Return-Path: Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 15:21:56 -0600 Reply-To: delggren@ES.COM Sender: Forever Knight TV show stories From: Dorothy Elggren Subject: Heaven and Earth Part 01/02 To: FKFIC-L@lists.psu.edu This is the first of two stories that look at things from Natalie's perspective--from two very different points in her life. The second is called Full Circle and will be posted immediately after this story. What can I say? I got introspective... But I'll recover. If you should not received all story parts, they can be found at: http://www.loftworks.com/fiction.html Permission is granted to archive this story at fkfanfiction.com. All else ask persmission. There are More Things in Heaven and Earth... Copyright May 1998 Dorothy Elggren Part 1 Natalie Lambert quietly closed the door of her apartment behind her. The door clicked into place and she turned the lock. She turned and stared at her home with new eyes. Even in the dark, the red walls glowed with a dark intensity. For once, she didn't think about painting the walls another color--any other color--as she usually did, when she walked into her apartment. All her thoughts were focused inward. Sydney appeared from nowhere to curl himself around her ankles. Natalie ignored him. She was completely occupied with what had just happened in the street. Words and conversation replayed themselves in a jumbled fashion. "Evil is a metaphysical state..." "You're not evil." "And how on earth do you think you can help this eight-hundred year old body, this incessant hunger for blood?" "You're testing me." "And what's in it for you, Doctor?" "I'm a scientist." "Are you serious? No one can help me. My immortality is a curse." "I *am* willing to try." Natalie stared into the darkness and hugged herself. A slow smile crossed her face. "No one will ever believe this," she murmured quietly, "even if I could tell them." She didn't really believe it herself, and yet it had happened. All of it. It was like something out of a movie, one of these really unbelievable B-grade movies. But it wasn't a movie, it was real. Stranger than any fiction... Only last night he'd been lying on her slab. Dead. Absolutely and completely dead. There had been blood everywhere, dripping from the bag and puddling on the guerney. A pipe bomb, according to Eddie, had killed him, and there was not much of a face left to look at. Natalie closed her eyes and relived it. She unzipped the body bag and spread it back in dread. Nothing terrified her more than burn victims, and bombs always left horribly burned bodies. She stared at the face, the pale face, mostly unmarred and quiet in death's repose. His blonde curly hair had been matted around his face in wild disarray. She gazed at him, and almost of it's own volition, her hand gently touched his face and then caressed his hair. She felt an odd leap of her heart as she touched him. It was something that had never happened to her before. Certainly not with a dead body. But it had happened last night. The ever professional Dr. Lambert had been attracted to a dead man. And if he'd stayed dead, Natalie thought with a slight smile twitching her face, she would have thought she was sick and needed professional counseling. "This isn't so bad," Natalie murmured, looking at him, "it's not so bad at all." She wished suddenly that she might have known him, whoever he was. Eddie had said that he'd tried to stop a robbery and gotten a pipe-bomb for his trouble. A knight-errant, Natalie thought irrelevantly as the phone rang. How she wished the phone hadn't rung. She'd missed it. She missed his resurrection from the dead. Damn and damn and damn. Think of all the clues she missed. It was only after he left, vanished from her sight in an instant, that she discovered the blood was all gone. The body bag, upon inspection, had proved just as dry as the table. The guerney had been a wet, bloody mess when they'd moved the body onto the morgue table. Natalie stood there staring at her empty table, completely dumbfounded. Where had the body gone? She realized she was down a body. "Where," she whispered, "is the damn body!" And then she realized that there was no bloody mess, either. "Where's the blood?" Natalie asked in confusion. It was only much later when the fog had cleared that she realized what must have happened. *He'd* stopped being dead and gotten up off her table. And in the process, somehow the blood had been sucked back into his body. His amazing body. Natalie shook her head. It was getting out of order in her head, and she needed to organize it and make sure she remembered everything. Sydney meowed plaintively at her, wondering if she was ever going to move, and more specifically, feed him. Natalie stood there oblivious, thinking about last night. She dropped the phone in mid-sentence as he sat up in a smooth motion and stared at her from white-gold eyes. He was alert and Natalie instinctively felt fear overwhelm her. Something about his posture hinted at attack, while something that sounded similar to a snarl filled the room. Adrenaline poured through her system, and her heart began to hammer fearfully. "What the hell...," Natalie stuttered as she plastered herself against the wall as they stared at each other. "What the hell?" Natalie said again, trying to get her bearings as he looked around and assessed his surroundings. "Who are you?" she demanded with as much courage as she could muster. He glanced at her with those very odd eyes, and said softly, in a hostile tone, "You don't need to know." He jumped down from the table, and looked at her with an odd lust, then he looked the other way, and slowly, almost reluctantly moved away from Natalie and towards the blood bags piled up waiting for pick-up. He lifted one of the bags in his hand and held it close to his face with a look that Natalie couldn't quite define. "What are you?" Natalie asked in awe. She supposed underneath somewhere she was terrified, but she was too astounded and amazed to realize it until much, much later. "Something very different from you," he said and he drank the blood in a few urgent, desperate swallows while he watched her with hungry eyes. Natalie gulped, somewhere between shock and horror. A stray thought almost made her warn him that the blood might be contaminated since it's owner had died of liver failure, and then she thought, *he's drinking it, he's insane.* She couldn't process what she was seeing. She just couldn't. In his need to feed, to drink, blood dripped down his chin. Yet he never took his eyes off of Natalie while he drank. Then in a violent motion, he threw the bag away. "I'm a vampire," he answered, his voice colder and emptier than the antartic. Natalie had moved towards him, compelled and fascinated. She reached out to feel his face, to check his temperature. He grabbed her hand, and she felt a momentary flutter of fear, as he held her hand in a strong grip, until he put the back of her hand to his cheek. "You're so cold," Natalie said in wonder. "I'm dead," he replied, bitterly. "No," Natalie denied, "you're not. You're not dead." She stared at him in wonder. For a moment, he looked at her with such a hunger. She felt a burning desire to give him whatever he wanted. Anything. Then he blinked and spoke softly, coldly. "You will forget you ever saw me. I was never here." Natalie stared at him puzzled. "Wha...?" she began. "Forget," he commanded. The word beat a pulse in her head. Things got foggy. "Forget...," Natalie said slowly. And then he was gone. Natalie stood there with her hand hanging uselessly in the air. Then, as if a brisk wind had blown through her mind, Natalie came back to her senses, startled. "What?" she said. "What am I doing? I've got a body...," Natalie muttered and turned towards the table. There was no body. She had a body to autopsy. She knew she did. She rushed to the table and remembered the body lying there. She remembered the blood. There was no blood. There was only an empty body bag. Was she imagining it? What the hell had happened? And then she remembered the longing. That was what she remembered first. He'd been beautiful with pale skin and golden hair. She wasn't imagining it. He'd been right here, dammit! She looked around wildly. Where could a body get to? It had only been a few moments, she was sure. Just then the phone began to beep, still lying on the floor where it had fallen from her nerveless hand. Now Natalie knew it had been only moments. Reality kicked in, and she picked up the phone and put it back in the cradle. Natalie felt panic forming. She'd lost a body. How could she lose a body? The phone rang and Natalie screamed and jumped. She took a breath, tried to organize her thoughts into some kind of rational sense, and picked up the phone. It was Miller of the Queen Street precinct. "Dr. Lambert?" he asked, full of concern, "what happened? We were talking and you just dropped the phone." "I...did?" Natalie stuttered. "We were talking just now?" "Yeah, about five minutes ago. Then suddenly you weren't there. I could hear something in the background, but not well enough to tell what was going on. What happened?" Natalie took a deep breath. "I don't know. I haven't got a clue. It's like the last five minutes of my life is gone. And Miller, so is your pipe-bomb victim. He's just...gone." "What!!!" Miller exclaimed. "I'll be right there!" He slammed down the phone and Natalie stared at the receiver in her hand. This was absolutely insane. She walked to the center of the lab and turned around and around, trying to remember what had happened. She couldn't remember anything. Just an odd echo in her head. She was still standing there when Miller arrived ten minutes later. Miller burst in, like a volcanic eruption. "Dr. Lambert, are you all right?" was the first thing out of his mouth, follwed with, "What happened?" Natalie just stared at him. "I...I don't know..." Before long there was a room full of milling, questioning people. Natalie was questioned over and over again. And she had absolutely no answers. Miller insisted that she be examined, and so Dr. Davitz just coming on shift had examined her. There was no sign of drugs, or anything else odd--except for the bruise circling her right wrist. Natatlie looked at it in a daze. She had no recollection of how it had gotten there. There was nothing concrete to tell anyone what had happened. It was a most puzzling circumstance for the Coroner's Office--and the Metro Police. There had been two officers in the hall and they hadn't seen anyone going in, and certainly no one--with a body slung over his shoulder--going out. Miller was the only witness, in essence. He heard her gasp, and her initial question--"What the hell?" The phone had clattered to the ground after that and when he couldn't hear more, he'd hung up and redialed, only to get a busy signal. He dialed ten times before Natalie had answered. By then, he was just about ready to come over, guns blazing. "I should have just come," Miller kept saying, like a mantra. Natalie shook her head. It felt like there was a heavy fog inside it. "You still wouldn't have got here in time. For...whatever happened." Finally, the Coroner's staff and the police had come to a consensus. They filed a missing body report on her blonde John Doe, and decided to increase security in the building. There wasn't much else they could do. Natalie, fortunately, wasn't reprimanded because of the officers in the hallway--officers who'd been there when Eddie rolled the body in--and had still been there when Miller came careening down the hall into the lab. There was no logical, scientific explanation. Natalie was completely and totally baffled--a state of mind she couldn't readily accept. But she was also exhausted, and finally went home in defeat several hours later when the sun was already high in the sky. It was only as she lay in her bed staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep and caressing Sydney, that it began to coalesce in her mind. The first thing she remembered were his eyes, and then the words slicing through her consciousness. "I'm dead." She sat up abruptly as the words echoed through her head. "I'm dead...." "Who's dead?" Natalie asked herself. "I'm dead..." Natalie shook her head in frustration. If she could just concentrate, it was so close Natalie knew she would be able to remember. "Who are you?" she heard herself say, fear embroidering the words. Natalie felt panic start to swamp her, and she saw him sitting on her table. He was staring at her out of eyes that were wrong somehow... And then it played out like an old black and white movie, as if it had happened centuries ago. Natalie put her hand to her mouth to keep from screaming. Was it true? Or was she hallucinating? "Forget...," he commanded. She couldn't forget. How could she possibly forget? "Forget!" "When hell freezes over!" Natalie retorted angrily. He tried to hypnotize her. That's why she couldn't remember. He'd hypnotized her! Nobody was going to take away her memories for any reason! Unfortunately, he wasn't there for her to vent her anger on. "Just you wait, mister," Natalie muttered as she lay down again and punched her pillow into place. "Just you wait!" End Part 1 Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 15:22:20 -0600 Reply-To: delggren@ES.COM Sender: Forever Knight TV show stories From: Dorothy Elggren Subject: Heaven and Earth Part 02/02 To: FKFIC-L@lists.psu.edu There are More Things in Heaven and Earth... Copyright May 1998 Dorothy Elggren Part 2 Natalie smiled at the memory. "Ouch!" she said, and looked down at her feet. Sydney had dug his claws into her ankle. He looked up at her with wide green, plaintive eyes. He wanted dinner, and he wanted it now. Natalie wondered how long she had been standing there in the dark. Obviously too long for Syd. "All right, Sydney," she said and turned on the lights. Reality suddenly flooded the room. But for some reason, it just didn't seem so real or bright anymore. HE was real. Everything else seemed to be tinged with sepia tones, as if it had faded in comparison. She headed for the kitchen with Sydney trailing hopefully behind, his tail high in the air. Once she'd fixed Syd a meal, Natalie sat down in a chair feeling oddly unsettled. She knew she should fix a meal for herself, but she wasn't hungry. All she could think about was *him*, and once again the memories overwhelmed her. She had awakened this evening with her head full of strange thoughts and feelings. Among the most prevalent had been the desire to get him in her sights again. She wanted to give him a piece of her mind. She resented anyone bending and twisting her thoughts like that. But somehow Natalie doubted she'd ever have the chance. He'd made her forget, or so he thought, and then he'd left. She lay there pondering the implications of what she'd seen and heard. He said he was dead. He said he was a vampire. He drank blood. He'd been cold--several degrees below normal--Natalie was sure. She closed her eyes and remembered his eyes, they had been almost white, with a hint of angry yellow in them. And he had fangs. She couldn't mistake that. She'd never seen anything like it before in her career--or her life. And when she added it up, the only solution was--he was a vampire--just like he had said. Fangs. He had fangs. She mentally detoured as she thought about the fangs. How did they work? Did he suck blood through them, or just use them to break the skin? She had so many questions. How fast could he exsanguinate someone? She shuddered. Did he kill people for their blood? Did he suck them dry? Was it real, or had she imagined it? Were there vampires? Could legends and myths be more than that? She wished she knew. Natalie had the dubious experience of feeling ambivalence. She didn't want to believe it. She couldn't. And yet, she wanted to explore the possibilities. She wanted to see him again. Touch him, feel him, and know that it was real. But she wouldn't have that chance. He'd hypnotized her. He believed she was walking around oblivious to what had happened. "What the hell are you thinking, Lambert?" she asked herself. Natalie shook her head and tried to clear the whole thing away. She almost suceeded--but not quite. She looked at the clock. "Time to get moving," she muttered and got out of bed. She might not have to work tonight, but she did have plans. But it wouldn't go away. *He* wouldn't go away. It stayed with her as she dressed. It occupied her background thoughts as she drove to meet her friends for dinner. It fidgeted in the back of her mind all through main course. It wriggled impatiently during dessert, drinks and the hour of idle gossip. It was almost with relief that she said goodbye and headed home, glad for some solitary time to try and analyze, dissect, solve, and document this totally-outside-the- scientific-arena phenomena. She walked down the street to her car, her thoughts occupied, submerged in the whole idea of vampires. "Natalie," she said to herself, "you're nuts. It just isn't possible. But she knew it was. Deep inside, instinctually, she knew it was. She'd seen him. She'd seen his fangs. She'd watched him drink blood. She'd stared into those yellow-gold eyes, and felt the chill of his skin. She even had his word for it. It wasn't scientifically possible, but... She peripherally noticed the man walking towards her, dressed in black. He brushed past her, actually touching her, when there was no need on the wide sidewalk. Natalie took a few more steps and stopped. Everything connected in her brain. It felt like she'd been struck by lightning. Even her toes sizzled. *It's him!* she thought, and her heart suddenly began to pound. She heard him stop behind her. "You're testing me," Natalie said, and turned. She almost drowned in the depths of his icy-blue eyes. Cleaned-up, he was the most gorgeous thing she'd seen in... no, he *was* the most gorgeous thing she'd seen. Period. Even now, Natalie couldn't believe how bold she had been. How forward. And who knew how much danger she'd been in... "I see you haven't," he replied. "Oh, please. Don't bother. It won't work. Maybe I'm just one of those people who they say can't be hypnotized, or maybe I don't want to be," she said audaciously. "And you're not afraid?" he asked incredulously, though his face remained unreadable. "Fear is based on ignorance. I'd rather try to understand. Understand who you are and what you are." He moved closer to her, an odd look on his face. "You are a unique woman." "No, I'm a scientist." "Science won't help you to understand what I am, or the hell of an existence I've locked myself into," he said bitterly, and Natalie could feel his pain as if it were something tangible. "What makes you think I can't help you?" she asked curiously, wanting, needing to help him. He stared at her in disbelief. "Help me." His words were full of anger. "Are you serious? No one can help me. My immortality is a curse--a fall from grace." He moved around behind her, and Natalie felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. She knew instinctively he was hunting her. "And Evil is a metaphysical condition," he continued as he placed his fingers over the leaping pulse in her neck, caressing it. "You're not evil. You ended up on my examining table because you tried to help people," Natalie said as she moved away, and turned to face him on safer ground, trying to contain her fear. "Also, your condition is a physical one." "I see," he said mockingly, "your specialty. And how on earth do you think you can help this eight-hundred year old body. This incessant hunger for blood? This physical condition of mine?" "I don't know--yet. But I am willing to try," Natalie said, wanting more than anything to try. Despite her fear, she felt an almost overwhelming attraction--to him, and to the mystery he represented. "And what's the reward for you, Doctor? What can you possibly expect for in return?" he asked cynically. "Solving a puzzle is its own reward for me," Natalie asserted calmly, far more calmly than she felt. "Are you sure?" he asked, disbelief coloring his voice. "Oh, yes." He searched her eyes, looking for something. Silence fell between them for a moment. "Do you understand what I am?" he asked, "Do you realize what you are saying?" Natalie stared at him for a moment and then edged slightly closer. "Yes. You're a vampire. "Do you know what that means, Doctor?" he asked, coldly. "Well, I can honestly say I've never had a mythological creature come to life on my table before, so perhaps I don't know. But the legends are true, aren't they?" Natalie said conversationally. "I haven't had a chance to do any research, but what I remember is that they drink blood, they live forever, but they can be killed by a stake through the heart. Is it true?" "Yes...," he said almost unwillingly. "It's true. A vampire lives forever in darkness, in hell, in fire and brimstone and blood. Always blood!" Anger made him look for just a moment like evil incarnate, wrapped in sensual beauty. Natalie forced herself not to step back, forced herself to ignore her fear. "Let me help you," Natalie whispered moving closer. "Let me try." "And what do you think I want?" he asked her. "I don't know, exactly. To be free of the 'hunger', to get out of your 'hellish existence'. Why don't you tell me?" He stood frozen, staring at her, and then Natalie saw the facade crack, and as she looked into his blue eyes, they filled up with naked, desperate hope. "I want to see the sunrise...," he whispered, afraid. He looked at Natalie bitterly. "Can you make that possible? Can you prevent this body from igniting and turning into ash? Does your 'science' have an answer for that, Doctor? Can it make me mortal?" Natalie stared at him. "It's true, you can't go out in the sun? You'll spontaneously combust?" He looked at her and said ironically, "It doesn't sound so simple, does it, Doctor. Are you so sure of your science, now?" Natalie shook her head. "All things have a physical cause. Sometimes the physical symptoms are a manifestation of psychological problem, but they are treatable whether physical or psychological." "And the metaphysical?" he asked ironically. Natalie glared at him. "Don't give me that! The supernatural and the metaphysical are words people use to describe events and things they don't understand. If you used a match to start a fire for a cave man, he'd call it magic, a supernatural event, because he doesn't understand the science!" He caught her arm suddenly and Natalie flinched. But he merely flicked his eyes and nodded his head at something behind her. Natalie turned and saw a couple coming down the walk towards her. "No one," he said softly, "can know. Ever." Natalie nodded, but her heart beat with excitement. With those words he implied that he would let her help. She continued speaking as if he hadn't said anything, in a more casual tone, "We are learning more each day. Look how much we are learning with the genome research. No one even dreamed of it a few years ago, and yet very soon, genetics will hold the key to cures for many of the diseases of the world." The couple strolled past as he watched tensely, still holding her arm. "Cancer, cystic fibrosis, heart disease, you name it. I don't see why there can't be one for you," Natalie finished softly. He watched the couple cross the street, then looked at her. "And you think you can make me mortal, free me from this curse?" he asked mockingly, unsuccessfully hiding the painful hope in his eyes. "I don't know for sure, not until I try. But there's an excellent possibility. Let me help," Natalie said softly, and slowly put her hand on his arm, offering comfort. He backed away. "Don't... Don't get too close to me," he said, the ice back. "You want to hurt me, kill me," Natalie guessed from the look in his eyes. "No. But I might anyway." He stopped and stared at her with despair naked on his face. After a moment he said slowly, carefully, "People--mortals have died because they've known me, tried to help me. It has happened far too often, Doctor. The risk is very great." Natalie felt as if she was standing on the edge of a chasm. One false move could cost her life. She wondered how many people had died by getting too close to this man, this...vampire. And then she knew she didn't care. She had to do this. She didn't know why, but she had to. "You won't hurt me," Natalie said confidently, much more confidently than she felt. And then, as if he couldn't process anything else, he looked away, his face so expressive that Natalie thought she might be able to decipher his whole life from that one look. He glanced at her briefly and then stared up at the lights. "I'll think about it..." "You can trust me," Natalie said, afraid he would simply disappear. He looked at her. "That may be true, but it is far more dangerous than you can possibly understand, Doctor." He stared up at the sky, and Natalie wondered what he saw that made his face so bleak. Then he looked back at her. "You can never talk of this to anyone. Ever. I cannot stress that enough. There are more dangers here than just the incessant call of blood." He looked at her neck as he spoke and Natalie unconsciously put her hand to her neck. "I can keep a confidence. You *can* trust me. I promise." "I do trust you," he said after a moment. "If I didn't, we wouldn't be having this conversation." Natalie stared at him, and wondered what would be happening if he didn't trust her. More than another hypnotic session, something whispered. She couldn't quite bring herself to ask. Goodnight, Doctor," he said abruptly and turning on his heel, walked away. "What's your name?" Natalie called after him. He stopped, his back to her, and stood for a moment. He glanced over his shoulder at her. "Nick," he said softly, and began walking. "Come to the morgue, Nick," she whispered, "Tomorrow night. It's quiet there. No one is around. And we'll talk--make a start." He stopped at her words, but didn't turn around. After a moment, he nodded his head. He began to walk rapidly, and disappeared around the corner. Natalie knew without any doubt that he would be there. Natalie stared at the room in front of her without seeing it as she relived the oh-so-impossible events of the evening. She shook her head in disbelief. She had just had a conversation in the street with a vampire--and lived through it. Even more amazing, she had actually offered to help him find a cure. He wanted to see the sunrise. Natalie pondered that for a long moment. What must it be like to be denied the warmth of the sun, it's gentle caress? What must it be like to know it's touch was death He was eight-hundred years old. Eight-hundred! She had so many questions. What was it like to live for that long? What he had seen? What he had done? He'd seen the rise and fall of empires and civilizations. He'd watched so many changes occur on the face of this earth. He must have seen countless people die. Did he have mortal friends? Did it hurt when they died? How did he deal with that? Even of more interest, Natalie wondered where was he from. How had he contracted this...condition? And how many people had he killed because of it. How did he feel about the killing, for Natalie had absolutely no doubts about that--he had killed. She wanted to know it all. She wanted to know *him*. "..it is far more dangerous than you can possibly understand..." The words whispered in her head. She remembered the fear that had engulfed her when he had walked behind her and placed his hand on her neck. It probably was more dangerous than she could understand. She wondered if she would die because she knew him. Would he some day want her blood more than he wanted her help? She didn't know. But it was something she had to do--wanted to and needed to do. The world seemed so flat and stale by comparison. He cast such an incredibly bright light into her ordinary, and frankly dull, world. There were vampires. Fairy tales and ghost stories apparently had more truth than she would ever have believed. There were vampires, and one had come to life on her table. And now, however obliquely, he had asked for help. And she had offered it gladly, eagerly. Natalie smiled and knew her life would never, ever be the same again. Because of him. Her life was full of exciting new possibilities. His name was Nick. *He's gorgeous*, she thought. There were vampires. She hugged herself and grinned uncontrollably. There were vampires... End _____________________________________________________ Dorothy Elggren -- delggren@es.com / delggren@loftworks.com First Unofficial Forever Knight Website - http://www.loftworks.com/fktoc.html Writing for the Knight - http://www.loftworks.com/fiction.html