Disclaimer:  Nick, Janette and anyone else mentioned by name belong
to TPTB, not me.  I'm making no money from this, although I'm quickly 
learning that feedback can be addictive.

Background:  This takes place after Last Knight.  Nick's alive.  
Natalie's not.  My apologies to any Natpackers out there.


Together Through the Night
by Time Jordan

She was waiting for him in the loft, seated at the piano, 
wineglass in hand, when he returned.  He froze momentarily when he 
saw her, then continued into the loft and tossed his coat casually 
aside.  She watched him in silence, turning on the bench to keep 
him in her sight as he walked over to the refrigerator and filled a glass 
similar to the one she held.  What she saw frightened her.  The blue 
eyes in which she had once been able to lose herself were dull and 
numb.  She could sense no emotion from him, not even grief.  It was 
as if he was trying to claim the calm oblivion of death while still 
alive.

"Welcome back," he said finally, turning to face her.  "Here to 
gloat?"

"Gloat at your pain?  Is that what you think of me, Nicolas?"

"I would deserve it," he replied flatly.  "I owe you an apology, 
Janette.  I was wrong to save you when you asked me not to."

"I thought the same when you first did it.  I came close 
to hating you then.  Now I am no longer sure.  Sometimes I even 
think that you were right to do what you did.  Pain passes, 
Nicolas."

"Is that why you're here?  To utter platitudes?"

"That, among other things."  She paused and took a drink from her 
glass.  "Lacroix told me what happened.  I'm sorry about Natalie."

"It's my fault.  I betrayed her."

"You did not betray her, cheri.  It was a mutual decision.  She 
knew the risk of what she asked."

"She had faith that we would be together.  I betrayed that faith."

"You are together.  You carry her memory.  You would not even have 
that if you were also dead.  Together in nothingness is not 
together at all."  She paused again.  "You should not hate Lacroix 
for refusing to kill you.  He could no more do that than you could 
stand by and watch me die."

"I don't hate him.  It's myself I hate.  Not only did I kill 
Natalie, but I don't even have the strength to join her."
  
"Is that what you want, Nicolas?  To join her?  Do you care about 
her so much, and about us so little?"

"It's not like that, Janette," he began.  She didn't allow him to finish.  
She stood to face him, and let the full force of her rage hit him.

"How could you?  How could you dare!  To ask that of him?  To bring 
me back across and then abandon me in the darkness?  You were never 
so cruel before, Nicolas.  You loved me too much to let me die.  
Did you really think that I felt differently about you?  That somehow the 
strength of my love was less than yours?  Do you think you are the 
only one in this universe who feels pain, or grief?"

He stood stunned for a moment, then his own anger began to mount.

"How could you possibly understand?  You didn't spend a century
seeking mortality!"  

Somewhere beneath her own anger, Janette rejoiced at getting a 
reaction from him.

"This isn't about your search for mortality, Nicolas.  It's about 
you being too wrapped up in your own little world to even consider
the impact of your actions on others.  Your request tore Lacroix 
apart. And me.  How could you do that to me, Nicolas?  You asked
me to go on living, then refused to do the same yourself!  I chose
to go on living for you.  How could you think of leaving me alone?"  
Her voice broke on the last sentence.  Nick looked at her in silence 
for a moment.

"You left," he said at last in a hoarse voice.  "I didn't think you 
would ever come back.  The portrait...I thought it was good-bye.  I 
didn't think you would ever forgive me.  I saved you, and in doing 
so I betrayed you.  I betrayed both of you.  How can you forgive me?"
 
"How is it," she asked quietly, "that you forgive me for all of the 
centuries you suffered?"

"That wasn't your fault.  You didn't bring me across.  Lacroix did."
 
"And would you have agreed if I had not first lured you away, and 
promised myself to you?"

"It was still my decision."

"Have you considered that this was also my decision?  It took me a 
long time to admit it, but it was my decision.  There is always a 
choice.  You remember."

"You chose to come back across?"

She shrugged.  "When I was faced with it, I found that I still did
not consider death to be a true choice.  It's not a sign of 
weakness that you reject that choice, Nicolas.  It takes more 
strength to go on living than it does to die.  Another platitude,
but there's truth to it." 

"How did you cope with the grief?"

"I savoured my memories of him...and I had you.  Robert was very 
like you, that's what drew me to him.  Except that he was dead and 
you were alive.  Every night I awoke in anger, and every day before 
I slept I would reach out to feel your presence.  The bond between
us is stronger now.  You must feel it."

"I do," he said quietly.  He had felt the strength of their bond, but hadn't 
dared to test it before, believing that such an action could only lead to 
rejection.  He reached out tentatively now, and felt comfort and 
understanding wash over him, and beneath that, love.  He realized for 
the first time just how much he had dreaded facing her again, having to
 look her in the eye and face her anger, her hatred.  He had been made 
clearly, intimately aware in those moments when she lay dying in his 
arms that life as a vampire was infinitely better than death as a mortal, 
and he had ignored that revelation, choosing to continue to seek mortality 
because he did not think he could stand to lose both of them, and he saw 
no point in living forever without her.  

"Janette..."  The tears in his eyes were matched by the tears in her
own.  She took a hesitant step forward, and then another.  His arms
encircled her and she laid her head against his shoulder.

"My love, I've missed you so much," she whispered.  Then the
tears fell from both of them as they wept for those who had been 
lost, and for what had been rediscovered.

end part 01/01


************************************
Time Jordan 
Dark Knightie/Immortal Beloved/Ravenette

    Source: geocities.com/timejordan/Fanfiction

               ( geocities.com/timejordan)