Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 07:44:33 PDT From: Lori Dehn Subject: A Richness in Her Smile (01/01) To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Hi. This isn't a story. It's hardly a vignette. More like just a peek into Nick's head for a sec. Usual disclaimers: I don't own anybody. Sony, C/TS, the Right Revered James Parriott, etc., etc., do. I'm just doing a little analysis. Maybe they'll return with a little introspection when I'm done, but that's all. As for as spoilers go, this would be last season, pre-LK. Like it, love it, lump it, let me know at ldehn@hotmail.com. A Richness in Her Smile By Lori Dehn He stopped in the hallway, peering through the thin panel of glass to look at her. He wasn't looking for her. He could hear the regular, musical beat of her heart. He could smell the sweetness of her blood, even over the smell of death and formaldehyde, even through the glass and steel. There was an element he could not quite identify to her scent. He imagined it was chocolate, but as he had been brought across almost three hundred years before a white man would ever taste it, he was not sure. No. He knew she was there. He just wanted to see her for a moment. Natalie was beautiful, but her beauty was unique. She did not have the prettiness of a young girl, although innocence and vitality were both strongly there. Nor did she have the staged beauty of a fashion model or actress. Natalie did not wear much makeup, and seldom spent much time on her looks. But there was a freshness, a lack of artifice in her that no cover girl could match. Last, she did not have, as no one had, the regal perfection of Janette. But Janette used her beauty as much to intimidate as to entice, as much to terrify as to charm. Janette had practiced the use of her heart-stopping face for a thousand years. One did not react to it but that she had planned for the reaction. Not so Natalie. Natalie's attractions included warmth and honesty, a drawing in because he wanted to be close to her, and because he knew he would be welcomed. As he watched, she moved gracefully from one side of the table to the other, touching her "patient" with as much compassion and as light a touch as she would had he still been alive. The blue scrubs covered her from neck to floor. The were shapeless, sacklike, and unattractive. But beneath them, her body moved lithely, and he could make out the curve of a hip here, a breast there. And he could remember the last time he had held her, and how those curves had felt in his arms. A curl of chestnut hair escaped her ponytail, and tumbled down across her face. She growled in frustration, as she couldn't push it back without stopping in the middle of her work. She tried to blow it out of her way. She tried to ignore it and continue. Finally, she gave up, but down her tools, removed her gloves, and pulled the scrunchie from her hair, letting waves of the auburn mass ripple across her shoulders before she carefully gathered them up again, and secured them once more into a ponytail, this time with all of the strands firmly in place. Then she put on new gloves, and picked up where she left off. That was part of it, too, he thought. Her dedication, and her feelings. Natalie gave herself completely to whatever she did. There was no half-way with her. She had taken him to her confidence, and never looked back, placing herself in danger time and again for his sake. And had she known on that birthday years ago what would happen, the many trials her knowledge of him would subject her to, she would still have offered her help. She would still have offered her heart. Natalie didn't feel things half-way either. He had never known someone with the depth of emotion she possessed. He had seen her at heights of joy, of wonder, of happiness that he hadn't believed existed. He hadn't known laughter could be an emotion, but with Natalie it was. But he had also seen the most profound sorrow and pain reflected in her eyes, sorrow and pain he never hoped to see again, made all the worse by the feeling he could have prevented it, or that he had caused it. And, of course, there was love. Nick was never sure if he had been able to remove the night at Azure from Natalie's memory, but he knew very well he had not been able to remove her memory of her love for him. And he was sure that, with the instinct of Eve, she knew of his love as well. She moved a little to the left, and Nick shifted his position to maintain his view of her. As he did, though, he touched the door, and it creaked. Natalie looked up, and there it was. Her smile. Natalie's smile was not reserved or coy. If you knew her, you knew that everything about her was there in her smile. It was generous and open, loving and genuine. There was a richness in her smile that made her the most beautiful woman Nick had ever seen, beyond every fabled beauty of the last 800 years. And she smiled now, just for him. "Nick!" He pushed open the door and walked into the morgue. He was quickly behind her, wrapping his arms about her waist. She craned her head to look at him, surprised. "Hi, Nat," he whispered. "Just dropped by to give you something." And he kissed her. And when he pulled back, she smiled at him again. Lori Dehn Dark Knightie 'n Nat Packer with definite Ravenette and Vaquera tendencies and just a smackerel of Cousin for "flavor" ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com