>Date: Mon, 3 May 1993 21:34:39 -0800 Author's warning: ANYONE WHO DOESN'T LIKE THE IDEA OF NICK'S GETTING BACK ACROSS AND BEING MARRIED TO NAT, PLEASE DELETE NOW. ******************************************************************************** Coming Across by Lisa McDavid Nick smiled to himself as he bent to open the cadillac's door for Nat. She was humming the main hit from the show. Nat always did that when she had enjoyed herself, and she always denied that she did. He closed the door after her, then got in on the driver's side. "Happy?" She leaned against the seat, half-turned toward him. "It's a wonderful birthday! Thanks, Nick. I didn't think there was any way to get those tickets." Nick grinned at her. "A special effort for a special lady. Happy birthday, Natalie." Nat smiled back at him, wondering if he could hear the acceleration in her heart beat. There was something about that little boy, nose-wrinkling grin of his that always sent her pulse soaring. She wondered if the other people getting into their cars in the Civic Center's parking garage constituted enough of a crowd to make it safe to kiss him. No, she supposed not. She wouldn't risk spoiling a wonderful evening. The top was down, and the stars were very bright in the late June sky, even with the lights of downtown. Suddenly a meteor flashed across the night. "Oh, look," Nat said, "a shooting star." Nick downshifted as the car drew up to a stoplight. "Make a wish!" He was driving with his right arm resting along the back of the seat behind her. Would the traffic around them be enough of a deterent to his vampire self if he let his arm slip down around Nat's shoulders? No, he'd better not. He couldn't risk spoiling the happiest evening he had ever had with Nat. "A wish?" said Nat. "It's the one I always make." "Always? Don't you get your wishes?" "Not this one," Nat told him. She thought she'd better change the subject before this conversation got them in over their heads. "Your shoulder must be better if you can put your arm up like that." Nick looked at her and smiled tenderly. "Another successful cure for Dr. Lambert. You're always right, Nat, even when you try to poison me!" "I did not try to poison you," said Nat, laughing. The caddy turned off onto a side street. "If that wasn't trying, then I don't want to be around if you ever really decide to get rid of me!" It had been nearly two weeks since Nick, coming on duty at sundown, had gone straight to Natalie's office. He carried his right shoulder stiffly, and his face was drawn in a way Nat had never seen. "Nick, what on earth have you done to yourself?" She had asked, closing the door behind him. "There was a kid with a gun while you were at that conference," he answered. "and I guess I zigged when I should have zagged." "Are you telling me you got shot and you never even told me? Who got the bullet out for you? And how much do they know?" Natalie was horrified. "I did it myself," said Nick, "and it hurt!" He sounded triumphant. Nat stared at him for a moment before she caught on. "Your nerves are regenerating! Nick, we'll have you human again yet." He leaned toward her, smiling, and promptly winced. "That may be closer than you believe. I think I'm infected." "Take off your shirt and let me see." Nat crossed to the door and locked it, thinking how fortunate it was that Grace was off sick. Grace probably wasn't enjoying her cold, but at least there would be no one to wonder what Nat and Nick were doing in the lab with the door locked. One look at Nick's shoulder sent Nat's carefully cultivated detachment crashing down. She drew in her breath sharply. "Nick, how long has it been like this?" The shoulder was swollen, and the skin was red, tinged with angry purple and streaked with green. The worst of it was in the center where the skin was actually flaking off, and an entirely purple under-layer could be seen. "It started about three days after I got the bullet out. Nat, it hurts." Nick sounded bewildered. Almost absently, she laid her hand on his forehead. "You may even have fever. I don't even know what this is. Nick, you did sterilize whatever you used to dig out the bullet, didn't you?" Nick somehow managed to look both miserable and sheepish at the same time. "I didn't think I needed to." "What did you use?" asked Nat, reaching into a box of slides and extracting a scalpel from a tray of instruments. "A kitchen knife," he admitted. "It never mattered before." Nat advanced on him with the scalpel. "Sit down. Nick, when you do get back across, remind me to give you a course in elementary sanitation!" He sat, looking up at her nervously. "Will I be sorry if I ask what you're going to do?" "I'm going to get a slide and test this thing. I can't treat you if I don't know what you've got." Nat bent over him and scraped debris from the midst of the wound onto the glass. Nick winced. Nat stood back to fit the cover over the slide. "Did that hurt?" "Yes," he admitted. "Next time you're going to do something like that, warn me, o.k.?" Nat gave him a strained smile as she focused the microscope Sure, but before you decide on do-it-yourself bullet removal next time, you warn me!" Presently she stood back, frowning, and carried the slide over to a machine, into which she placed it. The machine began to hum; various lights flashed. Then a bell sounded, and several rows of cryptic information flashed up on a display panel. Nat's face tightened. She walked over to one of the metal cabinets, unlocked it, and took out a six-inch metal tube. Then she found a prescription pad in her desk, and scribbled something on it. "Here, Nick, I want you to get this filled at once, and you're to take it, and use the cream three times a day. That's every eight hours. If necessary, set a clock: the dosage needs to be kept at maximum strength. No, don't get up yet. I'm going to start you now." She had washed her hands while waiting for the machine analysis. Squeezing a little of the medication onto the fingers of her right hand, she began to rub it into Nick's shoulder. "Nat, what have I got?" he asked. The fingers of the other hand tensed as she pressed the wound, but he did not flinch. "It's a fungus that lives on dead tissue," she told him. "It can infect cuts, though, so I've given you the strongest antibiotic I know for that genus. We keep the cream kind for lab accidents, but you'll have to get the oral part from a pharmacy -- wait a minute!" Nat had finished applying the ointment, so, wiping her hand on a tissue, she rummaged in the back of a desk drawer. "Good. I thought I had a few samples." She handed him a couple of yellow, ovoid tablets. "Take these when you use the cream. In fact, you'd better take them now, and I think we'll start you with two." Nick went over to the water fountain, swallowed the two pills, and promptly staggered against the wall. His pale coloring turned ashen. He sank onto one of the straight chairs. Nat hurried to his side. "Nick --" He gasped, "I'm going to be sick." "No, you're not. Nick, you have to keep them down. Do you want to end up with Stonetree ordering you to see the police doctor? Come on, Nick; you can do it." It took several minutes, but finally Nick got to his feet. "I think I'm all right now. Look, Nat, I can't take those things, not if I'm going to work." "Then take sick leave!" she snapped. "It won't kill you -- if it could, you wouldn't need it." If only seeing Nick suffer didn't make her want to hold and comfort him like a little boy! Nick smiled faintly. "Ja wohl, meine F"uhrerin," he said. "You'll make me do it, won't you?" "I will if I have to," she answered, "and that includes camping out at your place for as long as it takes." His smile became a shaky grin. "You would, too. All right, Dr. Lambert, the patient promises to follow orders!" Another shooting star sparked across the sky in front of them. Nat's lips moved, and Nick, before he realized that a gentleman's hearing should be elsewhere, caught something about "back again." Seeking distraction, he homed in on airliner which was beginning its descent overhead. Without conscious volition, Nick slammed the car to the curb, and threw Natalie to the floorboard with himself on top of her. She had just time for a muffled, "what the hell!" before a tremendous exposion rocked everything for blocks. The sound of falling glass combined with screams, blaring alarms, and tearing metal, all horribly simultaneous with the sound of impact. Pieces of debris smacked into the cadillac's grille for several seconds before Nick raised himself back onto the seat, and reached down to help Nat. "It's down there," he said gesturing with his head toward the far end of the street, where part of a tail with the Air Canada maple leaf had knifed into the roof of a building. There were things on the pavement from which most people would have bolted. They went together into official mode. Nick set the red police light on top of the dashboard with one hand as he activated the radio with the other. Nat was out of the car and running toward the nearest moving body before he got more than his police call sign out. The next hours telescoped in a blur of sirens, evacuation helicopters, human screams and sobs, and one white-hot roar as, about an hour after the fire department had denied any danger, the crashed jet's fuel tanks went up. The area had been evacuated, since the chief of police privately had no great opinion of his opposite number at the fire service, but every police officer not actually delirious in a sickbed had had to be called in to forestall the inevitable crowds. Homicide was set to work collecting the dead. Several of them, Nick and Schanke included, would later collect citations for bravery for having risked incineration to save a handful of survivors who were trapped in what had been part of the cargo hold. Nat had accompanied one of the first helicopters to the designated morgue hospitals. By the time things began to move again at an ordinary pace, she was helping wind down tagging in a disaster relief tent which had been set up in the hospital parking lot for the benefit of the medical examiner's office. She was vaguely aware of personnel from her assigned precinct, the 27th, passing through, but she hadn't seen Nick for hours. Finally, just as she hit enter on a computer record for a body which would have to be identified from dental records, she happened to look up. Natalie saw with surprise that morning had arrived. It was full daylight outside, and she could hear birds singing. She stood up to stretch, which brought more than a sliver of the parking lot into view -- and suddenly had to grab a chair for support. Nick was standing on the asphalt, in full sun! Nat yelped his name and ran to him. He turned at the sound. "Good! Stonetree said he'd seen you here. Nat, are you all right?" Natalie's mouth opened and closed twice before she could whisper, "Nick, you're standing in sunlight." His eyes widened. Automatically, he moved toward the door of the tent. Nat followed, trying not to physically push him, when suddenly both of them stopped still. Nick stared down at his exposed hands; Nat looked up into his face. Nick's skin wasn't smoking. It wasn't even pallid, just unusually fair, and there was color in his cheeks. Nat came out of their joint paralysis first. Grabbing Nick's arm, she set the fingers of her right hand on his wrist, while she stared at her watch. "Nick, you've got a pulse!" Nat threw her arms around him. Nick hugged her in return. "So that's it. Natalie, I've been feeling shaky for the last hour, but I never realized what was happening. I'm free!" Two more than casually interested bystanders had stopped to watch. Tawny Teller, acting as her own camera man because her assistant had gotten burned while trying to follow a fireman past the police cordon, had carefully turned the camera away as Nick's leap for the top of the wreckage turned into flying. Now, bewildered at the sight of him in broad daylight, she continued to film. Tawny was smiling. She had seen the way Nick and Natalie had looked at each other at the screening party for her homicide report, when neither thought the other would see. She didn't know what had happened, but she was happy for them. Beside her, Stonetree's reaction was simpler. If Nat was overjoyed to discover that Knight had a pulse, it was time for someone to intervene. He strode forward. "Look, Nick," he said, "You've both done a great job. It's been a long night, neither of you was supposed to be on duty. Take Nat home, and get some rest yourself. That's an order." Neither of them needed to be told a second time. Nick, arm still around Natalie's shoulder, led her to the cadillac. He concentrated on his driving. Nat slumped back against the seat, enjoying the sight of him as a mortal. Several blocks passed before he softly spoke her name. The pre-rush hour street was empty of other traffic, but Nick stared at the pavement as though it might disappear if left unwatched. "Natalie?" "Yes?" she answered cautiously. She had heard that tone before. It usually meant that Nick was about to do something she wasn't going to like. "Nat, I'm not going to go home and rest. I can't. This is the first day I haven't had to hide from the sun since 1228." "I know," she said. "Nick, you must know I'm glad for you." He clutched the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles whitened back to vampire color. "Nat, I know you're exhausted, and I've no right to ask it of you, but I've always wanted just to go sit in the park by daylight. Do you think you could come with me?" Nat reached over and laid her hand on his arm. "Yes, I think I could," she answered as steadily as she could. "Just let me get a shower, and change." This time Nick looked at her, and his eyes were bright. "Thank you." All at once a puzzled expression crossed his face. Then he began to laugh. "Nat?" "Yes?" "I need a shower." His voice was startled. "I'd forgotten about sweating.!" >Date: Sat, 8 May 1993 15:07:21 -0400 >Subject: Coming Across, part 2 ***************** Here it is, before I lose my courage: the rest of Coming Across. As before: IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE IDEA OF NICK'S BECOMING HUMAN AGAIN AND MARRYING NAT, DO N*O*T READ THIS. You have been warned! -- Lisa McDavid Coming Across -- Part 2 Natalie was loading her breakfast dishes into the dishwasher when the heard the key in the door. She turned, smiling. "Nice timing, Nick. Just let me finish my coffee." He came into the kitchenette, holding out the key. "It's a gorgeous day out there! I don't think there's a cloud between here and Vancouver." Nick sniffed the aroma from the coffeemaker. "That's something else I've always wondered about. May I?" "Sure. The mugs are in the cupboard over your shoulder," Nat said, picking up the carafe to pour for him. Nick tasted the coffee, made a face, but tried again. Nat burst out laughing. He tried to look stern, failed, and ended up laughing with her. "They do say it's an acquired taste! How can Schank drink this stuff all night?" "Years of practice. Here, Nick, it'll be easier if you put some milk in it." She got the carton out of the refrigerator, whereupon Sidney marched over and demanded a share. Nat tipped some of the milk into Nick's coffee, then turned her attention to the cat. "No! You'll make yourself sick. Sid, you just had breakfast." Nick perched on the kitchen stool, watching. "Maybe he's still hungry." "Sidney's always hungry -- even when I'm just boiling water." Natalie returned the carton to the refrigerator, over the cat's protests. "Speaking of hungry, coffee on an empty stomach may not be such a good idea, since you're not used to it." "My stomach's not empty, thank you," said Nick, still drinking. "Nat, I not only needed a shower, I actually was hungry!" They stood grinning at each other. Nick finished the mug, rinsed it out and turned back to find Nat looking puzzled. "Nick, since when do you keep solid food around the house?" "I don't," he told her. "But you do." "Me?" Nat asked. "That microwaveable popcorn you left Sunday. You're right; it is good." Nat shook her head. "Coffee and butter-flavor popcorn. Nick, if your digestion was like this before, it must have been cast iron!" He helped her on with her jacket. "It had to be. Remind me to tell you about medieval cooking." "Boar's heads, and so forth?" "Mostly and so forth." They went down to the car. The early morning sun, that last day of June, was almost uncomfortably bright. It was all but impossible to look at the lake in the center of the park. Many of the joggers wore dark glasses. Nick shook his head. "How can they block out the light? Nat, look! It's almost too beautiful to be real!" She had been wishing that she had brought her sun glasses, but she smiled at him. "It is beautiful." Nick's expression reminded her of a little boy at the circus. She wanted to reach up and ruffle his hair. He moved toward the flower beds that bordered the near side of the lake. "And I think I can touch roses again." "Again?" asked Nat, walking beside him. "I didn't know you had a problem with roses." "Most people only know about crucifixes and light, but roses are part of ... it." He smiled. "Now you know why I never gave you roses." "I always thought it was because you like flowers that look like the sun," said Nat. Nick had stopped in front of one particularly large rose bush, with huge, red flowers. "Not when it comes to roses and you. Nat, I'm about to commit a crime!" The grin he gave her made her heart rate soar. He broke a rose from a branch and handed it to her with a bow that he hadn't used for several centuries. Nat took it, carefully, expecting thorns, but found none. Nick caught her furtive examination, and burst out laughing. "Poor Nat! There usually are thorns in anything to do with me, but not this time." He opened the hand that had held the rose, and scattered the thorns from the rose stem on the ground. "I'll never to do anything that's meant to hurt you, Natalie. Not ever." For a moment they stood looking into each other's eyes. Then, simultaneously, they reached toward each other. "Nick, your hand!" Nat had seen blood on his palm. She took his hand in hers. "You're bleeding." "And I'm breathing, too. Relax, Nat! It's only a scratch." Nick closed his other hand around hers. "Sorry! I guess I'm a little protective." She lifted her chin. "But you ought to know all about that. Every time I get even a little close to anything dangerous .... protective's putting it mildly." Nick squeezed her hand. "Of course I'm protective. That's part of being in love!" For a heartbeat both froze. Then, simultaneously they went into each other's arms, and their lips met in one long, sweet kiss. "So now you know." Nick's tone was almost rueful. Nat leaned against him. His arm tightened around her shoulder, and his head rested against hers. "I think I've always known," Nat said. "Even when I couldn't make you look twice at me." "Oh, I was looking," Nick told her, grinning. "Nat, I used to have nightmares about what would happen if I got out of control with you!" He was suddenly serious. "It's happened -- did happen -- before." Nat put both her arms around him. "Nick, I wouldn't have let you hurt me. I'd have found a way to stop you!" They kissed again, and he stroked her hair. "You would have, too. You're the bravest woman I've ever known." That brought on another kiss, and a longer embrace, before the sound of chimes on the path behind them broke them apart. Nick began to laugh. "I feel like slaying dragons for you, and the most dangerous beast in sight turns to be an ice cream truck!" Mischief lit his eyes. "Nat, that's something else I've always wanted to try. Come on, let's catch up with it!" Slaying the ice cream dragon led to feeding the ducks with leftover bits of cone. Being park ducks, they swam directly up to Nat's feet and managed to stand up on the water, flapping. Nick, laughing again, threatened to run them in for attempted mugging. Before he could carry out the intention, a Labrador retriever shot past, hotly pursued by a small boy. Suddenly it was more imperative to grab a tree with one arm and Nat with the other, before they both went for an impromptu swim. "You wanted a dangerous beast?" asked Nat, disentangling herself. "I said dangerous," Nick replied, "not a couple of catastrophes!" The dog romped back. The child, in the distance, appeared to have been captured by his mother, and was being led out of the park. "Not your boy, eh?" said Nick to the Lab. The dog picked up the nearest stick and presented it hopefully. Nick obliged; the Labrador lived up to the retriever in his name. Nat settled on one of the park benches to watch the game. The dog eventually bounded away in response to a whistle. Nick joined Nat on the bench. They sat watching the lake. Nat drowsed against Nick's shoulder. Presently Nick, who had been idly watching the ducks, appeared to be concentrating on the waves as if they had to be memorized. "Natalie?" "H'mm?" said Nat, snuggling closer. "Is it too soon to ask you to marry me?" "Too soon?" Nat's tone was carefully light, but her eyes contradicted. "No. Now is exactly right." They kissed, then sat for a time holding each other. "Nat, it may not be easy at first. I don't think anyone else has ever come back. I can't be sure they'll let us alone." Nat turned to look into his eyes. "Then we'll have to make them. Nick, I'm not going to give you up, not now, not ever. Not even if we have to run together." "I won't let it come to that." For a moment the crusader knight was visible under the twentieth century. "If I have to take on all of them in North America, we're staying put. For the first time in eight hundred years I've got something worth fighting for. I have you." That evening Janette idly watched the news in her flat above the Raven. The plane crash only half held her attention, until the scene shifted to a hospital parking lot about an hour after sunrise. Janette came so sharply to her feet that some of the blood-laced wine in her glass spilled onto her dress. She stared at the tape of Nick in full sun, hugging Natalie Lambert. Then, bursting into archaic but highly obscene French, she hurled the glass at the screen. At about the same time, at Nat's apartment, Nick was looking doubtfully at his slice of pizza. "Nat, there's something familiar about this taste." Nat dealt with an obstinate string of mozzarella before answering. "You ought to remember bread dough and cheese, even if pepperoni's new." "It's not the pepperoni; I had plenty of that in Italy on the way to Egypt." He took a second taste. "And it's not the tomatoes. I remember when they were a dangerous New World novelty. They were supposed to be poisonous, but it isn't that. It's something else, something I've tasted recently." Nat was just in time to stop Sidney from joining the party. The cat had sniffed repeatedly at Nick for half an hour after they had come in from the park, then settled down on his lap. Sidney swore under his feline breath at being pushed away from the pizza box, and stalked off to sulk in the bedroom. "Well, it can't be blood, and there isn't any wine in pizza," said Nat. "No, but it is something -- Nat! It's the garlic. It tastes like those pills you tried to poison me with." Nat took a swing at him with a cushion. He ducked, grinning. "All right, that you tried to poison the fungus with." Nat laughed and lowered the cushion. "But you've always known what garlic tastes like," she said. Her pathologist instincts came into play. "Nick, excuse me for a moment. I'm going to make a phone call." It was nearly half an hour, and an involved conversation later before Nat rejoined him. She was on the edge of laughter. "Nick, you were right! Remember how the antibiotic made you nauseated?" "Remember? The problem's trying to forget!" "Nick, I should have known! I called our pharmaceutical consultant, but I was almost sure before I asked. The main component's based on the primary chemical in garlic, and one of others is closely related to the acid in tomatoes." Nick smiled up at her. "So pizza's a miracle cure?" Maybe we should patent it." "Will you be serious?" Nat asked, but she didn't push him away. "Of course it's not that simple. I think what did it was the combination of that particular antibiotic with the intensity of the heat and light from the fire, and the sun." Nick said slowly. "That's three out of the four things vampires can't take." "And you've been trying not to drink any more blood than you absolutely had to. That would have weakened whatever the thing is that causes vampirism. Nick, I always said it was a physical condition! Then, when you stood in sunlight, that must have the last step." They reached for each other. As Nat's arms closed around Nick's neck, he winced. Nat stared at him for a second. "Oh, no!" She began to laugh. "Poor Nick." She laid a hand on his shoulder, careful to avoid his arms below his short sleeves. "It's beginning to show, too." "What is? Nat, you fiend, stop snickering! It hurts." "Of course it does," Nat said. "Look at the back of your hands." Nick did so. The skin was already pink, and the pink was beginning to yield to red. Very carefully, Natalie stood on tiptoe and kissed him. "I should have realized someone as fair as you are shouldn't be out that long without at least a hat. Welcome back to the ills of mortality, Nick -- you've got a ferocious sunburn!" ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Dec 1993 15:21:01 CST Reply-To: Forever Knight TV show stories Sender: Forever Knight TV show stories From: Steve Fellows Subject: REPOST: Confessions by Lisa McDavid >Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1993 13:33:41 EDT >From: Lisa McDavid I'm a little nervous about posting this, because it was the first FK fan fic I ever wrote, last December, and I really hadn't intended to publish it until the exchange on Forkni-l this morning about Only the Lonely. This was intended to fix up what I thought was an excessive use of coincidence in OTL. AS BEFORE: IF YOU **DON'T LIKE ** THE IDEA OF A MORTAL NICK, MARRIED TO NAT, DON'T READ THIS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!! Confessions by Lisa McDavid The new lab intern, having found yet another question for Dr. Knight to answer, halted on the threshold of the inner office. That must be Dr. Knight's husband, standing behind her chair; Tracy could see the wedding ring on his left hand. Tracy had heard about Detective Knight within a couple of hours of starting at forensics. Every woman in the division seemed to have a thing about him. Now Tracy saw why. She also saw a side of the coroner that she hadn't thought existed. Dr. Knight, although friendly, had struck her as rather reserved. Now, as her husband began to massage her shoulders, she was almost purring. "Oh, that feels good! Nick, why didn't you tell me you know how to do that before?" Nick grinned. "You never told me you had stiff shoulders before." "It's the new monitor. Purchasing never heard of ergonomics, not with dollar signs in their eyes." Her left hand came up to cover his, so that her own wedding ring caught the light. "Thanks, Nick!" Nat turned to look up at him. "I love you." Nick came around the chair and leaned on his wife's desk. "I'd somehow begun to suspect that." He leaned over and kissed her. "See you in a couple of hours. I love you, too." "Call first, in case I'm in mid-test," said Natalie. "Or unless we get you another customer." He went out just as Nat saw Tracy standing in the other door. ******************************************************************* Tracy had almost finished for the day. Natalie was checking the tests she had been assigned to duplicate. "There, that's done. Not bad, Tracy! Just remember to check those spectroscope values twice before you actually start calculating on them." "Dr. Knight?" Tracy asked, a little nervously. "Can I ask you, like a personal question?" "Sure," Nat answered, "Go ahead." Interns were like that, she had found in the last couple of years. She just hoped this one wasn't going to ask anything too off the wall. "Where did you meet your husband? At work?" She saw the odd expression that flashed across Natalie's face, and added hastily, "If you don't mind telling me, I mean." "No," said Nat, trying not to remember turning away from the phone to find Nick in vampire form resurrecting on her examining table, "I don't mind, and yes, it was at work. I gather you know he's a homicide detective? " "Oh, yes." Tracy suddenly became very occupied with the buttons on her coat. "Dr. Knight, before you met him, did you ever, well, like, have a problem with men? Meeting them, I mean? " It was just as well that Natalie had turned back to her own papers, or the look on her face this time would have put Tracy the subject permanently. "I think all women doctors do," she said as casually as possible. "There's no denying it intimidates some men." Or, she thought, turns on some we'd rather intimidate. Tracy persisted. "Does that go even for lab technicians?" "You'll have to ask them about that, but most of ours seem to get married." She smiled at Tracy. "Don't worry about it, Trace! You're what, twenty-one?" "Well, I am worried. I mean, ever since I got into the forensics track--" Tracy decided to rush her hurdles. "Dr. Knight, before you met your husband, did you ever think of trying a dating service?" Nat came sharply to her feet. "Don't even think about that! I..." She caught herself in time to switch intentions, "we had a very bad case, last year, a rape-murderer who was targeting his victims from files stolen from a dating service. They finally caught him, in fact it was Nick who got to him just before --" The phone rang at that point, saving Natalie from betraying herself. Tracy checked her watch, exclaimed at the time, and fled to catch her bus before dark. Nat, who had as expected found Nick on the other end, told him she'd be upstairs as soon as she could lock up. ***************************************************************** Nat?" Nick asked from the kitchen doorway. "Yes?" She answered absently, stirring. Nat might be liberated, but it had become clear early on that letting Nick cook wasn't a good idea. Medieval knights usually hadn't known where the castle kitchen was, and eight hundred years of a liquid diet hadn't given him much scope for learning. "Hand me the oregano, will you?" "Are you feeling all right?" Nick's reply was somewhat muffled. Nat turned to face him. "I might have known! You stay out of that garlic bread, or you aren't going to want anything else. Yes, I'm fine; why?" "Because you've been so quiet. Then, is something worrying you?" "Not really. Nick! I told you to let that bread alone." She confiscated the loaf. "And give me the oregano." "Yes, ma'am," said Nick in his best military manner, but his tone was anything but respectful. Neither was his grin, but he did give her the seasoning. Natalie transferred the noodles to a casserole, shaking her head, as she added the other ingredients. "The last thing I ever expected when you came back across was that you'd turn into a garlic freak. Here, put that into the oven." "That's not fair!" Nick protested, as Natalie took the other heel from the bread. He added in a fair imitation of her manner, "Stay out of that garlic bread, or you're not going to want anything else, Dr. Knight." Nat calmly finished the slice. "Oh, yes, I am." She walked over and put her arms around him. "Unless, of course, you were counting on garlic to fend me off." **************************************************************** There might have been no repercussions from Tracy's question, if the last item on the late night news hadn't been a bulletin a rape murder in one of the suburbs. Nat had stopped at the foot of the stairs, tense, and had heard Nick mutter something under his breath as he waited until the end before turning off the set. Neither commented, but Nat had to fight off the memory of Roger Jamison, and she suspected Nick did, too. Nat couldn't remember, later, how the nightmare began, but at the end she woke to find Nick on the greenhouse floor, and Roger looming over her, ready to lunge. She tried to get up, struggling in the way of nightmares to run. Roger grabbed her, tore at her shoulders. Her throat refused to let her scream. She was whimpering ... "Nat!" The lights were on, and Nick was shaking her. "Natalie, wake up! It's only a dream, darling; it's all right." Sobbing, Nat came fully awake. Nick held her close, one hand twined in her hair. "I'm all right," she said. "Just don't let go of me!" Nick kissed her forehead and set her gently back against her pillow, still holding her. "Natalie, you never have nightmares." He smiled at her. "I suppose that'll teach me about leading you astray with garlic bread." Nat closed her eyes. The image of Nick, unmoving on the greenhouse floor, returned. She shivered and opened them again. "Nick?" She slipped one of her hands into his. "It wasn't the garlic." He kissed the hand she had given him. "I didn't really think so. You were talking in your sleep about Roger." "I was dreaming about him. Only, he won and he was after me, and I was afraid he'd killed you." "Natalie, Roger is behind bars for the rest of his life, and he's going to stay there." Nat turned so that she lay facing Nick. "It's not that. Nick, I lied to you." "When? Or do you mean you weren't dreaming about Roger?" "Oh, no, it was Roger," admitted Nat. "I meant, you remember the dating service all the victims had in common?" "Singular Interests? Of course. Natalie --" "No, let me finish. Remember the kind of things Schanke said about it, and then there was the way both of you looked at me when I tried to defend it --" Nick took hold of her other hand. "Nat --" "So I just couldn't ... Nick, I was one of the clients, but I'd have died before I'd let Schanke know, and the thought of you knowing and feeling sorry for me.... I couldn't, so I lied." "Natalie, I've been trying to tell you I know. I've always known!" Nick stroked her hair. "I've got a confession of my own. After the local precinct came and took Roger away, you when remember I took you by the hospital to be checked over?" "Yes," said Nat slowly, "and you said you had to go talk to the judge. Nick! I never thought about it before, but that's impossible. They couldn't have had a judge ready to hear anything that quickly." "No, but that was the best lie I could come up with in a hurry." He grinned ruefully at her. " What I really did was to fly back to the greenhouses and break into Roger's house." Nat stared at him. "It was just too much of a coincidence that out of all the men in Toronto, you happened to meet the one we were after. We knew he'd bought stolen files from Singular Interests, so I went looking for them. Yours was on top." "But that wasn't in anything anybody said at the trial. Nick, do you mean you withheld evidence?" Natalie asked, between laughing and crying. "Worse than that! I took it home and destroyed it before I went back for you." Nat hugged him. "Nick, you could have ended up in prison for obstruction of justice!" She suddenly sobered. "No, actually you'd have had to run again, because then they'd have found out about you. Do you mean you risked all that to save me from Schank's sense of humor?" "It wasn't Schanke," Nick said. His voice had become very quiet. "Natalie, I'd almost lost you. I couldn't going to risk having you turn away from me, not even for a little while." "I wouldn't have turned away from you! I... Nick, I never told you why Roger attacked me. He was trying to undress me, and I was letting him, only I couldn't keep on because I kept wanting him to be you!" Nat was blushing. "Then I saw the scratches on his hands, but if I hadn't .... I don't know. I think I was trying to prove to myself that there could be someone besides you for me. Only, what I proved was that there couldn't." "Nat! Natalie, open your eyes!" He was smiling at her. "It's all right. Do you think you were the only one who was trying not to fall in love? Except there was Janette for me." She reached out to touch his cheek. Nick caught her hand and brought it down to his lips. "Or not for me. I never touched Janette, after I met you, without wanting her to be you, not even when I tried to go back to her because at least I couldn't kill her." He drew her into his arms. "I'm hopeless about you, Natalie. I always will be." He kissed her, and, without letting her go, turned off the lamp. Nat moved onto his pillow. "That makes two of us." She began shaking. "Nat, you're not crying?" asked Nick. "No, just laughing. Nick, what really started me thinking about Roger was Tracy." "Tracy?" "My intern. First she wanted to know how I met you, and then she wanted to know what I thought of dating services. She's having the same sort of problems I used to, with forensics intimidating men." She could feel Nick grinning in the darkness. "And what did Dear Natalie advise?" "I just told her I met you at work. Only, I'm wondering what would have happened if I'd told her I fell in love with one of my autopsy subjects." "Your next confession would have been to a psychiatrist! Nat, I knew you had a vampire obsession, but I never thought of necrophilia." "Think what else you might find out if you tried! But if you want any more confessions, I'm going to make you work for them. "An all-night interrogation?" Nick's hold tightened. "All right, my favorite suspect, we've got all night for the third degree!"