Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1998 21:20:28 -0500 (EST) From: Susan Bennett Subject: Three Rare Moons (1/2) To: Fan Fiction Three Rare Moons (1/2) by Susan B. Dec.23/98 based on characters from Forever Knight, etc. --------------------------------------------- This is the third of my sequential Nick & Nat Christmas stories. It follows "Winter Wonderland" (Dec/96) and "Countdown" (Dec/97). I think I've included enough background for this to stand on its own, but the previous stories are on Mel's site if you want to read them first :-) --------------------------------------------- Lacroix thoughtfully drank the last sip of warm crimson liquid from his finest crystal piece before gently setting the goblet on the bar. He didn't have to read a clock or peer outside a window to know that the dawn of yet another Christmas Eve would break within the hour. After the strange occurrences of the previous two Christmases, he had planned for this one in advance. Two years ago, he had lost all sense of his son on Christmas day. It wasn't of much concern at the time because their connection was normally rather tenuous. But when the same thing happened the following year, it was painfully abrupt. He went to the loft immediately, but Nicholas was nowhere to be found. Lacroix didn't know what the cause was; but he had no doubt, no doubt at all, that it had something to do with the forever meddling Dr. Lambert. Lacroix briefly looked up towards the ceiling, and then flew with haste from the Raven. At the precise moment that Lacroix took to the sky, Nick arrived home at the loft. His thoughts were focused on Natalie, as they had been for weeks. The fact that he hadn't seen her for the past three days only added fuel to his Christmas fantasies. She had told him she had an incredibly nasty cold and didn't want him over, vowing to stay in bed until Christmas Eve if that's what it took to be well for Christmas day. Nick slipped off his jacket, nudged off his shoes, and headed for the refrigerator. After downing two glasses of cold cow blood, he went upstairs to his bedroom. He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled a Christmas card out of the top drawer of the night table. A snow storm two years ago this night had stranded him and Nat in an unusual house -- a house that allowed him his mortality for one day before it disappeared forever. Heartbroken, they had returned to the car for the trip home and he found this mysterious Christmas card in his overnight bag. The phrase inside read, 'Where there is love there is hope'. Last Christmas Eve, Nat, who had taken possession of the card, searched her apartment for it only to discover it had vanished. Although they recreated their trek north, the magic house never reappeared. When they returned to the loft just before dawn on Christmas morning though, Nick was granted another reprieve. Someone, or more precisely something, had left both a backwards running clock and their card on his coffee table. The words, 'Reflect on this' had been added to the beginning of the message. Nick was soon able to decipher the meaning of the clues -- that mortality would eventually be his. He had hope now, hope that this Christmas would once again give him the opportunity to make love to the woman he loved. A few hours of heaven before returning to his own private hell -- a hell that had only intensified with knowing the intimacy he had lost. Over the centuries he had forgotten what human intimacy was like. He had forgotten how blindingly intense the ecstasy of mortal sexual pleasure was without all the cerebral baggage inherent in sharing blood. After making love to Natalie for the first time, he vowed he would never forget it again. Nick carefully tucked the treasured card beneath his pillow and laid down to sleep. * * * * * * Natalie had been nursing her cold for three full days and still felt horrible. She had given up on either a midnight rendezvous with a mystical house in the woods or a mysterious time shift in Nick's loft. She feared she would be spending this Christmas alone in her own bed, with the worst cold she could ever remember having. "Perhaps three miracles are just one to many to hope for," she mumbled dismally. But even the weakness she was suffering couldn't slow her rising pulse rate when she remembered making love with an exclusively human Nick. In stark contrast to the selfish bloodlust of a vampire, he was a generous and gentle human lover. The sound of his voice alone had left her trembling in its wake too many times to count. His feather caresses, warm seductive lips, and poetic whispers of love in the night had held her frozen in a euphoria unlike anything she had ever before experienced. Nat's pleasant reverie was abruptly broken by yet another violent sneeze. Pulling her pink terry robe more snugly around her chest, she groaned her way up to a sitting position. She reached over to the night table and plucked a tissue from the box. Sydney happened to choose that particular moment to jump up on the bed and startle her. "Hey, Sydney!" Nat exclaimed as she reached out to scratch the cat's fluffy grey ears. His only response was a thunderous purr. As suddenly as he appeared, he jumped off the bed and tore out the door into the living room. Natalie heard his frightened meow a fraction of a second before she heard the footsteps. "Nick... is that you?" she asked in a voice caught somewhere between hope and fear. "Close," Lacroix replied menacingly as he stepped inside her bedroom door. Nat tugged the blankets up around her. "What are you doing here?" she gasped. Lacroix raised an eyebrow and grinned. "I'm conducting an investigation," he replied. "Or perhaps an experiment is a more fitting term." He stealthily approached the bed and added, "Maybe both." Lacroix sat down on the edge of the bed near Natalie's feet and started speaking to her in a slow, steady rhythm. "That won't work on me!" she boldly declared. But the last thing she remembered was Lacroix replying, "Of course not." Safely back at the Raven with a sleeping Natalie tucked away in a small, concrete block room in the basement, Lacroix sat at the bar and reflected on what he had gleaned from his most alluring guest. The discovery that Nicholas had experienced two mortal interludes initially shocked him, but the need to know why and who was responsible were of even greater concern. Natalie's memories hadn't been of any help in that regard. It was her avid, if misguided, belief that "God" was responsible. What really stunned Lacroix was that Natalie believed Nicholas thought the same thing! Most of her memories of his brief periods of mortality involved their exchanging honeyed words of undying devotion interspersed with euphoric bouts of touching, moaning and sweating. "So crude, so mortal, so... nauseating." Lacroix rose to make way to his bed, uncertain whether to be more digusted by the vulnerability of his son's heart, or by his son's physical submissiveness to the mortal woman who held it captive. * * * * * * It was almost seven o'clock and well past dark when Nick finally woke from his sleep. After showering and dressing in black denims and a blue shirt, he retrieved the card from underneath his pillow and tucked it into his shirt pocket. He went downstairs and dialled Nat's number but there was no answer. He then tried her cell phone, only to be greeted by a recording that the customer was unavailable. Believing she must be feeling better and on her way over to the loft, Nick first replenished himself and then settled down to watch television and wait for her. Half an hour later, he tried both numbers again without success. Subsequent telephone calls to Sarah, Grace, and even Myra all brought him the same rhetorical response, "I thought she was spending Christmas with you?" 'So did I,' Nick would say to himself each time. He tried the morgue too, but his only reward was a recording with a number to call in case of emergency. It was at that point that Nick started wondering whether he had said or done something to make her angry. He sifted through all of their recent conversations, but couldn't find anything at all that would have made her angry with him. It was hard to tell sometimes though, simply because a certain level of aloofness between them was requisite to her continued survival. Nick soon banished the idea that she was mad at him. Their Christmases together were just as important to her as they were to him, and she was far too forgiving to let anger come between them for very long. Solacing himself with the belief that he would find Natalie sound asleep in her bed, Nick finally donned his coat and boots and headed over to her apartment. (Cont'd. in 2/2) --------- Susan B. cd397@torfree.net Three Rare Moons (2/2) by Susan B. Dec.23/98 based on characters from Forever Knight, etc. --------------------------------------------- While Nick was on his way to Natalie's apartment, Lacroix rose from his own deep sleep and visited her in the dimly lit basement of the Raven. He ducked under the stairwell and unlocked the heavy steel door to the musty little room where he had left her. She was sitting on the small dilapidated cot when he entered the room. He had expected her expression to reflect more anger than fear, and he wasn't disappointed. Natalie glared at him. "What are you trying to prove by doing this?" she snapped. "Nick *will* find me. He's probably on his way here right now." "Nicholas would not come unless he was sure you were here, Dr. Lambert," Lacroix replied. "He has too much pride to admit to me the loss of such a meaningful part of his... charade of a life." "Charade of a life?" Natalie countered. "That's an interesting phrase, coming as it does from someone who is dead." 'She's doing what she does best,' Lacroix mused, 'annoying me'. "A valid point," he chuckled. "I have no wish to harm you, doctor, but unusual events have been known to occur during this particularly irritating time of year and I'm determined to find out why." He grinned tauntingly at her. "I'm simply removing you from the equation for the duration." When Lacroix moved to take a step towards Natalie, a strange man suddenly appeared between them. He was a foot shorter than Lacroix and dressed in a tattered white robe. He appeared very old and sported matted grey hair that hung well past his shoulders. The skin of his face was wrinkled, and although his features were ordinary, his large blue eyes blazed with the fury of a formidable power. "Who are you?" Lacroix demanded, intimidated by the realization that his inner senses did not warn him of this man's imminent arrival. The stranger smiled. "Someone you will surely never know," he replied. As Lacroix looked into the man's eyes, his growing uneasiness transformed into outright fear. He tried to mutate into a vampiric state, but his efforts were to no avail. "Leave!" he finally demanded, in a tone meant to sound like anger, but sounding very much like fear. "Who *are* you talking to?" Natalie blurted out, both amused and afraid of the sight of Lacroix speaking to thin air. Her statement shook Lacroix. "You don't see him?" "What? A ghost?" Natalie mocked uneasily. Lacroix scowled at her for only an instant before focusing his attention back on the intruder. "She can't see me," the apparition advised him airily. His voice took on a more sombre tone as he continued, "You're interfering in the work of something more powerful than yourself, Lacroix, and I've come to put an end to your interference." Lacroix opened his mouth to speak, but the stranger raised his arm in a halting motion and spoke harshly, "Nicholas does not belong to you," he said, "and that is all you will remember. Sleep now." Natalie watched Lacroix slump forward and drop to the floor with an exceptionally satisfying thud. * * * * * * Nick arrived at Nat's building only to find her car in the parking lot and her apartment empty. The state of her bedroom worried him -- it wasn't like Nat to leave her room in a mess and her bed unmade. He quickly returned to the front door and checked the hall closet. Finding her coat and boots there, he was relieved by the presumption that she was visiting someone in the building. Fighting back a foolish impulse to go down to the lobby and push every button on the entry board, Nick made himself comfortable on her couch. By the time ten o'clock rolled around, his sense of unease had progressed right through worry and into the heart of anxiety. He finally left her apartment and traversed every hallway in the building, but unearthed neither her distinctive heartbeat, nor her unique scent. Praying that the mysterious force who twice before came into their lives was the only thing responsible for her disappearance, he left the building and drove the Caddy back to the loft. Nick couldn't think of another single place to check for Nat. She was supposed to be sick in bed and she wasn't anywhere. Not at the morgue, not at Sarah's, and no one had any idea where she might be. By the time he stepped out of the lift, he had relegated himself to spending Christmas trying to determine what he had done wrong. Nick was heading towards the kitchen when he noticed the sound of his shower running and made a speedy detour upstairs. Just as he entered his bedroom, the sound of water stopped. "Nat!" he shouted at the closed ensuite door. "I'll be out in a sec!" she shouted back. Nick paced the carpet waiting for her. Moments later, she emerged wrapped in a bright yellow bath towel. "Nice colour," she said with a sly grin. "When and how did you get here?" Nick asked. "Your car's still at your place." Nat simultaneously adjusted her towel and shrugged her shoulders. "I just don't know, Nick," she replied. She pointed to a simple wooden chair in the corner of the room. "I woke up sitting over there, but all I can remember is you telling me we were going to the loft. At least I thought it was you. It was more than strange that I was in my pyjamas and robe, but this cold has been playing a real number on my head lately." "It wasn't me, Nat," Nick said. "I've been out looking for you all evening." He reached into his pocket with more than a little trepidation. The disappearance of the card last year was a signal, and with that thought in mind he hoped his pocket would be empty. No such luck. "It's still here, Nat," he remarked as he withdrew the card. But when he opened it, he noticed two new lines had been added. They read the card together, "Reflect on this / Where there is love there is hope / Faith lights the way -- / three rare moons will mark the day." Nick could barely contain his excitement. He literally ran over to a small table next to the sidechair and started rifling through a pile of magazines and papers in search of a calendar. "I know there's one here somewhere," he mumbled under his breath. Nat's emotions ran quite the opposite of Nick's. "What's a *rare* moon, Nick?" she pleaded. "Not a full moon, not a phase. A blue moon? Three of them? Whatever it is, it sounds like an awfully long time." Calendar in hand, Nick returned to her and embraced her. "It can't be too long a time, Nat," he said reassuringly. "We've already been to the future, and we were together there." They sat down on the bed together and Nat started leafing through the pages of the calender. "This one doesn't show the phases of the moon," she said. "Rare moon, blue moon, half moon, full moon, new moon, new day, new month, new year, new life...". She flipped over December, 1999, and stared at the back cover. It depicted a condensed calendar for the following year. "Now there's something so rare," she said, "even you haven't seen it in your lifetime." "What's that?" Nick asked. Natalie was pointing out the year '2000' to him when it finally clicked. "Three rare moons!" she exclaimed. "Three rare circles! That's when you're going to become mortal! Mortal forever!" "And faith will light the way," Nick added enthusiastically. "Though we still have to figure that one out." "And whether or not we'll be able to be together tonight," Nat said. She gazed at Nick and asked, "What if we can't?" Nick responded with a soft kiss on her lips. "It doesn't matter," he said. "One more year and we'll never be apart. You are still my dompna." Natalie blushed. "But our relationship isn't exactly chaste anymore, Nick," she reminded him. "Nonetheless, my soul is in your hands," he replied with a heart melting smile. He leaned over and nuzzled her ear seductively. "I love you on all levels," he whispered, "levels platonic and levels erotic." Natalie was quick to put her hand to his chest. "No talking dirty unless you mean it," she quipped, "especially when I'm dressed... or rather undressed like this." "I do mean it," Nick whispered in her ear, realizing he had just been given another twenty-four hour gift of mortality. As he embraced her, he felt something suddenly jab into his chest. "What's this?" he asked, reaching into his shirt pocket. He pulled out a tiny white box and grinned at Nat, "How did you sneak this in here?" "Where would I hide anything?" Nat asked incredulously, gesturing with her eyes at the towel she wore. Nick chuckled. "Another clue?" "You won't know until you open it." Nick carefully removed the lid. The inside of the box was lined with a white cotton bed that held a necklace. He picked it up by the long gold chain and dangled it in the air. The pendant was a simple gold heart nearly an inch across at its widest point. A raised silver cross adorned both sides of the heart. He studied it for a moment before dropping it into Natalie's waiting hand. She admired the jewellery for a few seconds before deftly slipping it over Nick's head before he had a chance to resist. "Faith lights the way," she said. "You've danced around it for centuries, Nick. I think we're being told that it's time for you to commit." Nick smiled and kissed her. The pendant fell to his chest and he snapped back slightly when it touched his skin. Natalie caressed his cheek. "Does it hurt?" "It burns a bit," Nick replied as he moved his lips towards hers, "but it's a pain I can live with." -- The End -- -------- Susan B. cd397@torfree.net