Subject: for republishing = seco1580.txt

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This author has a new email address as of October 1998

Please contact Marcia at this address: <darknick@flash.net>

Thank You

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"Second Chances"  
A Forever Knight Story 
Copyright 1996 
by Marcia Tucker 
 
Time: Immediately following "Last Knight" 
 
 
 
  LaCroix hoisted the stake high, then abruptly roared in rage as he plunged 
the stake into the back of his son.  Nick grunted and convulsed once in 
reaction, his free hand automatically reaching up to clutch at the bloody 
stake - and as he passed out, he was dimly aware that it was nowhere near his 
heart.  
 
  "Insolent child, to deprive me of you now - now, of all times!" LaCroix 
roared and planting a foot on Nick's back, pulled the stake back out 
violently.  He cuffed his son on the side of the head and shoved him off 
Natalie.  
 
  LaCroix, still vamped out and furious, nevertheless bent cautiously to the 
dying woman.  The heartbeat was there, weakened, but there.  He probably had 
just enough time.  With a last, disgusted glance at Nick, LaCroix scooped 
Natalie up in his arms and left the loft with her, taking to the air,
heedless 
of the approaching sunrise.. 
 
  
 
  Hours later Nick woke groggily, still sprawled on the floor in front of the 
fireplace where LaCroix had left him.  The first wave of anguish hit him as
he 
recalled the terrible pact that he and Natalie had made - and his total lack 
of control as he drank from her.  Panicking, Nick realized several things: he 
was very much alive, very much a vampire, and that Natalie was not here.  
<She's dead!> he grieved, clutching his midsection in pain as he knelt on the 
floor.  <And I...>  Gingerly Nick felt at the slight indentation in his
chest, 
all that remained of the staking.  It might have punctured a lung, no more.  
<I am still alive...>  
 
  His gaze moved to the windows.  It was full daylight outside.  <I can still 
die,> he thought.  
 
  "I - think - not," came a steely voice from behind and above him.  
 
  Nick suddenly knew a white rage and launched himself at his master.  But he 
was weak and LaCroix easily held him off at arm's length.  "Do not jump to 
conclusions, Nicholas," he said calmly.  "I have saved you this past night 
from a very poor decision made under extreme duress.  A decision you were 
clearly incapable of making, considering the situation."  
 
  "Natalie," Nick moaned, clutching at LaCroix's arm, his tears beginning 
anew.  
 
  "Another one incapable of making decisions last night," the elder vampire 
said calmly, letting Nick hang on him.  He felt pity for his son, but still 
felt a quiet rage that he could have let the situation get so out of hand.
If 
LaCroix hadn't been there...  
 
  "You can still do it," Nick sobbed, "please, LaCroix, you can still..."  
 
  He found himself picked up bodily all of a sudden and dumped
unceremoniously 
onto the sofa.  "Pathetic, aren't we?" LaCroix murmured, then knelt beside
the 
couch.  "I tell you what, Nicholas.  Give me one night.  If you still want to 
throw away your life tomorrow, I will do it.  But you must wait."  
 
  Nick only made some small sounds in his throat, too distraught yet to say 
any more.  He pulled himself up into a ball on the sofa, too miserable to
even 
care that LaCroix was gone. 
 
  
 
  Being that it was daylight, LaCroix did not leave the loft, but settled
onto 
Nick's bed upstairs.  Checking along his link with Nicholas, he perceived
that 
his tormented son had fallen into a fitful sleep.  Sighing, he pulled out 
Nick's cellphone from the inside pocket of his jacket  - he'd removed the one 
downstairs - and made a call. 
 
  
 
  Nick dreamed - weird, twisted images that reflected his inner war.  Slowly 
some sort of reason began to take over and he dreamed a dream that perhaps 
disturbed him even more - because it dealt with terrible truths that he was 
loathe to face.  

 
  Natalie was talking, but her voice was anything but the desperate, hope-
filled voice of the night before.  "You owe me, Nick," she said, her arms 
crossed before him, her gaze hard upon his.  "I deserve to have your love and 
to be with you for all eternity.  I want you to make love to me and to show
me 
that you can control yourself.  You owe it to me to do this."  
 
  The hardness in her voice confused him.  "Nat, you're not making sense.
You 
know I don't have that kind of control.  The past six months..."  
 
  "You love me, don't you?"  she threw at him.  "If we try Janette's
solution, 
we can bring you back across, don't you see?  You owe it to me to try this!"  
 
  "Never," he heard himself saying.  "I do not owe you your death!"  
 
  "Then bring me over!"  
 
  Her words were a lance into his heart and he gasped.  "Nat, I can't give
you 
my curse!"  
 
  "What curse?" she said derisively.  "You live pretty comfortably in this 
curse, you know!  And you're not so quick to keep it from others - first 
Richard, and then Tracy..."  
 
  He stared at her, shocked.  "I didn't bring Tracy over..."  
 
  "Forgotten already?  Richard still hates you for what you did to him, you 
know."  
 
  Nick shook his head, baffled by her lies and her harsh demeanor.  "Natalie, 
Richard is dead, Tracy is dead!"  
 
  "Then maybe you should be dead!" 
 
  
 
  Nick woke abruptly, his forehead and neck slick with blood sweat.  The
dream 
was disturbing, especially Natalie's brutal commands to him.  He thought back 
to her actual words the night before, the desperation in her voice, and
knew a 
fresh twist of pain.  Her friend's suicide, he knew, had hit her very hard.  
Nat had known too much death in her short life, too many loved ones gone,
some 
violently.  He, too, had known death, death, and more death, and then losing 
Tracy...  
 
  <I can't go on,> he cried in interior anguish.  <It's too much.  I told her 
we would be together forever - I told Alyssa we would be together forever.>  
 
  He uncurled to shift into a sitting position.  Then he sensed.  "LaCroix - 
come to gloat over my failure?  Come to say that you told me so?"  
 
  LaCroix sat down on the other end of the sofa.  "Not in the least.  You
know 
it is not like that between us any longer.  I'm merely here to help."  
 
  "I asked for your help, LaCroix," Nick muttered.  
 
  "You were and perhaps still are, incapable of thinking clearly," his master 
said calmly.  "In fact, you have not been thinking clearly for some time in 
regards to your Dr. Lambert."  
 
  "I love her..."  
 
  "Do you really?"  There was a note of derision in the other's voice.  "You 
protested once that you did not.  But that is beside the point entirely.  Let 
me ask you a couple questions that will perhaps begin to return you to your 
senses.  Do you want to bring her across?"  
 
  Nick was in too much pain to pay attention to his wording, to the tense
he'd 
chosen.  "No.  I told you I could not condemn her to this existence."  
 
  "Then, do you want to kill her?"  
 
  "You know I did not!  I... I couldn't stop..."  
 
  "Of course you couldn't.  If you had it all to do over could you stop?"  
 
  Nick knew that answer and it chilled him.  "No.  It is impossible to keep 
from killing when making love to a mortal.  At least it is for me."  
 
  LaCroix smiled wryly.  "Well, aside from your love-making techniques - we 
won't go into that now - it seems clear that Natalie was asking something of 
you that you were unable to give her."  
 
  "She had faith in me."  
 
  The other barked a sudden laugh.  "Faith!  If you'd dropped her out of a 
fifteen story window, would she have faith that her neck would not break?
You 
see how muddy her thinking and yours, Nicholas?  Faith does not make the 
physically impossible possible!"  
 
  "Janette..."  
 
  "Oh, and you believe that whatever it was that brought Janette back across 
was possible for you?  Are you forgetting that her lover had to *die* for her 

to achieve her mortality?  Do you hate life *that* much, Nicholas?"  LaCroix 
was running out of patience, but realized he would need quite a bit more 
before this madness had passed his son by.  
 
  "No."  Nick rubbed his face with his hands wearily, and sighed.  "You're 
right - that was folly to try.  It's just that Natalie wanted to be with me
so 
badly..."  
 
  "Natalie Lambert was depressed and upset over her friend, Nicholas,"
LaCroix 
went on firmly.  "Is that any state of mind to be making decisions that would 
so affect one's life?  And what of yours?"  
 
  Nick straightened.  "You're right.  But it's too late."  He closed his eyes 
against the pain.  "You were right all along.  I stayed too long this time
and 
brought death to all around me."  
 
  LaCroix laid a light hand on his son's shoulder.  "*You* did not bring the 
death.  As I said, they began to demand too much from you.  Death came to
them 
of its own accord."  
 
  "Is there no end to the death, LaCroix?"  
 
  The ancient vampire, his heart cold from centuries of relentless pain, 
nevertheless felt a pang of warmth toward this, his most precious creation.  
"Not the death, Nicholas.  Just the guilt, if you would but give it up.  I've 
told you about this more times than I care to remember."  
 
  Nick thought again about pleading with LaCroix to end his life, let him 
finally put an end to his miserable existence, but from old habit he kept 
silent.  He could no longer resist.  And he was in too much pain to resist as 
well. 
 
 
  The day's hours marched on toward evening.  Nick drifted in a fog of pain 
and grief, guarded over by his silent master, who had put away his last 
argument.  Nick knew now how wrong it had been to let Natalie ask of him what 
she had, that she was not in her right mind, that to say the things she did 
was *not* Natalie, not the woman he knew.  Perhaps she had loved him as much 
as she said she did, but it was simply not true that she could not have had a 
life without him, that he had been all there was of her life in the last six 
years, that she would have ended up like her friend Lora, alone and miserable 
without him.  The Natalie he had known had had too much respect for life and 
too much drive to do her job and make a difference in her job to so
carelessly 
throw it all away, even for love.  
 
  And she'd known how he feared hurting her.  How could she have put him 
through that terrible risk?  How could she have asked him to join her in
death 
if the worst happened - and how did she think he would die?  LaCroix hadn't 
been there then, or at least not to her awareness.  
 
  If only LaCroix could have brought her across anyway - or somehow stopped 
Nick in time... 
 
  
 
  Around 9:00 pm, LaCroix approached Nick.  "You need to feed, Nicholas," he 
said softly, sinking back down onto the sofa beside him.  He handed him a
full 
glass of blood.  
 
  Nick took the glass and downed the contents absently. He accepted a refill 
and drank that as well.  
 
  "Feeling better?"  LaCroix said after a while.  
 
  His son nodded.  His pain had settled into a blank numbness.  "LaCroix?" he 
asked softly.  
 
  "Yes, Nicholas?"  
 
  "I think I can begin to start packing soon.  And I owe it to Captain Reese 
to at least write a resignation letter." He paused and slowly looked over.
"Do 
you have anywhere in mind to go?"  
 
  LaCroix was faintly smiling, enjoying the fact that he had another surprise 
for his son.  He was tremendously relieved that Nick's suicidal resolve had 
apparently passed for the moment.  "Yes, I do, but I don't believe we will be 
going quite yet.  There is some unfinished business to attend to.  Do you
feel 
strong enough to fly?"  
 
  Nick nodded, wondering. 
 
  
 
  Ten minutes later they stood in a darkened, quiet hospital room.  "But
Tracy 
is dead," Nick whispered to LaCroix.  
 
  "This is not Tracy," the other whispered back.  He put a hand to his son's 
elbow.  "Go on."  

 
  Nick approached the bed slowly.  There was just enough light with his 
vampiric senses to recognize...  He stopped, thunderstruck, then sank down on 
the edge of the bed beside the sleeping figure.  "Natalie?" he queried, his 
voice shaking.  He took in the monitor - displaying a normal heartbeat - and 
the bandage on her neck.  "LaCroix, how...?"  He took a slim hand in his, 
trembling with sudden emotion.  
 
  "After slowing you down I determined that there was just enough time to get 
her to the nearest hospital.  It was a nice little trick to get the orderlies 
to believe that a suicide victim had made it to the hospital on her own, 
clutching the object of her demise.  The right kind of pen makes quite
similar 
holes it seems.  Anyway, she's been stable for the last four hours, they tell 
me.  Quite a lucky young woman."  
 
  Nick pressed her hand to his cheek, drinking in the sight of her.  "Why 
didn't you tell me?"  
 
  LaCroix's voice turned momentarily cold.  "Because you needed to think and 
realize what you both had so very nearly done.  As I hope she has been able
to 
as well."  
 
  But the other was still confused.  "Our agreement."  
 
  "Ah.  That."  LaCroix smiled.  "I suppose I can be guilty of faulty
thinking 
as well, Nicholas.  You see, I've decided that the pain of losing you would 
not be worth exacting revenge on my loss of Fleur.  So.  What are you going
to 
do now?"  
 
  Nick still stared at Natalie's closed eyes.  "What I should have done 
before." 
 
  
 
  Natalie's eyes fluttered open.   She sighed, and focused on... Nick.  She 
gasped.  "Nick - oh, God..."  
 
  "Easy, Nat," he murmured, kissing the back of the hand he still held.  
"You're pretty weak yet."  
 
  Tears came immediately to her eyes.  "How can you ever forgive me, Nick?"  
 
  He looked at her incredulously.  "Forgive you?  Nat, I nearly killed you!  
How can you forgive me?"  
 
  She stifled a sob, hanging onto his hand.  "I should never have asked you - 
oh, God, what was I thinking?  I forced you -"  
 
  "We were both wrong, Nat," Nick said fervently, his eyes gleaming in the
dim 
light.  "We were out of our minds with grief."  
 
  Tears streaming down her face, Natalie gasped and then spoke, her voice 
trembling.  "We can never be together, Nick.  I know that now and I hate 
myself for pushing you into trying the impossible.  You said no and I still 
pushed you."  
 
  "We were both upset -"  
 
  "Please let me finish," Nat said, releasing his hand.  "I did a terrible 
thing to you.  And I knew better - you'd told me better and I refused to hear 
you."  She'd half-sat up, but now collapsed back onto her pillow.  "Don't
take 
all the blame for this, Nick.  Don't you dare.  You do that far, far, too 
much, and you're dealing with losing Tracy as well."  
 
  "You lost your friend," he reminded her softly.  
 
  "I lost my mind, is what I lost."  Natalie looked at him with love.  "Oh, 
Nick, of course I want to be with you, but it's clearly so impossible.  I 
don't want to be brought across and I don't want to die.  You can't control 
your instincts."  
 
  He opened his mouth, closed it.  She was dead right.  
 
  "And *you* don't want to die, Nick.   You love life so much - as do I."  
 
  Nick stilled, eyes averted abruptly, and Natalie frowned, puzzled.  She 
glanced over at the solemn LaCroix, standing in the corner.  "LaCroix, what's 
happened?" she asked in alarm.  
 
  "When Nicholas believed he had taken too much from you - and he very nearly 
had - he asked me to take his life so that when you both died you could 
supposedly be together for all eternity in the heavenly beyond," LaCroix 
explained patiently, his arms crossed before him.  "Forgetting of course that 
supposedly heaven doesn't look too kindly on suicides - we forgot to discuss 
that little aspect, Nicholas."  
 
  Natalie looked at Nick, stunned.  
 
  "We said... " Nick began, but his voice broke.  
 
  Nat placed a hand on his arm.  "I know what we said, Nick," she said
softly.  

"But this isn't a movie.  This isn't the series finale of a television drama 
where the hero and heroine die tragically and everyone grabs for the
kleenex.  
Nick, these are *our* lives, and we both revere life!"  She smiled as he 
lifted his face to meet her gaze again.  "It's okay, Nick, really.  I love
you 
- but sometimes love means letting go."  
 
  "As I've told him repeatedly," LaCroix murmured.  "Wise words, Doctor."  
 
  "It's your time, isn't it, Nick?  Time for you to leave?"  Natalie asked, 
reaching up to touch his cheek.  
 
  Wordlessly - he could not speak yet - he nodded. She had said all that he'd 
expected to say to her.  
 
  Nat sighed.  "I never thought I'd say this, LaCroix, but we both owe you
our 
lives - and I'm very grateful that you gave us both second chances to right 
what was nearly a terrible wrong."  
 
  "I was only looking out for Nicholas's best interests," LaCroix murmured.  
"Although I'm altogether unused to doing good deeds and I'm not so sure I
like 
this."  He exchanged a look of understanding with her, then glanced away.  
 
  "Nick?"  Nat was asking, concerned about her beloved's silence.  "I'll be 
okay, I promise.  We have to be apart, but we'll survive and we'll get
through 
this.  We're both survivors - Schanke would have said we're Teflon-coated."  
 
  "Schanke," Nick sighed finally at the memory.  "Yeah, he'd have said
that."  
Then he remembered his other partner.  "Nat, if you get out of the hospital
in 
time - could you say a few words for me at Tracy's funeral?"  
 
  She sighed, and her hand fell away.  "Sure, anything."  
 
  Nick managed a smile finally, a sight that was a relief to her.  "Speak 
about her courage.  And her enthusiasm."  
 
  "She loved life, too, Nick," Natalie said solemnly.  "But it was her time
to 
die.  You know that wasn't your fault."  
 
  He nodded, but it was clear it still pained him.  "Nat, I'll never forget 
you," he said.  "And I will not give up my search for a cure."  
 
  Natalie smiled warmly at him.  "I know.  I have faith in you - and this
time 
I mean it in a realistic way.  That time will come for you someday."  
 
  Nick heaved a sigh, finally relaxing.  "I hope so."  Then he whispered, 
leaning over close to her face, "Goodbye, Natalie!"  He brushed her lips 
lightly with his, then backed away quickly.  
 
  "Goodbye, Nick," she whispered back, then closed her eyes, relaxing.  
 
  They stayed, near the door, long enough to be sure that she had fallen 
asleep again.  Then Nick, his heart full to bursting, red tears beginning in 
the corners of his eyes, drew near to his master.  "LaCroix, I'm ready to
go."  
His voice was low and shaky.  
 
  LaCroix nodded, laid a comforting hand on the shoulder of his son, and led 
him out.  
 
  Natalie had been feigning sleep, but after they'd gone, silently and 
stoically cried herself to sleep.  
 
The End - A Better End 
 
Marcia Tucker 
scfimarci@aol.com 
Dark Knightie / Unnamed