Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 15:41:11 -0700 From: "Marisa SorBello: mas@cvsd.cv.com" This is my very first (and probably last) piece of fanfic. Please be kind and forgiving... Disclaimer: The characters are not mine. I just borrowed them from James Parriott & Co. to right a terrible wrong. Small spoilers for "Last Knight". Any comments (please, no hate mail) to mas@cvsd.cv.com. The Fairy Tale (1/3) 'It was a dark and stormy night...' "Oh, good grief" Natalie spoke aloud to herself, "I can't use that -- that's as hackneyed as it gets! Hmm, How about 'Once upon a time'? Well, one could hardly call my life a *fairy tale*..." Natalie decided she wasn't really ready to start her memoirs, despite the urgings of her colleagues and students at the University of British Columbia. She'd been a Medical Examiner for 20 years, then turned to teaching when her "change of life" baby came along. Another child was the last thing she expected after dealing with two teenagers!! But little Ricky was the center of her life, and cutting back on her teaching duties left her a lot of time home with the toddler. So there she sat in front of the computer, trying to decide if her life story was worth committing to paper. After that horrible last night in Nick's loft when he left her for dead and disappeared without a trace, she never dreamed she'd find happiness with the EMT driver who found her and rushed her to the hospital, but she'd gone on with her life. She tried to forget Nick, and that vampires existed, but she'd always been unable to burn her notes or stop looking for clues for a cure in all the medical journals. But yesterday, while taking a break from her attempts at writing, she'd come across something interesting that she just *had* to investigate. So the memoirs could wait -- now all she had to do was find a vampire in Vancouver on whom she could test her theory! Shouts of "We're home, Mom" interrupted her reverie. "I'm in here" Natalie called to the twins. "How was your big adventure?" Karen and Kenny burst into the room, full of excitement about the wonderful new club they'd discovered. Their best friend's older brother had gotten a job at a nightclub called Leonardo's, and the twins had had a tour of the place before it opened for business. "It's *so* cool, Mom" gushed Karen "it's full of VR games and costumes and most of it is set in the Renaissance!" Kenny chimed in with "And they *swear* that the painting over the bar is by da Vinci himself, too -- it's of a beautiful woman who looks a *lot* like the owner! I wonder who they got to paint it in the right style?" "Mom, what's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost" cried Karen, as Natalie dropped her stack of diaries. "Where is this place?", she demanded. Natalie made the twins promise to stay home and take care of Ricky while she went out for an errand. Twenty minutes later, Natalie walked in the door of Vancouver's hottest new nightclub, and the sense of deja' vu was overpowering. Being early afternoon, the club was fairly empty, but Natalie found someone cleaning the bar and inquired after the owner. "I don't think she's available for several more hours" replied the bartender, so Natalie left her name and said she'd return after sundown. "It's all right, cherie, I'll speak to the doctor now." Natalie found herself staring into a face she'd believed she'd never see again, able to utter only "How? When?" "Nichola never told you he brought me back across, did he?" Jeanette asked Natalie. "No," she replied, "I thought he respected your wishes to die as a mortal." Jeanette laughed, and asked Natalie without bitterness, "Did he ever respect *yours*?" "Do you know where he is?" Natalie asked. "Does he still want to be mortal? Do you? I think I know how. I just need some blood on which to experiment." Jeanette was astonished. "Why is this important to you, Natalie? Do you love him still, or is it simple intellectual curiosity?" Natalie told Jeanette about her happy marriage and wonderful children, and that she wouldn't change a thing, but she'd always wondered about Nick and hoped he'd been able to find happiness someday. She had no idea he'd tried to convince LaCroix to kill him when he believed he'd killed Natalie. "LaCroix never told him, you know. He believes you died that night in his loft." Natalie begged Jeanette to get word to Nick that she was alive and well and happy, and that she wanted to see him. The Fairy Tale (2/3) "Can you be here at sundown tomorrow?" was the only message on Natalie's answering machine when she got home from her last student appointment. She hadn't seen or heard from Jeanette in over a week, but the message left her hopeful and nervous. What would she say to him after all this time? Natalie dressed carefully for her appointment at Leonardo's, unable to decide between a cold, professional look, or casual and relaxed. She settled on slacks and a sweater, and added the necklace Nick had given her that first birthday they'd shared. She told her husband that she had an appointment with a possible reseach subject and not to expect her home 'til late. Gary knew there was a puzzle she'd been trying to solve as long as he'd known her, but he'd never asked for details, and she never offered. It was the only secret of their marriage, but he knew she'd tell him when she needed to. He knew something was up, though; he'd hardly seen her all week, and she'd slept at the lab twice. But last night she'd come home triumphant, telling him only that she'd had a breakthrough. Natalie arrived at Leonardo's a few minutes early, still nervous, but very excited. "You haven't changed a bit." Natalie heard the lie in the familiar voice, but didn't care -- Nick walked toward her with open arms, and the smile she remembered. She started to pull away from his crushing bearhug when he released her, the red teartracks evidence of his emotions. "How could you want to see me again? How could you forgive me for what I did to you?" Natalie laughed gently. "YOU certainly haven't changed -- you're the same old Nick, feeling responsible and guilty for everything. But it's not your fault, Nick, and I never blamed you. I'm just glad LaCroix never did as you asked." Natalie and Nick talked and laughed through the night, catching up on Natalie's career and family, and Nick's travels. He'd left LaCroix just a few days after they left Toronto, and had spent the last several years in a monastery, convinced the monks could cure him. He'd found peace, but no cure. "How did you survive the exposure to crosses and holy water?" Natalie asked. "I learned to tolerate it, and eventually it stopped causing me pain," Nick replied. "I went to services from time to time; I can't sit through the sacraments at a Mass, but being in the church gave me a certain measure of peace." "Nick," Natalie began hesitantly, "you're certain you still want to be mortal?" "More than anything. And it's not just for you now. I *need* to be able to serve God again." Nick looked so wistful; Natalie understood that if Nick were cured, he'd become a monk and minister to the sick, as they did. Natalie continued to explain. "I think I can help. There's a new drug on the market, developed for certain rare forms of blood disorders created by some of the problems caused by the mining of that new mineral in Madagasgar. Something about the nucleotides in the blood of the victims of the disorder looked familiar, so I decided to run some tests. Nick, I only had to change one compound in the drug. It made Jeanette's blood impervious to sunlight. I'd like to try the drug on you." Nick couldn't believe what he was hearing; could it be true? Could Natalie have stumbled across his cure by accident this way? The Fairy Tale (3/3) "This won't hurt a bit!" Natalie teased. "Just a little puncture, and then we'll test the blood." Nick laughed at her, remembering all her reassurances when they had tried this so many years ago. Natalie tested the compound on Nick's blood, and got the same results she'd had with Jeanette's. "It worked!" Nick couldn't believe his blood could stand up to direct sunlight. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Nick," Natalie cautioned. "I have to examine the blood and ensure there won't be any side effects -- not that I can ever *be* sure of that, but I don't want to rush into anything." Nick remembered "the fix" and agreed, but was anxious to try it. He hovered over Natalie while she ran more tests than he could have imagined on the blood samples she'd taken from him. Finally, after what seemed like years (but was really only 14 hours), Natalie annouced that she was satisifed and ready to give it a try. "Keep your fingers crossed" she said with a grin, "and let me know if you feel any pain." The injection didn't hurt, just as she'd promised, but Nick soon felt *something* changing. He couldn't explain it, but within minutes, his hearing was less acute, he could feel his eyes growing dimmer, and suddely realized the examination table was *cold*. Natalie monitored his heartbeat, and hers seemed to increase at almost the same rate as Nick's. She held her breath while she took his blood pressure: 136/80! For hours, Natalie ran test after test on Nick, and could come to only one conclusion. He was finally, irretrievably, human. Jeanette and Natalie stayed in touch, and would visit from time to time. They'd read each other their letters from Nick when he found time to write from India. Gary never asked Natalie about the week she spent curing an old friend, but knew she was happy with the results and that she occasionally received letters that made her cry. When Karen's first child was born, a charming monk came to attend the baptism. Gary enjoyed the company of Natalie's younger friend, who seemed so at peace with the world, and enjoyed his visits. When the cancer finally claimed Natalie's life, he asked Nick to say a few words at the funeral. Nick's eulogy was beautiful; Natalie's family and many friends always wondered why a monk owed Natalie his 30 years of peace and happiness. After all, she'd never gotten around to writing that fairy tale...