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It had been a very long night, lots of annoying drunken dungeon bunnies who refused to leave at closing. A tiring miserable endless shift, every customer seemingly looking for a fight. The staff had had their hands full, and even Janette was tempted to throw them all out and close early. “We can’t even blame it on the full moon,” she sighed in exasperation. On nights like this, her biggest concern was police intervention.
By the time Vachon dropped her off at home, Maura wanted nothing more than to fall into Nick’s arms and from there into a good long sleep. She might even let him carry her upstairs, the way he sometimes threatened to when she was terribly tired (or he was shamelessly horny). The fact was she was getting better at accepting Nick’s “silly romantic shit”, the sweet gestures and small indulgences that she’d all her life thought of as foolish or slightly suspect.
“You don’t have to make anything up to me for my lousy life,” she’d told him over and over until one night he’d countered, “Maybe I’m making it up to myself for my own lousy un-life, you ever think of that?” Checkmate. Now that her life was no longer a struggle – except on nights like tonight – Maura found a deeper appreciation of the “SRS” that had always seemed so extraneous when she lived life looking over her shoulder.
“The rest of the less cynical world calls it ‘TLC’,” an exasperated Nick had reminded her once. Janette had told Maura that such romantic inclinations had once been a near obsession with Nick, and had helped to drive her away so long ago. “Cherie, you have no appreciation for his present restraint.”
Now Maura was actually looking forward to being showered with affectionate sympathy after moaning about her lousy night. The last thing she wanted, or expected to see, was the two cars parked by the loft entrance. One an unfamiliar sports car, the other Schanke’s unmarked. Shit.
“Party time,” Vachon quipped.
“Yeah, well that’s gonna break up fast I hope.”
But what she found when she stepped off the freight elevator stopped her cold. A strange woman, clearly out-of-it, sat at the dining room table staring into space. That held her attention for barely a heartbeat as she took in the scene farther inside.
Nick, who apparently had been lying on the sofa, was doubled over in some sort of pain or convulsion, Natalie holding him from the back. A discarded hypo and the box of rat poison (rat poison!?) lay flung carelessly on the floor. Schanke, breathless and sweating, stood over them both muttering “Sonofabitch,” over and over. Not one of them noticed Maura’s entrance.
She strode to Schanke’s side, but her demand of “What the fu...” dropped off sharp when she saw the equipment at the end of the sofa where Nick’s head would have lain. It took a second, but she recognized it from Nick’s description when he told her about the troubled doctor he’d interviewed and the even more troubling experiments she and her colleagues had been engaged in. It had been plain the concept intrigued him, but he never betrayed the smallest hint that he would consider...
“Holy fucking mother of hell,” she muttered in a low voice to nobody in particular. Schanke and Natalie turned startled faces to her, obviously completely unprepared to explain themselves. Nick was still engaged in recovering from whatever bizarre experience he’d just come out of. It didn’t take a Metro detective to figure out what it was, and Natalie and Schanke’s demeanor made clear how close to the edge it had been. Maura turned wild eyes to Schanke. He responded by gulping a deep breath and announcing, “I’m gonna take the doctor to the precinct. I’ll send some tech guys for that stuff.”
“Not tonight you won’t,” Maura glowered at him. “You call first, you get it?”
“Yeah, sure,” he gathered up the still-staring woman and ushered her out, sliding the door closed with exaggerated care.
Nick seemed close to normal now, but Maura still shot a questioning look at Natalie.
“Is he okay?”
“He should be fine.” The relief in her voice was deafening, but the “thank god” was silent.
When Nick’s struggling eyes met hers, Maura stepped back a few paces and pointed at the machine.
“I don’t fucking believe this. You really hooked up to that thing?” She whirled madly, pacing in a circle with her hands in the air, the nausea at her certainty of how close it had been overwhelmed by her disbelief that he could do it at all, as if nobody but him had any part in the equation. As usual. Skidding to a halt in front of him, she snapped, “You know, Bats, if you really wanna ‘go toward the light’ you could just wait a few hours and step into the alley.” Her voice was sharp as a razor and just as cold, the trembling beneath barely controlled. Nick didn’t reply, but Natalie attempted to moderate, “Maura, it’s more complicated than that...” She realized her mistake as Nick dropped his head in his hands and Maura whipped around to face her where she sat still supporting him. He edged away to sit upright and face forward.
“Thank you doctor, but I don’t need you to explain things. I live here, remember?” Now she backed up again and addressed Natalie while glaring at Nick. “I know all about this case, and the experiments in ‘near death’. I also know without asking, and a good thing too because he wouldn’t have told me anyway, that this little fête was some kind of shortcut to salvation that nearly turned into a ‘dead’ end.” Her enunciation made clear what the operative word was. Her shocked fury burnt out, Maura lowered her voice to a bewildered monotone, now looking into Nick’s eyes with more stunned pain than he could bear to see. Still, he didn’t even blink.
“Why can’t your ‘near life’ ever be enough for you? There’s no ‘get out hell free’ card, Nicolas, though you insist on believing you need one. Haven’t we talked about that often enough? Shit even if there were,” she couldn’t filter the cruelty from her words, “your 7-to-1 ratio of bad centuries to good hasn’t built much equity.” Natalie, horrified, opened her mouth to object but Nick clamped a hand on her wrist to silence her. “And I don’t think me arriving home to find you un-live and my heart torn out without a backward glance would’ve pumped up your karma points, either.” Now she was completely out of angry words, casting a nervous glance at the machine. “Christ, Nick.” She could think of nothing else to say to him, and he was wise enough not to reply.
“I’ve had a shitty night, people, and this has not improved it,” Maura announced. “Do feel free to hang around awhile, Natalie, maybe you can help him come up with new and imaginative ways to remind us we're all just a pit-stop on his road to redemption.” She managed to gather the last of her reserves to turn smartly and stride away upstairs to the bedroom where she fell to her knees by the bed, trembling and gasping for breath. Suicide, he’d tried to commit suicide, and never betrayed a breath of warning.
“My god, Nick, I’ve never seen her like that,” Natalie breathed, still in shock. “Doesn’t she even care what you’ve been through here?”
“If you knew her well enough you wouldn’t have to ask.” Nick tried to keep the edge out of his voice but only partly succeeded. A moment later he hugged an arm around Natalie. “‘Thank you’ sounds like an insult, doesn’t it? And ‘I’m sorry’ is a worse one. Maura’s right, whatever lesson I learned tonight I really knew already. I just can never seem to keep from testing.”
“Is that such a bad thing?” Remembering the machine on the table, Natalie shuddered and added, “usually, I mean.”
“It is when I forget that I’m not the only one involved.” He took her hand, gave it a squeeze and a kiss. “Nat, I’m sorry but can you let yourself out?” He was looking up in the direction of the bedroom. “I’ve got some karma points to work on.”
As it did from time to time the strength of Nick’s bond with Maura really sank in, and Natalie’s belief that she had adjusted well was shaken. Nick was sitting with her, but he was upstairs already. She, Natalie, barely existed, and this night had left her stunned and panicked inside too. When would Nick realize that since coming to Toronto his life would never again be lived in a vacuum? How could he possibly believe that his friends had nothing to offer when he was struggling with such a painful and dangerous decision?
“Sure, Nick. I’ll call tomorrow to see how you’re doing.”
Halfway up the stairs, he looked back and suggested distractedly, “Why don’t I call you, okay?”
“Okay.” She wanted to add “good luck”, but it felt lame. Whatever lecture he'd hear from Maura tonight would find a variation when Natalie saw him again.
Nick didn’t even hear Natalie's parting words as he headed upstairs. The bedroom was dark and the candle lit, but Maura was nowhere to be seen. No surprise. He went to the open door at the end of the hallway and climbed the stairs to the roof.
Maura was staggered by the enormity of what Nick had tried to do. She stood leaning on the railing, staring at the Toronto skyline lit by a half-moon and thousands of stars. Closed up in herself, not knowing what she could possibly say to express to him how deeply he’d shaken her, how he’d terrified her with the ease of his attempted departure. His attempted suicide. It really was as if he’d simply gotten up in the morning and strolled out the door to incinerate himself, as casually as if she didn’t exist at all. Even knowing him so deeply, she hadn’t a clue about his plans and he hadn’t trusted her enough to broach the subject in any depth, not to her or anyone else he counted as a friend. Of course she’d have debated him to a standstill, still she knew well enough what made the prospect of “going into the light” attractive to him. All of these things spun in her head, and she was too stunned and just plain exhausted to sort any of them out. Hearing Nick approach, Maura wished he would go back downstairs, go run to Janette, anything to keep her from having to face what she’d just witnessed.
Nick could feel the nervous edge to Maura's heartbeat as he came out on the roof. Cautiously he crept over until he was standing inches away behind her, thrusting his hands in his pockets. It was all he could do to keep from touching her, from turning her to him and holding her; he knew that would be a mistake right now. This was about Maura, not him, and he had to wait for her. He said nothing, and they stood there in ridiculous silence for several minutes until she finally spoke in a quiet, weary voice.
“I just don’t know what to do anymore, Bats. I am totally out of ideas. I don’t think I could leave no matter how hard I tried. But you don’t seem to have that problem, do you? And today you were ready to step into fucking eternity without even a word to say I mattered to you at all, or anyone else for that matter.”
“That’s not what it meant. Everything you said was right, I probably knew how it would turn out. But I guess I didn’t believe it, not completely. That seems to be my weakness, knowing but not believing.”
“But what if it had worked?” her voice was a harsh whisper. “Would it really be worth it, do you think, to give up what you have now, what you’ve struggled towards for a hundred years, for what you threw away before? How can that make sense?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. I have to convince myself that it’s what I have and do now that matters. That if I want to make up for the past I have to do it in the present.”
She uttered a short, bitter laugh. “That’s your weakness, you know, all this ‘convincing’ shit you can’t seem to give up; you are positively addicted to it. You’re always having to ‘convince’ someone of something. You have to convince Natalie that our relationship doesn’t threaten her. You have to convince Janette that you’re still loyal to the Community. You have to convince LaCroix that you’re committed to your current incarnation. You have to convince Schanke you’re not a complete freak. So now you have to convince yourself that our life together is enough to keep you from killing yourself just to see what it’s like?”
Nick reached a tentative hand to touch her back, fingers spread feather-light, remaining silent. At least he’d learned that much, to quit trying to explain when his uncertain words would just make it worse.
“So tell me, Nick, when’s it my turn?" Maura continued in a broken voice, "When do I get to be convinced? Or does the fact that I never demand you try harder to be what you’re not, does that mean that I just don’t register on the radar?” She knew she was whining, and hated it. “I just need to know, when does it stop? When can I stop trying to prepare myself for the next breakdown in your journey to self-discovery? Better yet, when will you be able to tell me why you can’t let any of us in on it?” She was gesturing now, speaking as if he hovered in front of her fifty feet above the parking lot.
“I don’t know.” His apology was in the tone of his voice, the gentle pressure of his fingers. He saw Maura's head drop forward into her hands as if she were completely beaten.
“Well if you don’t know, then what am I supposed to do?”
Nick took a step closer and touched his forehead to her shoulder. “Love me...” It was a naked plea. “I know I haven’t the right to ask; you gave me the first completely unconditional love I’ve ever known and I’ve abused it so badly. I don’t know what I deserve from you anymore, other than a holy water cocktail and a walk in the sun. But you’re so wrong about one thing, you’re not a pit stop or an afterthought or any of the things my carelessness might have made you believe. I love you, I can say the words and not ever make you understand how much I mean them, but I couldn’t be who I am even now if you weren’t here with me.”
“It’s not like I have a choice. Whether to love you, I mean. I’m stuck with it, and you, and all I can do is keep dodging and weaving and trying to keep up.” Maura still couldn’t look at him, she was afraid of losing control if those blue eyes saw too deep. That was her addiction: control.
“I never meant to hurt you.”
“But that didn’t seem to stop you, did it?” He didn’t answer, knowing there was none to give. “Natalie thinks I don’t give a shit about what happened with you tonight. I swear sometimes she thinks I don't really care about what you want or need. But you know different.”
Nick pressed closer now, reaching around Maura’s waist. “Of course I do.”
“Then what can I do? So many things drive you to this reckless shit, so much fear and pain in you tonight must have brought you to it. But what can I do when you won’t believe in us enough to tell me?”
“I’ll learn to tell you, I promise.”
She started to cry then, and tried to lean away but was pressed against the wrought iron railing. “You know you’re the only one, you timeless bastard, the only one in my life that can make me cry like some weak pathetic child left out in the cold. I don’t like it, Nicolas, why does it have to be like this? Why can’t you just love me without all the slings and arrows?”
He pressed his lips to her ear, “I do. Sweet, doucette, Maura, I do, and after tonight I know that the only thing that will save me, the only thing that matters, is never to hurt you again,” and he’d never said that before, never hinged his salvation on the here and now and his life with her. She didn’t fight him when he pulled her back against him, arms tight around her, “please, Maura, look at me, please.” She turned to face him and he kissed her tears as he’d done the other times, few but too many, when he’d cracked the shell she was forced to hide behind. He felt like a world-class shit, because her life with him was supposed to be the one place where she’d never need that shell.
“I don’t like it like this, Nick, I don’t like fighting and being afraid of what you’ll do next, never really being able to know what’s waiting around the corner,” she willed her tears away as he kissed her face and hugged her against him, whispering into her ear, “I’ll make it stop, I’ll make it change, I promise, no more secrets or surprises,” and after a while he finally managed to soothe both her and himself, her breathing stopped hitching and she reached around him to hold on, pressing her face into his chest where no heart beat.
He spoke quietly to her, as if he wasn’t sure she was listening but didn’t care, “Where I was tonight, it was so cold, so lonely, and even when I thought I wanted it, there was something missing. It wasn’t Janette, or Natalie, or LaCroix, it wasn’t even forgiveness or redemption, it was the only real acceptance I have, the only honest welcoming I’ve known, and I knew nobody and nothing that waited on the other side could make me feel that way ever again, the way you make me feel whole, the way I feel since you came here. It changed my mind, Sweet, but it was almost too late, Natalie and Schanke think they saved me for myself or for them, but it was for you,” and the catch in his voice was the convincing she’d been hurting for.
“Okay.” She raised her head to look him in the eye, framed his desperate face with her hands and ran her fingers lightly over his barely-there beard. “Okay, I hear you.” They stared rather sadly at one another. “It’s not like I thought this would be easy, you know? What moron would? Maybe I just didn’t understand how it would be hard or what I’d be running into. When I’m ambushed I freak, I yell and scream, I back away and hide. It’s not very smart, I know. So I’ve done all of that tonight, when it’s been so hard for you too.” She kissed him softly. “Tell me what will help?”
His smile was almost shy. “Can you spare a hug? You may not believe it, but even a vampire can be scared out of his wits.”
She responded by wrapping around him as close as she could. “Who knew there were snuggly vampires?” she mused as she pressed his head to her shoulder and kissed his silky hair.
“Who knew there’d be a reason for them?”
“Mmm,” she ran her fingers through his hair, along the back of his neck, enjoying the shiver it triggered. “Don’t be scared, Bats, I’m here. Me and your other Toronto superheroes that keep your sorry ass in line, we'll keep the monsters away, even the ones you conjure yourself.”
They led each other to bed, where snuggling turned to kisses, and kisses to fingers exploring warm skin, fingers that slipped under cotton and silk and peeled it away like petals from a flower until smooth met smooth and Maura couldn’t slow down the kisses she spread over every inch of Nick she could reach as he lay back and groaned softly. What once would have been rumbling growls were gentled to soft catlike purrs, then “my turn,” and he did the same for her. She whispered her own delight as his so-soft mouth surrounded hardening nipples, tongue-kissing and running the barest tips of fangs across her skin to make her shiver as his long fingers massaged and petted her. He made love to her with a near-painful gentleness that made her whimper and clutch him, to urge him harder, faster, but he wouldn’t be rushed, couldn’t be induced to be rough or careless. And when they had rolled back and forth, over and over, and he had tested the newly discovered control that allowed him to go on and on until she begged him pleaseplease I can't take anymore, his eyes burned golden into hers and he rasped “I‘m hungry,” and she gasped “yes,” and when he sank into her in every way possible she nearly blacked out with the consuming sensations. Nick’s growls returned now as he both gave to her and took from her simultaneously, pleasure inrushing from her and exploding from him to set his body and mind on fire. Never before, never had he felt it this way, willing and welcoming, not swindled or frightened or paid for in full. After too short a time he forced himself to stop drinking, her warmth that drugged and carried him beyond any pleasure he’d ever known. The weakness took her then, her hands slid from his back and her legs from his, she dropped her head back against his supporting arms as he rolled off her, his honey rich voice telling her “I love you, toujours, je t’aime, doucette,” and gathered her softness to rest against him.
“Don’t leave me, please don’t ever again, don’t go where I can’t reach you even if it’s just inside yourself,” she murmured against his cheek.
“Is it okay if I say the ‘s’ word?” he asked.
She smiled indulgently, drowsy, getting more comfortable against him. “Okay, just this once. More.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you, I swear I won’t do it again,” he promised, then she closed her eyes to feel him surround her again with kisses and touching and the music of his voice. “Je t’aime, ma doucette, tu es ma vie,” and he nuzzled her neck where the wounds were already healing, more kisses and sweet gentle bites that only teased her skin.
“You know,” she purred, “you’re getting pretty good at this human love stuff. I mean I know you’ve had centuries to perfect the moves, but you seem to be developing your own style.”
He growled softly against her shoulder, “You seem to inspire me.” Then they were quiet, little movement except yet more sleepy kisses.
“So you think near-life might be good enough?” she wondered (barely) aloud.
“Yeah, I think I can make it work,” and he gave her a last deep kiss before snuggling her to sleep.
“Oh holy mother of hell, Nick, what have you done to me?”
Maura was standing in front of the huge bathroom mirror, staring at herself where the neck of her kimono hung loose.
“What?” Nick's concerned voice preceded him into the room, where he stood behind her. “What’s wrong?”
She turned and pointed to her neck. “Check it out, you’re getting more ‘mortal’ every night. Too bad it’s a mortal adolescent.” From her collarbone to the side of her throat where he loved to drink was strung an assortment of small rose-colored marks of irregular shape.
“Oops.”
“‘Oops’? Is that the best you can do? I look like a marked-up prom date.”
“Well if I say 'I’m sorry' one more time, I’ll be the one getting marked up.”
She rolled her eyes, “And it’ll heal in thirty seconds,” and turned to peer into the mirror again. “Jesus, Nick, how come you can bite me to the bone and it’s gone in an hour, but you cover me with teenage tattoos and I’m stuck with it until... whenever?”
He hugged her from behind and teased, “Maybe if I bite ‘em all they’ll disappear,” and he nibbled under her ear.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She turned to glare at him, albeit halfheartedly. His expression told her he’d like it very much indeed.
“Nice to see you’re feeling better after your visit to the ‘far side’.”
He goosed her and dropped his robe to step into the shower. “I exist on the far side, Sweet.” He was showered, shaved, nearly dressed by the time she’d washed up and slouched back into the bedroom.
“I gotta go see Nat and let her know I’m all right,” he reminded himself aloud.
“Uh, is it okay if I go too? I was kinda ugly last night, I’d like to tell her I’m sorry.”
Nick put on a shocked expression and raised his hands in mock horror. “Mon dieu! She said the ‘s’ word!”
“Well at least I don’t use it as a fucking comma,” she snipped, going to pick out some clothes.
“No, you use something else for that.” Maura had absolutely the foulest mouth of any woman he’d ever known, including the hookers he and Schanke encountered on the job.
“After 800 years your ears are not exactly virgin.” She laughed to herself and tossed over her shoulder, “Or much of anything else, either.”
“Thank you, I think,” he approached to kiss cheek and add, “by the way, you are never ugly. Vulgar, and neurotic and a righteous handful, but never ugly. And this is as ‘near life’ as I ever will be able to handle.”