This is my first post, but not my first FK story, so bear with me. This was written a while ago, way before _The Human Factor_, so I'm not to blame that this contradicts everything that the writers said about Janette.

This is also a result of studying way too much James Joyce in school, and as a homage to Janette. She has an epiphany at the end, ergo the title, but sorry, it's a bit depressing. Blame the muse, not the bard, please...

Epiphany

by: Carla I. Bandeira

She found it between the pages of an old book of fairy tales.

She had thought that she had put everything that had to do with him in a box in the basement of her new townhouse when she had first moved in. Somehow, she must have missed this one.

Janette gently cupped to dried, pressed rose in her hands, its formerly radiant scarlet color faded almost to black. *Like whatever remnant might be left of our love.* She thought bitterly, but her sadness wore away the edge on any possible bitterness. Janette could remember, with vampire accuracy, the day that Nicholas had given her the rose...

It was early, one of the first few centuries of their existence together, and they were passing through the French countryside, feeding, hunting, and absorbing the local culture. She had become enamored by the folklore of these people, one story in particular-- the tale of the beauty who fell in love with the beast. And at every town that she came to, she would implore a local to tell her the tale, usually a child or an elder, and in payment for telling the story, she would let him or her live. Besides, in the midst of winter, her hunger for knowledge was usually much stronger than that for the weak blood of the old, tiny, or sick, and Nicholas would help her find food, after all, when the story was finished. Oh, Nicholas was so chivalric in his actions back then, so impromptu, so happy. And he would do anything to make her happy Like that one night, in the dead of winter...

"I'm off to hunt... would you like to come with me, Janette, _mon amour_?"

Janette barely looked up from the tapestry that she was working on by the firelight. "Not tonight, Nicholah. I had a mortal promise me that she would come and tell me the legend of the river ghost. Enjoy yourself for me, though." Her tapestry of a rose garden and a unicorn was coming along with vampire speed and efficiency.

Nicholas kissed her on the cheek without disturbing her work. "Would you like me to bring you something? Some jewelery, a new dress, perhaps?"

Janette smiled devilishly. "All I want is a red rose."

"It's the middle of winter, Janette, and you expect me to find you a rose?"

"I'm sure you'll be able to find something, if you love me." She pouted slightly.

He swung her around with a laugh. "You, _mon amour_, have been spending too much time listening to those stories. I'll see you after the hunt." He took off into the night, leaving Janette waiting by the fire.

He had returned, so close to dawn, with one of the most beautiful scarlet roses she had ever seen. True, it was a bit small, and imperfect, but in her eyes, it had no flaws. Nicholas must have run all over the entire continent in search of it, in the snow, and he simply handed her the rose with a shy sort-of smile that made him look like an innocent mortal again.

That day, she pressed the rose between the pages of the blank book which she was steadily filling with the stories that she had been collecting. And on cold mornings, on moonless nights after he had left them in search of his own destruction, she would stare at the rose and murmur long-forgotten prayers for his safety. And later, when he would visit her at the Raven and look at her with cold eyes that would see her as a monster in a demon world from which he was trying to escape, its petals would be blurred by scarlet tears that marred her unfeeling facade.

Oh, he had hurt her... once too many times. That, in part, was why she had left, why she had left, why she had tried to begin a new life with him only as a specter of the past. She didn't need to be reminded, day after day, that she was no longer a part of his world. Janette could see it in his features, hear it in his vampiric heartbeat-- Nicholas was closer to mortality than he had ever been before, only he didn't recognize it, and LaCroix was in denial about it. And though he had come running to her every time mortality had tempted his vampire needs to surface, she felt his repulsion at his actions every time.

Frighteningly enough, sometimes she could see the world, and herself, though his eyes. In those few times , guilt began to weigh down upon her like a mountain of lead and she had to force her way out from under it with all of her strength to return to her world sans morals. That, too, was hand in her leaving, her fear of being trapped under that mountain at one time or another, with no way out. She would _not_ become like Nicholas.

Janette flipped through the pages of the book, her own handwriting, smooth and elegant, staring back at her across the centuries. She came upon the one story of the beauty and the beast and read it over... she had all day, after all. And somehow, as she read it, Janette discovered that somewhere along the way it had become more than just a fairy story. Ruby tear running down her cheek, she understood.

Nicholas would never come back to her, despite her hopes, fantasies, or LaCroix's incessant attempts to gain back his strayed child. No, she and LaCroix were only enchanters to him, sorcerers who had turned him into a beast. And that damned doctor of his was his beauty, his one chance at a cure. Janette had no positive place in this story... She stood and walked over to the mirror-- this was one of the few times that her reflection had come up clearly, and she shied away for a moment, before forcing herself to turn back. In the mirror, she could see herself for what she turly was, let her self-assured facade crack to let the real Janette DuCharme shine through. And there she could feel the revulsion, could see the faces of the millions, more, that she had killed in her Godless existence. Nicholas had been her only happiness, her only light, her only good thing, and now even he was disappearing. Suddenly, eternity seemed like a very long time.

Janette knew what she had to do. She mentally summoned her newest vampire employees, Anne and Michael, from their positions entertaining her customers at the bar, and began to give them her orders, and make preparations. They weren't Alma or Miklos, but it seemed that the newest incarnation of the Raven, London branch, would be in good hands. Besides, with what she was planning to do, she wouldn't be in much position to care.

The package sat on Nick's coffee table, and he and Natalie stared at it for what seemed ages. Natalie tried to smile. "Who's it from?" she asked, though she knew all too well what the answer was.

Nick's voice was a carefully balanced monotone. "Janette." He moved slowly to open it and stared incomprehendingly at the ancient, leather-bound book before him. "She sent me her book?"

Janette resolutely clutched at the doorknob that led from the Raven to an alley behind the building. There was no turning back now. She turned the knob slowly and, with a swish of red silk, stepped into the sunlight outside. Just before the sunlight consumed her, she caught a glimpse of the dried rose in her hand, engulfed in flames.

Nick blinked-- he could feel Janette's pain as acutely as if it had been his own, and then... nothing. "She's gone," He whispered, as if he could not believe his own words. "Janette's dead."

Natalie worriedly tried to support him. "Nick, are you sure?"

He nodded and opened the book unconciously. As he did, a piece of paper fluttered out and he caught it before it hit the floor. On it, in fresh ink, were three words-- *Je comprends, Nicholas.*

Natalie turned the book around to see what was written within it and was able to decipher, with what little French she knew, what was on the page that the paper was marking. "`Beauty and the Beast?' She sent you a book of fairy tales? But why?"

"I think," Nick said, trying to hold on as tight as he could to the final vestiges of the bond he and Janette shared, "she finally understood what I was looking for."

"And what was that?" Natalie knew that she was prying, but curiosity got the best of her.

"A happily ever after."

C. Isabel Bandeira, N&N Packer... LIVE LONG AND PROSPER, FOREVER KNIGHT!!!!

E-mail, comments, whining, virtual vampires, and all good things can be sent to me at cib7088@megahertz.njit.edu