Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 13:46:10 -0330 Well, nobody ELSE was tackling it, and it just HAD to be done, so I decided to take a crack at it! Yeah, you're thinking you can probably write the plot right now...maybe, maybe not? You MAY be surprised! Here goes: .................................. IT'S A WONDERFUL KNIGHT Copyright Mary J. Farrell, 1993 Nick was not in a good mood. Even Schanke, who was usually oblivious to changes in his partner's mercurical nature unless they were actually directed at him, was steering clear of him today. "What's his problem?", Schanke complained to Captain Stonetree, in Stonetree's office. "It's Christmas Eve, for heaven's sake! Season of cheer, good will to all and all that stuff!" "Cut him some slack, Schanke", Stonetree rumbled, looking past his open door to where Nick sat scowling at some paperwork. "He's got no family here, maybe he's lonely!" "With the friends he has? Me? Nat? What about that hot little number that runs that club..uh...Janet?" Janette, Nick mentally corrected him, eavesdropping on the conversation. He knew he was in a foul mood, but couldn't pin down why. Centuries of Christmas's had come and gone. He usually got depressed at this time of the year, but this was different. He looked up at the clock. He was off in a few minutes, and sunrise wouldn't be for half an hour. He got up, grabbed his jacket and headed out the door, trying to ignore the comment Schanke was making about "Scrooge". ........................ The Raven was decorated for Christmas to reflect Janette's own bizarre outlook on the season. There were chains strung across the ceiling and around the doors with little stainless steel Christmas trees dangling from them. There was large bunches of mistletoe everywhere and there was even a small tree, silver-coloured, with crystal ornaments and red lights, blood red lights. Nick scowled at this as he walked past and his expression didn't improve when he set eyes on Janette. She was wearing her customary black but with candy-cane earrings and a red-and-white stripped silk scarf thrown across her shoulders. "Nicholah!" She made as if to kiss him, but caught his expression. "What is wrong?" "Who're you supposed to be, one of the elves nightmares?" "YOU are certainly in a mood today!" She paused and regarded him, "I know the season is depressing, cherie," she said sympathetically. " Come..have a drink!" "No thanks. I just came....I don't know really WHY I came." He turned and started to leave. "Nicholah! We are having a small gathering here later tonight. Please join us!?" Nick mumbled a "Maybe" and left. .............................. He'd been home for an hour or so, and had sunk into a further depression, as evidenced by the three empty bottles set out in front of him on the table, when he heard the door buzzer. He turned on the monitor. Natalie was standing outside, slapping her mittens together to keep warm. "Nick?", she called, "You up?" He buzzed her in without comment, and guiltily hid the bottles in the garbage. He'd found two of the three corks and was looking under his couch for the third when he heard the door. Natalie came in, the frosting of snow on her hair and coat looking like icing sugar. "Merry Christmas! Or should I say Bah Humbug?" "You've been talking to Schanke," Nick said accusingly. "No..I've been listening. It's not a dialogue with Schank, it's a monologue!" Seeing her attempt at humour had failed, she crossed the room and joined him on the couch. "What's the matter, Nick?" She went to touch his arm, but he pulled away. "Is it Christmas?" "I...don't know, Nat. It's like..I don't make a difference." "C'mon, Nick. We've had this conversation before. You can't catch ALL the bad guys." She took his chin in her hand and turned him to face her. "You DO make a difference, Nick." "Yeah, a negative one! How many times have I put you in danger? You'd be better off if you'd never met me!" Natalie sighed, and stood up. "OUCH! What's that?" She bent down and retrieved the missing cork. "Drowning your sorrows?", she said, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. "Just giving them a good dunking," he said tonelessly, refusing to meet her eyes. ............................... An hour later, Natalie left, leaving Nick in the same mood she'd found him. She'd hesitated giving him the Christmas gift she'd gotten for him, and at the last minute, she'd put it quietly on the counter on her way out. Nick didn't appear to notice. He turned on the television as the door closed. An old movie had come on. Yes, he remember this, it was that Jimmy Stewart Christmas flick that was all over the airwaves at this time of year. He leaned back on the couch and started watching, but a few minutes into it, his eyes became heavy and he turned it off and decided to go to bed. Nick woke up from a deep sleep and looked at the clock. He'd been out for several hours. He sat up and put his head in his hands. "Feeling any better?" Nick jumped out of bed at the familiar voice and looked wildly around the room. He focused on the doorway. His eyes widened and he whispered one word, "Martin?" ................................. The year was 1943, and Europe was too dangerous for vampires, much mortals. Nick was on his way to London, to meet up with LaCroix and Janette. For once, he agreed with LaCroix, it WOULD be better if they stayed together. They would have more of a chance of getting through this nightmare unscathed. No matter how many times, Nicholas witnessed the ravages of war, he could not harden himself to it, even when he had been mortal and had been the one doing the fighting. He waited in the train car impatiently. Another in a series of long delays was preventing the train from leaving the station. Nick looked at his watch. If they didn't leave soon, he'd miss the connecting train that would take him to London. He looked up as the compartment door opened, and a young minister stepped inside. Oh OUTSTANDING!, Nick thought. The young man settled in and cleared his throat. Nick, who had been avoiding eye contact, relented and looked over. "Hello," said the minister, "I'm the Reverend Mr. Martin O'Rielly." Surprisingly enough, the rest of the delay and the three-hour train trip that followed seemed to fly by. The Rev. Mr. Martin O'Rielly, "call me Martin", turned out to be an intelligent, earnest young man, who was eager to talk and could converse on a number of topics. Nick found himself drawn to the young man's charisma and charm. No..charm wasn't it..he seemed to radiate an inner light of some sort. Nick's mouth twisted wryly as he considered what LaCroix would say if Nick told him he spend half the day talking to a holy man. They parted reluctantly at the London station, Nick to go into the city, Martin to catch another train to the coast. He was going overseas to be a chaplain to the soldiers at the front. Martin gave him a simple blessing, to which Nick tried not to wince, and told him he thought they would definitely meet again. It was only a couple of months later that Nick heard that Martin had been killed in shelling in Germany. ............................. Nick rubbed his eyes with his hands, but the man was still there, just as he remembered him, with even more of a glow around him. Nick kicked the covers away and stood up. "I'm dreaming!" The figure smiled a familiar smile and leaned against the doorway, "Think so? C'mon, Nicholas, I told you we'd meet again." Nick still couldn't believe his eyes. "You'd better not tell me you're the ghost of Christmas past!" Martin laughed, and the sound struck a memory in Nick. "No..sorry, that's someone ELSE'S job tonight. I decided to drop by to have another of our chats." Nick stared at Martin, "You're about 50 years late, aren't you? What happened?" Then a thought struck him and he almost physically stepped back. "Martin! You're not.." "No, I'm not a vampire, Nick." As proof, he indicated the cross around his neck. "I'm DEAD dead, I assure you. I've come to show you something. Remember that movie you were watching tonight?" Nick thought for a minute, "Yeah, the Jimmy Stewart one. Where he gets to see..Oh, Come ON!" He looked back at the bed, half expecting to see himself still sleeping. "I MUST be dreaming!" Martin laughed again, "No, Nicholas, you're NOT! You told that charming Dr. Lambert tonight that you wish she'd never met you. Do you want to see what would have happened if NONE of the people in your life now ever met you?" Nick considered it for a minute. "They'd have been better off!", he said despondently. "Maybe, maybe not!" Martin extended his hand. "Ready?" Nick had been wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, and he slipped his feet into sneakers. He walked over to Martin. As he came closer, the light caught the shiny surface of the cross that Martin wore. Nick held up his hands, expecting it to hurt his eyes, but it didn't. Martin merely smiled at him and took his hand. ><*><*><*><*><* Suddenly, he was at the Raven, but it was a different Raven, there were none of the decorations that he's seen earlier, and the club was laid out differently, but there was something about it that he KNEW it was the Raven! "This is...it's different!" "It IS the Raven, Nick. But THIS Raven is in New York, Janette never went to Toronto. Here she is now!" He indicated a small gathering of people around a table in the corner. Nick approached, and the only familiar face among them was Janette, but she too seemed different. Her face was hard, and her eyes were like ice. She stood up and lifted her glass. "Companions of the Night! I give you a toast this Christmas Eve to 'friends' (she practically sneered this word) gone but not forgotten. I'm free of you at last, LaCroix!" This last sentence was practically shrieked, and the other vampires at the table cheered as she downed the contents of her glass. "What...happened? She's so.." "Hard? Cold? Remember Nick, she never met you. There was no one to keep the tiny flicker of warmth and hope alive in her during the hard times." Martin regarded her sadly, "She has become the child of her master." "LaCroix," Nick breathed. "Where is he? What does she mean, she's free of him?" He looked wildly around the room, somehow expecting LaCroix to jump out of the shadows and laugh in Janette's face." Martin shook his head, seeming to read Nick's thoughts. "He's dead, Nick. But in this reality, it was another's hand that finished him." He indicated Janette, who seemed to be in the process of drinking herself into a stupor. "He taught her too well. She became a mirror of him. Cold, cruel, heartless. Finally, the pupil turned on the master. Six months ago, she ambushed him outside Munich and staked him to the ground." Nick recoiled at the image. Janette, beautiful Janette, who, underneath the invincible shield she wrapped around herself, was a vulnerable little girl, had become this...creature! Martin tried to draw Nick away, but he resisted, staring at the cold, dead eyes of the woman before him. "Leave her, Nick, the Janette you knew died a long time ago in her." He grasped Nick's arm and pulled him away. "Our next stop is a house in Winnipeg." ><*><*><*><*><* They were now standing in an unfamiliar living room. A small, dark-haired woman was half-heartedly decorating a Christmas tree. Her back was to them, but Nick recognised her immediately. "Myra?" She turned to get more garland, and Nick gasped at the change. She looked ten years older. Her hair was shot with grey and there were wrinkles around her eyes. She called out to someone in the next room, "C'mon honey, help Mommy decorate the tree?" A small figure appeared around the door. "Did you mail my letter to Santa, Mommy?", Jenny asked. "Baby, come here." Jenny obeyed, and Myra drew her onto her lap. "Honey, there are somethings that even Santa can't do--", she began, but Jenny twisted out of her arms and screamed, "No, there isn't, Santa can do anything! He's magic!! He can bring Daddy back!" She ran crying from the room. Myra put her head in her hands and started to cry. "I won't believe Schanke LEFT them!" "Not in the way you mean, Nick. Remember that lunatic academy dropout that you stopped from shooting Schanke?" Nick turned haunted eyes on Martin. "You mean..." "You weren't there to stop him, Nick. Don died in the line of duty almost a year ago! Myra moved here shortly after." Nick looked down at her, still sobbing, and reached out to comfort her. "I'm sorry, Myra, I didn't know!" His hand passed through her shoulder effortlessly. She had no reaction. Nick turned to Martin. "Can we get out of here?" "Sure, Nick, but I'm pretty sure you're not going to like where we're going." Martin laid his hand on Nick's shoulder and they disappeared. ><*><*><*><*><* Nick found himself in a hospital room next to a bed in which lay a figure hooked up to what seemed to be a million tubes, wires and IVs. The bed's curtain obscured the head of the patient, and Nick could only see the hands, but...he knew those hands. He'd watched them work with the delicacy of a top surgeon a dozen times. He stepped around the curtain and his breath caught in his throat. "Natalie!", he gasped. He turned and searched frantically for Martin, grabbing him by the shoulders and nearly shaking him. "What happened to her?" "She was lonely in her life, Nick. Even more so than she is in your reality. She decided to go to a dating service.." "Roger!" Nick turned back to her as Martin continued. "She fought back and he struck her in the head repeatedly. There was quite a bit of brain damage. She won't get any better than this--" Martin stopped as Natalie opened her eyes. Nick leaned over the bed and looked into them, and what he saw caused his heart to break. She wasn't there any more, it wasn't Natalie. The woman in the bed looked through him with a glassy stare. He wrenched himself away from the bed and covered his hands with his eyes. "No!", he said, his voice rising to a scream, "No! No! NO!" Martin pulled his hands down from his face. They were back in his apartment. "Now do you see Nick? Do you see what a difference you've made in these people's lives? How can you say they would be better off not knowing you?" Martin let go of Nick's arms and took a step back. "I've got to go now." When Nick protested, Martin held up his hand and smiled. "I don't belong here, Nick. You DO! I did what I was put on this earth for!" He smiled again, and, using his cross, he sketched the same blessing in the air he given him fifty years ago, "Merry Christmas, Nick!" In an instant, he was gone. Nick quickly walked downstairs. The first thing his eyes fell on was a silver-wrapped package on the counter. Natalie! He rushed to the telephone. ......................... Fifteen minutes later, he buzzed her in. He opened the door and she looked at him apprehensively. "I'm sorry," he said, "I'm so sorry! I've been acting like a fool lately! Forgive me?" Natalie was taken aback with the change in his attitude. "Forgive..? Uh..of course, Nick!" He pulled her into the living room. "I wouldn't blame you if you didn't", he said, as he sat her on the couch and walked behind her, "I've been a real pain lately. I don't know why you put up with me." He came back and presented her with a box. "Merry Christmas, Natalie. I demand you open it now!" She was still a little surprised, but the tone of his voice caused her to grin. She took the box and opened it carefully. "Oh NICK!", she breathed, "it's GORgeous!" She held up the delicate gold chain with the amethyst pendant on it. "It looks like it's an antique!" "Well, I guess it is," Nick said wryly, "It was my mother's." Natalie started to protest at such a gift but Nick sat down beside her. "It's considered RUDE to refuse a gift in any century! You deserve that and much more for putting up with me lately." He didn't tell her that he'd just decided to give it to her and wrapped it a few seconds before she came. She put it on and sat admiring it, then looked at the other present on the counter. "Now you have to open your gift!" He returned her smile, and walked over and picked up the box. "It's part of your..uh..recovery program," she said." Maybe someday you'll be able to wear it." Nick looked puzzled as he opend the box. He lifted the lid of the case and froze. "Uh....Nick? Are you OK? I'm sorry, I'm an idiot! I should have warned you!" "No, no! It's ok!" He stayed her hand as she stood up and went to take the box away from him, "Natalie where on earth did you GET this?" "At this little shop downtown. Funny..I've never been in it before, but I was walking by it, and something told me to go in...do you..is it ok?" Nicked looked at her and smiled and Natalie breathed deeply with relief. "Maybe someday I CAN wear it." He walked over to her and gave her a big hug. "Merry Christmas, Natalie." She was surprised for a minute, but she soon returned it. The box Natalie had given him was on the coffee table, and, in it, the beautiful cross caught the light, the cross that was the exact duplicate of the one Martin had worn earlier that night. THE END ..................... Well, there it is, my take on "It's A Wonderful Life". I hope everyone on FKFIC has a VERY Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I look forward to a wonderful year of excellent fanfic ahead of us!