From:         "A.M. Marcoux" <MARCOUX3108@MTROYAL.AB.CA>

This story is just a side effect of my momentary bursts of impulsiveness.
After swearing I would only read fan-fic 'The Wish' spilled out on the bus ride
home Wednesday, got typed up on Thursday and is being posted today.
So, be gentle :)
 
Questions, comments, PoV to marcoux3108@mtroyal.ab.ca
 
My thanks to Dawn for sending me the original challenge, to Dianna, for her
example, and to Teresa, for being the first to read it, and for liking it.
 
THE WISH
A Forever Not Challenge Story
By Andria Marcoux
 
     "Aren't you going to open it?" Nat asked.
     "You mean now?"  Nick picked up a wrench from the array of tools beside
his motorcycle.
     "Yes, now."  Nat was sprawled on the floor a few feet away, holding a
present.  Nick shook his head.
     "Nah, I'll get around to it later."  He studied Nat out of the corner of
his eye.  She was the most mature and level headed person he'd met in his eight
hundred years of existence, except when it came to presents.  "Or," he said,
pausing as he reached under the bike, "you could open it for me."
     Her big eyes grew even wider.
     "Really?  No, no, it came for you-"
     "Yeah, g'wan.  Open it."  He grinned.
     Nat sat up, turning the package over in her hands.  It was small enough
to balance on one palm, wrapped in delicate white paper and tied with gilt-edged
ribbon.  She ran her fingers underneath the ribbon, trying to remove it from
the present without damaging it.  She succeeded.  Next, she searched for a seam
so she could remove the paper in one piece.  Nick began wiping his hands as Nat
eased the gift box out of the wrapping.
     "Hmm, no store insignia."  She shifted the package, listening intently.
She looked at Nick and shrugged.  Finished with the guessing portion of her
ritual, she opened the box.  Inside, nestled in tissue paper, was a stone.
     Nat tipped the box, rolling the stone into her palm.  It was perfectly
round and perfectly smooth, and as she held it in her hand it began to change
colour, from a dull grey to a warm blue.  She smiled at Nick.
     "Looks like someone sent you a mood ring without the ring."  She closed
her hand around the stone, and peered back inside the box.  "Aha, a card."
She read the elegant calligraphy out loud, shaking off the feeling that she
recognized the script.
     " `Wish true and it shall be'."  She wondered idly if the sender knew what
kind of wish Nick would make.  She turned the card over.  "No signature."
Nick's eyes dropped, and she knew he'd been reminded that no matter how much he
wanted to be mortal, he was still a vampire.
     She held the stone out towards him.
     "I would give anything for this to put me out of a job," she joked
half-heartedly, thinking of her failed attempts to cure him of his condition.
If all it took was a wish for him to be mortal again...
     He  smiled faintly, remembering his century-long search for a
supernatural cure.  Now, he put all his faith in science, and in Nat.
     "Let's have a look at my present," he said, as he reached out for the
stone.
     The instant he touched it, Nat felt the stone turn ice-cold in her hand,
as they both lost consciousness.
 
     It was the pounding that woke her up.
     "Nick?"  She moved to his side, and felt her breath catch in her throat.
He looked...angelic.  He was still unconscious, but he was surrounded by a glow
she'd never seen before.  Her head was still being assaulted by a steady
throbbing, but her medical training took over, and she began checking him for
injuries.  She was shocked to see movement in his throat, and gingerly touched
the pulse point.  His pulse was strong and regular, and keeping time with the
pounding in her head.  She jerked her hand away, fighting down panic as she
realized she was hearing his heart beating.
     Nick moaned and struggled to sit up.  She steadied him, easily supporting
his weight.
     "Nat?" he said groggily, "What the hell was that?"  She took a deep
breath, knowing she had to choose her words carefully.
     "I think your wish just came true.  How many fingers do you see?"  She
asked.
     "Two.  My wi-"
     "Un-huh, now follow my finger."  She slowly moved her index finger to the
right, and then to the left, watching his eyes track.  "Good, no concussion.
How do you feel?"
     "Fine, I guess, I-"  he looked at her, realization spreading across his
face.  "I feel alive, Nat!  I feel..." his voice trailed off as he tried to
absorb what had happened.
     "Tired?"  Nat offered.
     "Nah, I feel great, I feel-"
     "Nick," Nat interrupted, "you feel _tired_."
     "Actually, I feel a little tired," Nick admitted.  Nat smiled.
     "You go upstairs and straight to bed.  Doctor's orders."  She helped him
up and steered him towards the stairs.  "I need to go to the lab and pick up a
few things, and then I'll be back to run some tests."  Nick nodded, yawning as
he climbed the staircase.
     She waited until she heard him crawl into bed, then she retrieved the
stone from under the couch.  It turned an inky black in her hand, but it didn't
feel cold any more.  She dropped it in her pocket and picked up the unsigned
card.  She remembered where she'd seen the handwriting before.  She
remembered everything.
 
     "Be very careful what you wish for, gentle listeners, because you just
might get it."  LaCroix smiled as he sensed his visitor's approach.  "Then
again, maybe you won't.".  He casually turned off the mic and slowly swivelled
his chair towards the door of the broadcast booth.  "Well, well, Nic-"  He
froze in mid-sentence.
     Natalie allowed herself a measure of satisfaction.  This time, he was the
one caught off-guard.
     "I came to thank you for the gift," she explained calmly.  "I hope you
don't mind me just dropping by."
     LaCroix recovered quickly, even though everything in him insisted that
Nicholas was there.
     "Gift?  I'm afraid I have no idea what you mean, Ms- ?"
     She dropped the card on the console.
     "It worked like a charm.  I'm sure you wanted to remain anonymous, the
card was unsigned, but I recogized the handwriting from your dinner invitation.
Last February, wasn't it?"
     LaCroix stayed silent.  How could she have remembered that?
     " `Wish true and it shall be'.  And to think we wasted all that time on
synthetic blood and bovine hormones."
     "It could not have worked," LaCroix insisted, "Nicholas is too consumed
with guilt-"  He stopped himself, realizing how much he had revealed.
     "Yes."  Natalie half closed her eyes, the answer pulling together with
exhilirating speed and clarity.  "You knew that Nick couldn't `wish true'
because a part of him doesn't believe he deserves to go back.  You hoped the
disappointment would drive him back to you."  She sighed, shaking her head.
"I'm afraid you missed the most obvious solution, LaCroix.  Someone else made
the wish."  She smiled.
     "You."  LaCroix was out of his chair, towering over her.  "What did you
wish for?"
     "For Nick to be mortal."
     LaCroix stepped back.  He knew very little about how the orb actually
worked, but he understood why his bond with Nicholas insisted that his protege
was in the room.  The part of him that was forever bound to LaCroix, the
vampire, was there.  In Natalie.  He began to smile.  This situation had...
possibilities.
     "A slight miscalculation.  One that can easily be corrected."
     "I wouldn't count on it being easy, LaCroix."
     He laughed.
     "My dearest Natalie, just because you are now one of us doesn't mean you
are in any position to stop me from bringing him across again."
     "I don't have to try.  You can't do it.  That was part of my wish."
     LaCroix struggled to read her through the bond that had been, until that
evening, his link to Nicholas.  He wasn't sure if she was lying.
     "Even if that were true, it really doesn't matter.  Give me the orb."
Natalie stiffened, shaking her head.  He focused his will through the bond.
"Natalie," he chided, "give me the orb, now."
     She reached into her pocket and brought out the stone.  She held it out
to him, her hand trembling.  The moment before she dropped it into his
outstretched palm, Natalie wished.
     She wished that what she had told LaCroix was true, that Nick couldn't be
brought across again; that he could live out his mortal life free from LaCroix'
interference and safe from the wrath of the Enforcers.
     LaCroix caught the orb and dropped it almost immediately, falling to his
knees.  The stone fell from his fingers, and Natalie bent to retrieve it.  It
was even blacker than it had been before, and she knew why.  She looked down
at LaCroix, who was bent double, his breathing ragged.
     "Look at me, Lucien."  Slowly he raised his head to meet her gaze.  "You
will not bring Nick across again.  Do you understand?"  He nodded, and she
could feel his unwilling obedience.  It would do.  She turned to leave, and he
lurched to his feet.
     "The Enforcers," he began.
     She raised one eyebrow.
     "Not that I would tell them, of course, but... if they were to find out?"
     Natalie clenched her hand aroung the stone.
     "They would have to get through me."
     And then he was alone in the booth.  He lowered himself into the chair,
trying to fathom all that she had taken, and began to cry.
 
     Natalie left the coroner's office, still feeling LaCroix' anguish through
the bond.  It was almost enought to make her feel sorry for him.  Almost.
     She knew it ws time to return to the loft and explain the evening's events
to Nick.  She couldn't decide which approach would be the least likely to
send him into a guilt-ridden tail spin.  She sighed.  No matter how gently she
broke it to him, he would take the blame for everything, even though no one
could have predicted that the wish would draw the vampire out of him and into
her.  He would just have to accept that there was nothing they could do to
change it.
     The only way her last wish would come true was if she remained a vampire.
As LaCroix' master she could keep him on a short tether, and with his two
thousand years of power inside of her she would be able to keep the Enforcers
at bay.  It would only be for the next sixty or seventy years, unless Nick
managed to get himself shot his first day back on the job.
     After that...
     Natalie smiled, and lifted herself into the eternal night.
 
THE END.
 
P.S. Yes, Natalie and LaCroix eventually end up together, (once he learns to
behave himself) 'cause I watch too much soap opera.  The sicker the
relationship, the more I like it ;)