Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 05:19:29 -0600
From: The Other Immortal 
Subject: "Endgame" 1/1

        I think I've figured out why I wrote this story, "Endgame", and its
prequel, "Who Wants to Live Forever?".  It came to me while I was scribbling
out the ink-text in my chicken-scratch writing:  I don't believe in villians.
        Yeah, yeah, yeah, LaCroix is considered a villian.  But is he?  If
he were, why would Nick tolerate him so much?  Why would he have 
brought Janette across?  If he's so incorrigibly evil, why does he love his 
children enough to (I think) die for them if it came to it?  This is how my 
mind works.  Not many get this view inside.
        Yes, there are evil beings.  Hitler, Stalin, others like them.  I
dislike them, I pity them, I am disgusted by their lack of humanity.  But
hate them?  No.  Pity doesn't come with hate.
        LaCroix is not among Hitler and Stalin and Mengele.  LaCroix stands
alone.  Like the eagle, the falcon, he flies of his own accord, goes where
he wants, has his reasons for everything.  And simply for that strength and
courage, he is not a villian.
        I've ranted enough for now.  On with the story...


"Endgame", 1/1, a sequel to "Who Wants to Live Forever?"
Susan Schaefer
copyright 1996 S. Schaefer
Insert usual disclaimers here.


        "Queen takes king.  Checkmate."  With a shaking hand Natalie moved
the ivory-colored piece.  She lay back on her well-pressed pillow, strained
to breathe.
        LaCroix looked on with the sympathy one gives an old friend, cleared
away the chess board.  "Excellent, my dear.  I have known very few who could
beat me at chess, especially more than once."
        She managed a weak smile.  "I doubt too many lived long enough to
beat you twice."
        A sigh.  "You're probably right.  Then again, most of my opponents
never married my son."  With that, the look of fond memories flooded over
Nat's tired face.
        "Yeah."  A fit of bloody coughing overtook her.  Ignoring the blood
as best he could, LaCroix moved to press the call button by Nat's bed.  "No,
don't bother," she wheezed.  "I'll be fine."
        He took her trembling hand.  "May I remind you that you will not, as
you so often remind *me*."
        She looked away from him.  "Yes, I will.  I'll get to be with Nick
again soon."

        It was a fluke.
        In an age when finding cancers, especially breast, was second nature
to doctors, somehow this one had slipped through.  Before anyone realized
what was happening, Natalie's tumor grew, metastasized, and spread.  She 
was given six months to live.
        That was eight months ago.  The extra time had given her doctors
hope.  Then they found the tumor in her lung.
        As always since Nick's death so long ago, Lucien had stayed with
her, reading aloud in his cool, velvet voice, or playing chess, or simple
being there.  Always there came a reminder of his offer at Nick's grave; 
he never spoke about it, but she read it in his eyes.
        _"Natalie, what you ask is not unreasonable.  I can give you what
you wish."
        "Which is?"
        "Death."_
        Somehow the offer had given her strength to go on.
        But once again, as she lay in the bleak hospital bed, she considered it.
        This time more seriously.

        The night after Natalie's victory, when Lucien returned, he was
shocked to discover that Nat had checked herself out.
        "How could you let her do that?" he shrieked at the nurse on duty.
        "I-- I wasn't here, sir.  She left before my shift.  I can find out
where--"
        "Never mind."  LaCroix considered finding the idiot who had let her
go, tear his throat out, but decided against it.  He stormed out, eyes
golden around the edges.  A small female lab tech bumped into him; one glare
caused the young woman to drop her specimen tray.
        Luckily for her, it was empty at the time.

        "I thought I'd find you here."
        Nat looked weakly up from the grave.  Lucien stood there, hands in
his coat pockets.  "That was a very stupid thing you did.  What if you'd
started hemhorhaging again?"
        She shrugged.  "What's the point?"
        A small growl rose in Lucien's throat.  "The point is that you  may
still--" he stopped.  There was no point in deluding himself any more.
        "I may still what?"
        "Nothing."  He checked quickly for mud, sat down next to her.
"You're risking your life here."
        "What, a few days?  You should know that better than me, Lucien."
She coughed.  Mucousy blood dribbled from her lip.  She wiped it with her
hand.  "Want it?" she smiled faintly, holding out her bloody hand.
        LaCroix got the joke.  "Maybe later."  He didn't laugh.
        "Oh."  Nat dragged the blood off on the dead winter grass.
        They were both quiet for a long time.
        "You know why I left, don't you?"
        He had an idea why, but, "Tell me anyway."  He might never hear 
her again.
        A glance.  Nat saw, beneath a mask of composure, the pain Lucien
felt.  It wasn't the fire that Nick had always had, angst that burned but
did little damage.  Instead it was a dull ache, a vague sadness which 
chewed away at his unique self.
        In essence, a cancer of the soul.
        "I left," she began, "for the same reason you would: I couldn't let
myself be a slave to the cancer anymore."  Blink. "It was just too much.
Demerol, all the machines, all the tests.  Being a freak just because I was
dying."
        He took her hand, stroked it gently.  "Why did you wait until today?"
        "Med students.  They came in to see someone dying.  Mostly oncology,
a few path."  She coughed again, not as loudly as before, but hollowly.
        _A day,_  he thought, _maybe less._
        Nat continued.  "They came in.  I hoped they would be more
respectful.  At first they were, if cold.  When they started talking like I
wasn't there and giving 'projections on the patient's lifespan', I knew I
had to leave."  She looked into her friend's eyes.  "I'm glad you came."
        He nodded.  "As am I."  LaCroix took Natalie in his arms, hugged
her.  It seemed hours before they let go.
        She touched his face.  "You're crying."  Lucien reached up, took a
drop of the red stuff.  He rubbed it between  his fingers.
        "So I am," he whispered.  "So I am."
        Natalie reached for her scarf, pulled it off, revealing her bare
neck.  "If your offer's still good, I'm ready."
        They simple stared at each other for a minute.  Nat was growing
weaker by the second.  Lucien nodded, took her again in his arms.
        Not yet, though,  He couldn't do it yet.
        He cupped her chin in his hand, gingerly, as if she would shatter
like a glass doll.  Slowly, gently, softly, he pressed his lips against
hers.  "I love you," he whispered.
        "I love you too."
        Minutes later he lay her body on the grave.  Tears still glittered
on her face.  Not all were hers.

        Lucien arranged for an early morning funeral, just after sunrise.
There were a few mourners:  Grace, Tracy, people he recognized but did 
not know.  He watched for only a few minutes, well-shrouded and shaded 
by a mausoleum.  _Goodbye, my child._  No one ever knew he'd been there.
        The official cause of death came out as "unknown complications of
terminal cancer leading to exsanguination (?)".  Lucien kept the small
obituary, one of only two.
        The other was Nick's.
        LaCroix visited the double grave once more before leaving Toronto
for good.  He left 13 roses, 12 red and one white.
        He'd insisted on the white one.


Cousin "Susan" Phoenix
phoenix@ionet.net
***MSTie Mad Scientist Somewhat-Extraordinaire***
"Great spirits have always received violent opposition from mediocre minds."
~~~Albert Einstein
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geocities.com/zoewolfson

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