle. "Mortal." Let me be the one you call "But how?" "You, Nat. When I took your blood, that last night..." Tears flowed down his face with renewed energy, but they were clear, true tears. If you jump I'll break your fall "You made me mortal, my love. You gave me back my life." Lift you up and fly away with you into the night "But for twenty years, I have been miserable. The idea that I took your life, of all lives, to regain my own..." Nick set down the candelabra; his hand was shaking too badly. "I came back to say goodbye to you, to your memory at least, and to apologize. I don't... I don't have all the time in the world anymore, and if I was going to truly do something worthwhile with my life, I would have to let you go. "And then I saw you. I heard you talking to yourself... You've been as unhappy as I, haven't you?" He did not wait for her response. He only hugged her. If you need to fall apart I can mend a broken heart "My God, Natalie, I am so, so sorry. For everything. Everything that I've put you through, that I've put us both through. I've been so selfish, so self-absorbed... And it's caused no one anything but pain." He put both hands on her face and tilted her head up to meet his eyes. "Can you ever forgive me?" If you need to crash then crash and burn You're not alone She looked him straight in the eye. "There was never anything to forgive," she told him matter-of-factly. "I knew what I was getting myself into. I asked you to make love to me." "You also asked me to bring you across if I couldn't stop. I betrayed you." Natalie smiled sadly. "No. Somehow, I knew. I knew you would never make me a vampire, Nick. I never blamed you for anything. Only myself. And LaCroix, because he was handy." Nick chuckled, but it was forced. "Is he upset?" "He was, yes," Nick admitted. "But... I underestimated him. He truly cared about me. Even loved me, I think, as the son he always claimed I was to him." He would not mention how he had begged LaCroix to end his life, and how his master had done his best to oblige. "But I never believed him until after I thought you were gone. I had nothing left, except him. Even though I was mortal, he kept me by his side. And he didn't try to bring me back across. I think he knew that would drive a wedge between us that would never be removed." "Will he be angry with you now? For coming back to Toronto... for seeing me?" "It was his advice that I try and--and I'm quoting--'put the good doctor firmly into the past.' But either way... he can't be angry." With difficulty, Nick swallowed. "LaCroix is dead, Nat. I can't talk about it, not yet, but he's gone." "Nick, I--I'm sorry," she ended flatly, not knowing what else to say. "Thank you. Although not sorry for him, I think?" In the yellow light of the candles, his cobalt blue eyes twinkled knowingly. "I've for mourned him, and for Janette, who now has no one, but most of all for you. At least I can stop grieving for you." Natalie nodded. "And I can forgive you, if that's what you want. On one condition." Nick held her hands in his own, and his expression was earnest. "Take me with you. You already have most of me. You might as well take the rest, wherever you're going." Nick's face broke into a relieved, joyous smile. "Seattle all right?" Natalie's voice was quiet and very serious. "These last two decades without you have been hell, Nick. Hell. But I would walk barefoot into hell, as long as you were with me." Their lips met in a tender kiss. The passion would come later, along with talk of their future together. But for now, they each accepted the gentle caress, letting it soothe away all their hurts. And there has always been heartache and pain And when it's over you'll breathe again You'll breathe again ~Finis--April 26th, 2003~ April French daomir_darkfell@yahoo.com ===== ~Forever Knight: The Sons of Lilith~ http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/fkficindex.html ~The Corvina~ http://www.geocities.com/runeshard/index.html "And we shall exist by amusing ourselves, by dreaming of monstrous loves and fantastic universes, by complaining and quarreling with the pretenses of the world..." --"The Flash of Lightning" by Arthur Rimbaud __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com

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