Date:         Sat, 18 Dec 1993 20:53:27 -0500
 
 
Well, better late than never...but I guess it doesn't matter, since Susan's
Christmas challenge was met anyway.  :-)  Fair warning: I set out in the
direction of unmitigated schmaltz, but somewhere along the way it got
mitigated, taking a bittersweet twist I did not expect...maybe unmitigated
schmaltz just isn't in my repertoire.
 
 
 
 
TO DRIVE THE COLD WINTER AWAY
 
 
by Valerie Meachum
 
 
 
 
"Knight.  Out."  Stonetree stood by Nick's desk, implacable as his name.
 
"Captain, I've--"
 
"Worked the last two Christmas Eves, and Christmas too," the captain
finished for him.  "Out.  Go home.  Take Schanke up on Myra's dinner
invitation.  I don't care.  Just leave those papers where they are, get
yourself out the door, and don't show your face in here again until the
calendar says December 26.  That's an order, Detective."
 
     *     *     *
 
Natalie didn't even look up from her computer at his unexpected entrance.
"Hi, Nick.  What are you doing here?"
 
"I could ask you the same question."
 
"I'm not the one Stonetree has banned from work for the next two days."
 
Mimicking her tone, Nick retorted, "And I'm not the one who's been coughing
and sneezing almost as much as she's been breathing for the past week."
 
Natalie chuckled.  "I guess it is kind of a tossup who's the pot and who's
the kettle, huh?"
 
"My question is," Nick said, leaning over the computer monitor, "can anyone
tell by looking which one of us is dead?"
 
"Oh, thanks a lot!"  Natalie squawked, interrupting herself with a sneeze
and reaching for the near-empty box of Puffs Plus. "Anyway, I can't look
like a vampire.  I already look like Rudolph."  As an afterthought she
added, "And you're not dead."
 
"Didn't think that would get past you," he noted good-naturedly, reaching
across her to tap the function keys that would save her file and exit the
program.
 
"Nick!"
 
Unmoved by the protest, he parked the hard drive and switched off the
computer.  "I'm not allowed to work, so I have to make myself useful
somehow."
 
"By policing my health?" she inquired sharply, but Nick was sure he caught
a smile flickering at the corners of her mouth.
 
"Well, I don't think  much of the job *you're* doing at it." Before she
could object, he added, "Besides, you're not going to let me go home and
and play couch potato in that big loft all by myself on Christmas Eve, are
you?"
 
"Not if I can help it," she agreed with a sigh.  "I guess we could still go
to Schanke's; they should be done with dinner, so you shouldn't have too
hard a time avoiding food."  This last was given pointed emphasis and
accompanied by an impish smile.
 
Picking up her coat and holding it out, he chuckled, "Well, I won't argue
that Myra has nothing on you in that department.  But unless you're really
attached to the idea, I might have a better one."
 
"Okaaayy..."
 
     *     *     *
 
A short while later, Nat was firmly ensconced on Nick's couch, the thick
satin comforter from his bed around her shoulders, the Puffs box in easy
reach, and a mug of lemon tea with a generous dollop of honey in her hands.
 "Nick, this is ridiculous," she told him for the umptieth time,
immediately undermining the statement with a short outburst of coughing.
"Bleah.  'Scuse me."  Now he had punched the remote to ignite the gas
fireplace. "Oh, come on, Nick.  I took my Vicks like a good little girl.  I
do *not* need all this."
 
"Maybe, maybe not.  But you're getting it anyway."  The twinkle of mischief
in his eyes stopped her intended further argument and started her wondering
just what he was up to now.  Snatching up the small box wrapped in gold
paper that she had failed to notice on the coffee table--boy, she was in
rare form tonight!--he said, "And you also get this.  Merry Christmas,
Nat."
 
"But I can't--I mean, your present is at my place."  She did not add that
she hadn't even wrapped it yet.
 
"Well, then, Sidney can guard it for me.  I'm just being impatient."  His
grin did not belong on an adult's face, let alone one that had weathered
eight centuries.  She hadn't reached for the box, and he took her hand and
placed his offering in it, setting her empty mug on the coffee table.  "Go
on, open it."
 
"You'd think immortality might teach a person patience," Natalie sniffed,
picking meticulously at the ribbon and tape until Nick looked ready to
implode.  "Oh, all right, I'll stop torturing you."  Tearing the paper away
in one yank, she opened the box to reveal a delicate gold charm bracelet.
"Wow.  Pretty."  And didn't *that* sound intelligent, she chided herself.
"This is really nice, Nick.  Thank you."
 
She opened the little latch and moved to put it on, but Nick took it and
did it for her, kneeling by the couch and not relinquishing her hand.  "It
does need explaining," he told her, turning the slender chain around her
wrist until he found a tiny grinning comedy mask.  "This, because you
taught me how to laugh again when I had forgotten."  His voice was very
quiet with a near-imperceptible tremor, and with a shock Nat realised it
sounded as if he were about to cry.  She had never found out whether he
could...
 
"So where's the tragedy to go with it?" she inquired lightly.
 
He answered with the most absolute seriousness she had ever heard.  "You've
had enough of those.  I won't willingly bring you any more."  Turning to
the next charm, a miniature skeleton key, he explained, "I've given you the
key to my home, my secrets, my life...as I was always too afraid to do with
any other human soul.  And I'll never regret it.  In your hands it becomes
the key to unlock my prison."
 
"Nick..."  She found nothing at all to say, eyes fixed on the bits of gold
that carried such charged meanings.
 
Next in line was an old-fashioned soda fountain glass, complete with straw.
 "The milkshake's pretty self-explanatory."
 
"And very cute."
 
A pirate's treasure chest.  "Because I can't begin to tell you how precious
you are to me."
 
She didn't even attempt to answer that.
 
An exquisite little cross, which he held gingerly but without apparent
pain.  "Did you know I hadn't opened that box in a long, long time before I
showed the cross to you?  You gave that back to me too."
 
Somehow Natalie found her voice.  "No.  You won that battle yourself."
 
"Maybe.  But not until I went into it carrying your favour."  An anchor.
"Hope.  I had to relearn this too, from a crazy young woman who reached out
in wonder when she should have run away in fear."
 
Oh, rats, now *she* was going to cry.
 
The last charm was a sun with miniscule wavy rays like the one that hung on
his kitchen wall.  "This is where I believe you will lead me.  This is the
light you brought into my world, the brightest I had seen in 560 years--and
even then I caught only a flicker."
 
Some analytical part of Natalie's mind never went off-duty, and
near-automatic subtraction supplied her with 1430.  He couldn't mean Joan,
that was ludicrous!  That couldn't be the comparison he was making.
 
"I wasn't ready for what she tried to teach me."  His voice was faltering
again.  "And she had no time to make me see it; she had to go fight for her
people."  Nick clasped her hand tightly in both his own.  "I never expected
you to come along and fight for *me*.  And I can't understand why you have
also been paid in pain."
 
"Nick, you're not making any sense."
 
He swallowed hard.  "This past year has been so cruel to you; sometimes I
wanted so much to just wrap you up in silk and hide you away where nothing
could ever hurt you again.  But I can't do that, and the world keeps taking
pieces out of you."
 
"Nick, I owe you my life several times over," she reminded him. "What more
could I possibly ask?"
 
He shook his head.  "I don't know; you never do.  Just answer me this, Nat:
 when was the last time you really felt safe?"
 
As soon as the question was asked, she knew she didn't have an answer; but
she hesitated anyway.  Finally she said, "This isn't a safe world, Nick.
You should know that better than anyone."
 
"Yes, I do.  I also know that I've made it a more dangerous one for you."
 
"Oh, come on, Nick!" she objected sharply.  "It is *not* your fault that
Laura Neal ran me off the road, or that I picked the wrong wacko to date or
the wrong time to show up at the precinct..."
 
"And who put you in the line of Chinese Mafia fire?"  he interrupted.  "Who
provided a temptation no one should face, and made you lose Richard twice?"
 He looked away for a second, then met her eyes again.  "And who threatened
you that night at the Raven, when you came to help?"
 
"Nick, that--"
 
"Oh, I know, I know.  I acknowledged.  I apologized.  You forgave me before
I even asked; but that doesn't undo what's already done.  I saw the bruises
you tried to hide from me, Nat."  He turned her hand over, traced on the
inside of her wrist the marks she had worn a few months before from his
crushing grip.  "But I didn't have to see them.  I knew I hurt you, because
I *intended* to."
 
Nat shook her head, insisting, "That doesn't matter now."
"Yes, it does.  No, hear me out," he requested when she drew breath to
disagree.  "I knew you would argue this, but it isn't the point.  The point
is, peace on earth and good will toward men are out of my league.  But if
you'll accept it, for this evening I can manage peace within these walls
and nothing but good will toward you."
 
There was silence for a long moment, broken by a brain-rattling sneeze that
set them both laughing, which in turn prompted another spurt of coughs.
"Well, if you think you can manage the peace part with *that* going on,"
Natalie quipped when she had regained her breath.
 
"Well, Doctor," Nick returned, making sure the comforter was wrapped
securely around her, "my recommendation is that the patient sit back, enjoy
the movie, and allow herself to be waited on hand and foot, starting with a
fresh cup of tea."
 
"Okay, okay, you win," she chuckled.  "So what's playing?  I assume we're
not raiding the Universal classic monsters vault tonight."
 
A brief discussion, and they settled on the original _Miracle on 34th
Street_, with the "patient" noting, "Every time this movie came around when
I was a kid, Mom always said *her* Natalie was cuter.  Funny, since Dad
said that's kind of where they got my name in the first place.  According
to him, they were just starting to discuss names when _West Side Story_
came out, and they both thought the movie was much too sad but the star had
a pretty name."  Nodding toward the child on the screen, she added, "Of
course, she was a little taller in that."
 
Nick must have caught the slight catch in her voice, for he told her,
"You're not required to stop missing them, Nat, no matter how many years go
by.  Believe me, I know."
 
"Yeah."
 
While Nick fiddled in the kitchen at the mostly unfamiliar task of making
tea, Natalie followed "doctor's orders" and settled into the most
comfortable spot on the couch and the ever-magical tale of a Kris Kringle
who was real in all the ways that mattered, real enough to make a
precociously serious, skeptical little girl believe in miracles.
 
She had to admit she was glad now that she had failed to make Nick stop
babying her; the morgue's typical coolness hadn't been particularly welcome
this frigid week, but now she felt properly thawed out for a change.  Okay,
maybe she could let go of the restless drive to *do* things and let Nick
spoil her to his heart's content, at least for a little while.
 
She'd found this very sweet notion of creating a pocket of security amusing
at first, a gift she didn't really need.  Now that it was taking shape
around her, though, it was clear that Nick was right: she couldn't recall
the last time the demons of the world had seemed so far away, the last time
she'd sat down to relax without feeling she ought to be doing something
else.  As Nick said, the last time she'd really felt safe.
 
When he returned, she accepted the refill gratefully.  "I have to warn you,
this is going to make your Christmas present from me look pretty wimpy.
Just one more thing to make it complete."
 
"What's that?" he asked, looking around the room to see what gap might have
been left.
 
"Hey, I can't sit still if I don't give you *something*!  A hug will do for
now."
 
He grinned.  "I'll accept that.  But don't you *dare* get up."
 
"Okay, okay."  Expecting the usual fleeting contact before he put her back
at arm's length, she was surprised to find herself held almost as tightly
as when the Roger nightmare had ended, when he had been so terrified he
would arrive too late and so nearly right.  Cool fingers twined in her
hair, and it occurred to her that Nick had used the quilt and the tea and th
e cheery fire to wrap her in a warmth he could not himself supply.  But
someday, she swore to herself anew, he would have it again.  "Um, Nick, I
*really* hate to do this," she said a moment later, "but you'd better let
go because I'm going to sneeze again."
 
"And we're missing the movie," he added, handing her a tissue and holding
her tea until she finished.
 
     *     *     *
 
Having been informed that he was an excellent backrest and thus remained
where he was, Nick steeled himself for a string of artfully barbed comments
when the elevator door slid aside to reveal Janette, her usual elegant
appearance topped off with a sprig of mistletoe perched jauntily in her
upswept hair.  He was about to say something, but she put a gloved finger
to lips pursed in silent amusement and nodded toward Natalie.
 
Absorbed in the film, he had no idea when she had fallen asleep. And she
wasn't just dozing; she was worry-be-damned, visions-of-sugarplums,
all-but-dead-weight *out*.  He answered Janette's expression with a grin of
his own, shrugging and then pointing to the TV remote in a wordless request
to shut it off.  While she did so, he carefully shifted Nat's head from his
shoulder and settled her on the couch, glad she had at least chosen to wear
comfortable sweats to the near-deserted coroner's office today.
 
Janette followed him upstairs so their conversation would not disturb her,
saying as soon as the door was shut, "And I expected you to be all alone,
moping as usual."  Wrinkling her nose, she added, "She smells of medicine.
Does she doctor the living too?"
 
"Just me, usually."  It was lightly spoken, but he knew she sensed his
thoughts too well to miss the implicit dare to tell him he was not included
among the living.  "She has a cold, and she's been working too hard as
usual.  I guess it caught up with her."
 
"Hm.  I would have thought she was made of sterner stuff."
 
"I wouldn't advise you to test that," Nick returned.
 
Clucking her tongue, Janette chided, "When will you run out of pedestals,
_mon amour_?  She's only a human woman--and a foolhardy, stubborn,
unpredictable one at that."
 
Something in her tone, or perhaps in the mind behind it, got Nick's
attention.  "You really respect her, don't you?"
 
That earned a glare, and she seemed about to snap at him, then changed her
mind.  "I didn't come here to argue with you, Nicholas.  It's Christmas,
and the *idea* was good cheer.  But it would do you both an injustice to
expect things of her that she cannot give, cannot be.  I don't like seeing
you repeat your mistakes."
 
"I'm not going to," he assured her positively.  "Not that one. Not ever again."
 
She gave him a long, measuring look.  "No, perhaps not."  Then her teasing
manner returned, and she gave him a melodramatic pout, conspicuously
adjusting the mistletoe in her hair.  "Why is she here, anyway?  Shouldn't
she be spending Christmas with her family like a normal mortal?"
 
"They don't all have that option, Janette," he reminded her quietly.  "She
used to do Christmas with her brother.  This year his wife went to her
parents' in Windsor; Nat was invited but she said she felt like an
interloper."
 
The pout deepened.  "Isn't she?"
 
"Come on, Janette, was I supposed to let her barricade herself in her damn
lab?" he asked, exasperated.  "I didn't even know you were going to come
over!"
 
"Was I supposed to let you barricade yourself in your precious concrete
box?" Janette shot back.  "And by the way, Nicky, must I remind you it's
bad luck to defy tradition concerning things like mistletoe?"
 
For a moment Nick just stared at her.  Finally they both laughed, and he
told her, "It's a good thing we can't get whiplash, because the way you
change subjects I'd be in serious trouble." Pulling her close to fulfil the
request, he added, "But it's worth it to hear you laugh."
 
"Worth looking like a fool?  But you do it so well..."
 
Seven hundred sixty-five years, and she had lost not an ounce of her power
to make his head spin.  In these moments, he could not deny that truth: a
part of him would always belong to her, would answer her call even
if--when!--he found his miracle and left the darkness behind forever.  He
wasn't sure whether or not he hoped she knew that.
 
At last breaking the kiss, she slanted coquette's eyes up at him, and as
ever he wished that he could erase the sorrow she could never entirely mask
in their blue depths.  "Well, obviously I had no need to worry about you,
so I think I will seek out a more festive atmosphere.  Joyeux Noel,
Nicholas."
 
"Janette, wait."  She stopped at the door and turned to face him, but he
wasn't sure what he wanted to say.  "I didn't mean to...if you want I
can..."
 
She smiled, shaking her head.  "No.  I understand what you have tried to do
here, the illusion you have created.  There was a time when you gave such
gifts to me.  It's a little magic, I think; don't break it by leaving her
alone.  There's too little magic in the world already."
 
And then she was gone, leaving Nick completely at a loss.  Would she never
cease to surprise him?  "Probably not," he answered himself.  He did not
delude himself that it was ever likely to happen again; Janette, too, had
given a Christmas gift tonight, one he knew had cost much more than his.
He would have to find a way to let her know it was appreciated, without
offending her by actually mentioning it.  Briefly he wondered if he'd ever
fathom *that* particular quirk...
 
Soundlessly he padded downstairs, toward the refrigerator and the meal he
had put off until Natalie could not observe it.  It wouldn't have been the
first time she'd seen him drink his dinner, but tonight he had avoided the
graphic reminder of what he was.
 
Nick glanced at her as he passed the couch, then stopped short. She hadn't
moved an inch, still sound asleep as any carefree child, and covered snugly
by the comforter exactly as he had left her.
 
But tucked into her wayward curls was a little sprig of mistletoe.  "Oh,
Janette," he murmured, too softly for Nat to hear even if she had been
awake.
 
     *     *     *
Halfway across town, Janette sat in her darkened office at the Raven,
staring at the untouched glass before her, the atmosphere anything but
festive.  She did not have to actively reach out to touch Nick's mind when
a rush of tenderness flooded from him, spilling along their bond to fill a
little of the empty space inside her.  It did not matter, she tried to tell
herself, that it welled up for another, evoked by the innocence that he so
treasured and that she had lost long before his birth.  This was what made
him Nicholas, what made her incapable of counting any debt against him,
what he alone of all their kind had kept alive inside him no matter how the
shadows sought to smother it.  It was enough, she tried to tell herself, to
drink of the warm overflow; there was no need to envy Natalie her place as
its focus.  It was only because he couldn't truly protect the frail mortal
woman, not from illness or tragedy or time; while she herself needed no
such protection.
 
She wasn't fooling herself for an instant, but she would face the sun
before admitting it.  "*Soyez heureux*, Nicholas," she said to the air,
raising her glass.  "Be happy."  Downing the wine-laced blood in a few
gulps, she did not seek Nick's thoughts more closely, unaware that her
assumption was quite mistaken.
 
That her wish was granted.