Date:         Thu, 16 Dec 1993 21:04:20 -0700
 
 
 
White Christmas
 
A Forever Knight Christmas Vignette
 
by Tara O'Shea
 
 
 
     Nick opened the elevator and stared.
     "What is that." It was a statement, not a question.
     "It's a Christmas tree, Knight.  What's the matter, haven't
you ever seen one before?"
     "Of course I've seen-- Schanke, what is it doing *in my
home*?"
     "I thought it was time to decorate this place."  Nat smiled
cheerfully, opening up the carton of decorations she had carted
over from home.  "It's Christmas."
     "I know it's Christmas, Nat..." He ran to catch a lamp that
Schanke nearly tipped over as he lugged the tree through the
living room.
     "Good thing we brought a stand.  Nick, you got a
screwdriver?"
     "Kitchen drawer."
     "Good, hold this thing."
     "You're getting pine needles all over my floor."
     "Poor baby," Nat stuck her tongue out.  "We figured you'd be
the real tree type.  Those fake ones are so tacky."
     "Hey, Myra loves ours!  We never need to drop fifty bucks
yearly for something that's going to die in a few weeks anyway."
     "So you dropped fifty bucks on my account instead?"
     "Are you kidding?  See, Myra's cousin's kid is working at a
tree lot over his school break--"
     "I get the picture."
     "Smile, Nick."  Nat handed him a red ball with a hook
sticking out of it.  "Start decorating."
                              * * *
     "I can't believe it."  Nat sat back, staring at the tree
with all its lights in the corner, a splash of rich colour in the
customary gloom of the warehouse.
     "I'm not sure I do either."  Nick shook his head.  Schanke
had hurried home to help Myra and Jenny put together and decorate
their own tree, and so it was just the two of them.  He reached
for the remote and Nat grinned as there was suddenly a fire in
the hearth.
     "All we need now is chestnuts.  Are you mad at me?"
     "No.  I just haven't celebrated Christmas in so long... You
took me by surprise."
     "Yeah, well, that's my job.  Mortals do this stuff.  It's
time you got back into the swing of things too.  Do you have any
Christmas movies?  I could make an egg nog flavoured protein
shake."
     "I'll pass on the shake, but I think I have White Christmas
around here someplace."
     Nat bounced off the couch and over to the video cabinet.
She whistled lowly.  "You have every Danny Kaye movie ever made!"
     "I liked Danny Kaye."
                              * * *
Chicago, April 1954
 
     "Oh Nickolah, they're so tiresome!"
     "I'm fascinated by the pictures," Nick grinned, his breath
fogging a bit in the night air on State street.  The marquee on
the theatre proclaimed loudly the Premiere of White Christmas.
     "What on earth is 'vistavision'?"  Janette remarked, annoyed
as the letters over the technicolour Paramount mountain
proclaimed White Christmas the first ever film presented in the
new format.
     "I have no idea.   Don't talk through the film, it's rude."
     Janette glared first at Nick, then the screen, and settled
back for a two hours of musical numbers.
     She hated musicals.
     She hated Bing Crosby.
     She wasn't sure if she hated Danny Kaye yet.
     They exited the theatre with all the other couples and
families onto back onto State, where he hailed a taxi.
     "Why did you subject me to that?"
     "Danny Kaye," he said, as if that explained anything at all.
     "Hmmfhh."  Janette looked at him, trying to figure out what
had come over him.  "It's just a mortal.  Why the sudden zeal?"
     "A kid in one of my classes was raving about him, I guess
the mood is just infectious."
     "You'll miss them when you have to move on."
     "Maybe I won't have to."
     "Nickolah, as limited as mortals are, I'm sure they will
begin to notice that you do not age."
     "Well, that gives me at least a decade, right?  Do you want
to go for a carriage ride?"  He asked as the taxi neared the lit
Water Tower buildings where the horse drawn carriages queued up around
the block.
     "If you like, Nickolah."
                              * * *
     "Nick?"  Nat touched his shoulder.
     "Hmm?"
     "You looked like you were a million miles away."
     "Oh, I was just remembering the first time I saw this
movie."
     "Did it open at Christmas?"
     "Actually, it was April."
     "A Christmas movie that opened in April?  That's the
silliest thing I ever heard."
     "That's Hollywood for you."  He leaned back, his attention
focused on the screen as the "Snow" number started.
                              * * *
Chicago
Christmas eve, 1954
 
     Nick stared up at the marquee, remembering.
     White Christmas, a special holiday presentation in
VistaVision.
     "You haven't kept the holidays, Professor Girard, in
decades."  Janette reminded him, wondering why on earth Nick had
dragged her out into the night streets when they were teaming
with families and shoppers.  "Why start now?"
     It was so noisy, so gaudy, with the cheap lights strung
among the trees.  Nick ignored her, following the crowd as they
ooohed and ahhhed over the decorated windows of Marshall Fields
and Carson's.
     "You should have left the city, after having your picture in
the paper.  Very sloppy, my dear."  Janette was wearing her
customary black, a raven out of place among the green and red of
the season.
     "I was really doing some good, really teaching..."
     "Well, wait a few generations, and you can always start
again."
     "You don't understand."
     "No, I suppose I don't."
     "When I was a little boy, Christmas was a grand affair."  It
began to snow, and while the mortals in their layers of wool and
cotton began to shiver, Nick seemed unaware.  "We sometimes
almost fasted for weeks so that we could have a real feast.
Roasted fowl and meat, in the dead of winter no less, sometimes
even sugar imported from Spain."
     "My."
     "Don't sound so blase, it was very expensive.  But it was
more than that...  Christmas meant something to me then, not just
religious, not just the gifts... It was something more, or maybe
all of it together.  But not any more."
     "Nickolah--"
     "But look at them," he gestured to the children staring at
wonder at the animatronics in the windows, the adults eating hot
pretzels and popcorn from the carts along the wide street.  "They
can still feel something."
     "Obviously the season does something to you, you've become
positively maudlin."  Janette frowned.  "Nickolah, obviously the
loss of your teaching position has depressed you.  Don't take it
so hard, another opportunity will present itself.  You can always
come to my club...."
     "You and your club..."
     "I run an excellent club, everyone who is anyone knows
that."  She pretended indignance, and the continued over
Washington, towards the lake.
                              * * *
     Nick stared at the tree, it's white lights peeking out
between green branches and red balls.  The sun would be down
soon, and he had the day off.  In the past, he had spent
Christmas wandering the city, just watching everyone.  This year,
there were two packages under the tree, and Nat was coming over
to open presents any minute.
     He didn't know quite what he was feeling.
     There were no carollers singing in the streets any longer,
not in his neighbourhood at least.  There hadn't been for many
years, yet he still thought he could hear music if he listened
hard enough.  The smell of woodsmoke from someone nearby made him
think about lighting a fire in his own hearth, but he didn't move
off the couch.
     Maybe Christmas was different this year.  He had friends, an
extended family who cared about him.  Maybe that was what made
this Christmas feel so different from all the past Decembers.  No
looming spectre of dread in the form of Lacroix to jump out of
the shadows, no mocking laughter to drown out the sounds of
church bells and singing.
     He wondered what Janette would do this evening, with her
club emptied by the holiday.  Perhaps the younger vampires like
Alma still celebrated, perhaps they were having a small party
with blood instead of eggnog.  That thought amused him, and he
wondered how Janette would deal with such a thing.
     The intercom buzzed, and he padded over to the monitor.  He
was greeted to a view of Nat and two shopping bags.
     "What's all this?"
     "Dinner for me, and some presents for you.  They got dropped
off at the station."
     "Come on up, I just need to get dressed."
     "You're still in your jammies?"
     "No jokes.  I just woke up."
                              * * *
     "What's this?"  Nick picked up one of the packages Nat had
arranged beneath the tree, "It's heavy."
     "You're just like a kid."  Nat laughed, curling up on the
couch.  "That one's from Niamh."
     Nick laughed as he removed the silver and red paper,
unearthing a tin of very expensive Irish whiskey. "'To replace
the bottle I used to drown my sorrows.  I hope you use it to
toast to joy.'  That girl.... I should call her."
     "She's spending the holidays with friends in London, but she
said she'd be back for New Year's."  Nat handed him the next
package.  "This one's from The Li's.  You remember them..."
     "The family in the station, that we all got held hostage."
     "No, I got held hostage, you played hero.  Very well, may I
add."
     "It's a cook book."  Nick raised a brow.
     "Well, now I know what to get you next year.  A wok."
     "Very funny.  Who's the next one from?"
     "Um... lemme see,"  She pulled another present from under
the tree.  "Lisa Cooper."
     "That crazy munchkin, what did she get me?"  He laughed as
he discovered a box set of paperbacks.  "The Books of Blood, by
Tanya Huff?"
     "Don't look at me, I've never read them."
     "You don't suppose Lisa knows more than she should?"
     "I wouldn't put it past her."
     "We'll have to have a little talk with our favourite moppet
after the holidays.  Who's next?"
     "Schanke."
     "Well, it's too small to be another bottle of Scotch." Nick
shook the box, and Nat laughed.  "Oh no."
     "Oh yes, it's that shape of a box."
     "It's a tie, isn't it."
     "Go on, open it.  Only one way to tell."
     "Maybe we'll save this one for last."
     "Oh no you don't, you have you do these in order."  Nat
removed the card, and Nick undid the paper.  He groaned as he
opened the box.  Nestled inside was a very, very loud tie.
Tropical birds in florescent colours among bright green leaves
against a black background.  It vied with the tree for colour in
his flat.
     "'Worship the Goddess Chroma, and give up all that black.
Love, Don.'" Nat read aloud, a sparkle in her eyes.
     "This is going to live in my drawer for a long, long time."
Nick closed the box to avoid being blinded.
     "Oh I don't know, it's not all that bad."
     "And I thought you had taste."
     Nat collapsed in giggles, and then blinked as Nick presented
her with a large flat present.  "What's this?"
     "Your Christmas present."
     Nat carefully removed the bright coloured paper, and gasped.
"Nick, it's beautiful!"  In rich reds and purples, the sun rose
over the Toronto skyline.  She ran her fingers over the brush
strokes, following the impressionistic swirls of clouds.  "When
did you...?"
     "I've been working on it downstairs in the studio for a
month or so, trying to imagine it, picturing how the clouds would
look, how the sun would look.   And maybe, just maybe, with your
help, someday I'll know again."
     "Hey, not just someday.  Someday soon, I promise.  Now I
feel guilty, because I didn't get you anything as nice."
     "Don't be silly.  It came from you, that's all I care
about."  He picked up the last package.  "It's heavy."
     He unwrapped it and gaped.  "A blender?  You bought me a new
blender?"
     "Well, your old one looks like it's from the 1950s, and I
see a lot of protein shakes in your future, at least until we can
start using it to make real egg nog to go with a real Christmas
dinner."
     "I guess it's the thought that counts."  Nick placed the
blender on the kitchen counter, and Nat began unpacking her
groceries.  "And it's a lovely thought."  he came up behind her
and gave her a surprise hug.
     "What's that for?"
     "Just wishing you a happy Christmas."
 
 
FIN