Date: Sun, 19 May 1996 15:16:07 -0400 From: Kim Sefcik Subject: "Final Farewell" Part 1/1 _Final Farewell_ by Kim Sefcik, (shannara@twave.net) Copyright May, 1996 All rights reserved. DISCLAIMER: Forever Knight and all its character don't belong to me, they belong to TriStar, Paragon, and now to the wonderful people at the Sci-Fi Channel. I am not intending any copyright infringement, etc. AUTHOR'S NOTES: I wrote this this morning after "Last Knight" aired. I cried throughout the entire episode . . . however I feel that it was a very powerful way of ending the series. (sob, sob, it can't be over . . . it just can't! :-( . Anyway, in case you're wondering, I'm a Die Hard with admittedly Cousinly tendencies. :-) (and some Perkorlator . . .)("You could have trusted me," . . .)(I still start to cry everytime I hear that line, or even think it) Anyway, this is my final farewell to Forever Knight . . . now please excuse me while I go rewatch "Last Knight" and bawl my eyes out again. ------------------------- "Damn you, Nicholas," rasped LaCroix, the words catching briefly in the back of his throat. Never before in any of the myriad times that he had killed, had LaCroix ever felt like this. It wasn't him plunging the stake into his Son's back. It wasn't him sending the wooden spike into his Child's back, ripping through vampiric flesh and blood that did not belong to the one through whose veins it coursed. LaCroix felt disembodied and hollow. As he saw Nicholas' body slump to the ground next to Natalie Lambert's, a great void descended on the vampire and he knew he was alone. LaCroix stared at the motionless body of his Son, his companion over the last eight hundred years, and his friend. Nicholas has admitted as much to him just moments before. /You are my closest friend,/ Nicholas had said. LaCroix shut his eyes momentarily against the memories, as if visual blackness would block out the memories and the pain . . . pain which the vampire could never remember experiencing before, never before in his two thousand year life. LaCroix looked down at his Child again, laying so peacefully next to his love, and the full force of what had happened hit him. LaCroix felt a sickening void fill his gut and spread throughout his body. Dead. Nicholas Knight . . . Nicholas de Brabant was dead. Dead. The word echoed though his mind again with the alacrity of a single cathedral bell's ring. "Oh, Nicholas," LaCroix said, his voice low and rasping, like the rustling of fall leaves. "Nicholas, what did this achieve? Your quest for mortality? Everyone you ever cared about is dead. You, Nicholas are dead," LaCroix paused, choking on his words momentarily. He had said it. He had admitted it to the world. "If you had embraced your Nature, Nicholas, this would not have happened. But, as always, your foolishness got in the way. Nicholas, was being a vampire so evil? Tell me Nicholas, what made it so evil? By not allowing yourself to be what you are, your friends have died and now so have you." LaCroix paused, /and I am alone/. A thoughtful expression played with his white, stoic features. "I suppose that there is a certain irony in the situation. Janette, who wished to avoid what you were seeking, found it for herself in the end. Yet you, Nicholas, in your tragic quest for humanity, never found it." No. That's wrong. Nicholas did find it. He may have been a vampire in physical needs and desires, but he had a mortal -- a *human* soul. Nicholas had faith. Faith. It was a foolish, human notion. What was it anyway? A feeling . . . a knowledge that this was not the end of our existence, and when we shuffled off this mortal coil there was *something* waiting beyond? But what was faith to a vampire, when they already had eternal life? It was not necessarily a belief in a god or gods, or even a specific place or time . . . it was undefinable. It was what gave Nicholas the humanity he was searching for, even if it didn't come in the form he had been looking for. LaCroix studied the still, cold form of his Son, and the doctor, Natalie Lambert. She had had faith in Nicholas -- faith that no matter what happened they would be together forever. Even if that faith in him entailed her death. And the other one, Tracy Vetter. LaCroix had had only a brief encounter with her, when he had been "fixing" her memories about Vachon. But she, too, had put her life, and her mortality, on the line just by being friends with a vampire. What made them willing to do this? It was all senseless tragedy -- not even necessary death. Just death. LaCroix had seen human suffering and agony worse than any other creature on the earth. Much of it he had inflicted on victims with his own hands, or fangs, as circumstances dictated. But this sickened LaCroix like nothing he had ever seen before. Everything important to him was dead. His Son was dead, his Daughter was gone, and everything that they held close to them was dead. But for some reason, despite the death and tragedy, there was hope. LaCroix didn't know how he knew it, but he felt it. It was there. "Tell, me. Am I missing something Nicholas? I am alive, and you are dead. And I would not have it that way, were the choosing up to me. But you embraced your fate, as it were. You had faith in yourself Nicholas. You had faith in something bigger than yourself, faith that this is not the end of our existence. Why? To what end? You succeeding only in ending your own life -- something too precious to be simply shrugged off like a worn cloak." LaCroix knelt down and caressed the cheek of his dead Son with the back of his hand. "I am not cold, Nicholas, I am not evil, nor am I dead to the world. But I am what I am. I am a vampire. You however, maybe are not. I never thought I'd say this Nicholas, but I think that you found your humanity. Maybe not in the form you wanted, but you did find it. Perhaps because it was with you the whole time, or perhaps not. Regardless, of how you found it, you did. "I cannot say that I will not miss you, Nicholas. All the years we spent together shall not be for naught." A small, sincere smile spread across the vampire's face. "Nicholas, I do believe that perhaps tonight, *you* have taught *me* something. However . . . I have yet to figure out what exactly that might be, but nevertheless, I think that you did." LaCroix stood. He took a last look at his Son, and a single drop of liquid from his eye ran down his face. A salty sensation filled his mouth. LaCroix wiped it away with a finger, expecting to see a crimson stain of blood. But it was clear. Taking a final look at his Son, an expression mixed with regret, admiration, and loss flickered fleetingly across the ancient vampire's stoic visage. "Good night, Nicholas." And with a silent woosh of air, LaCroix was gone. __ Kim Sefcik, (shannara@twave.net) ~ Richie Reservist ~ Methos Flag Waver ~ Chancer ~ Another Bleepin' X-Phile ~ Co-CBC of Sandra McDonald's Fanfic ~ Highlander List Liger ~ Creator/Maintainer of the Strange Luck FAQ "I am Richie Ryan of the Clan... wait, can we try that again?" "Have a nice day!" -- Methos, "Till Death" "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." -- Hamlet, "Hamlet" - William Shakespeare