Chapter Text
Greeting the day alone wasn’t anything new to Maura Logue. Life with a vampire had its own "special" character, and though they kept pretty much the same hours, Nick seldom lolled in bed as she did. She’d find him downstairs at his computer or case notebook or on the phone, or else he’d be gone off to the precinct if it was past sunset or to visit with Natalie. No messages or notes were left about, she just knew where he’d gone and knew he’d either pick her up at Raven after closing or call to let her know he wouldn’t. But today was different.
After interrupting an angry confrontation between LaCroix and Maura in the front of Raven the night before, Nick had followed the older vampire into the night to conclude their immortal debate once and for all, and hadn't been seen or heard from since.
LaCroix had persisted relentlessly in his demands that Nick give up his “charade” and move on to travel the world again with him, “above mortality, not aspiring to it." Maura really couldn’t blame Nick for not letting it drop this time. LaCroix had materialized several times in the five days since Christmas; obviously aware that Nick’s relationship with Maura had taken on an added physical connection, annoyingly mortal and undeniably – in LaCroix’s mind --threatening to his agenda. He hadn’t harmed Maura since that first time, but each visit he paid her was more unpleasant than the last. Sensing his window of opportunity was slamming shut (though Maura couldn’t fathom he thought it was open at all) LaCroix had no patience for charm or persuasion.
LaCroix had materialized the night before just after Nick had absentmindedly left his car keys on the bar, and had left Maura waiting by the Caddy for his return. Somehow she wasn’t surprised to see the red eyes coming at her from the shadows. The never ending-diatribe began yet again, without preamble.
“He has known thousands like you, and will know thousands more. This paltry ‘life’ of yours is an insult to our kind.”
Maura rolled her eyes and shrugged. What to do except brush him off? He was like the world’s biggest mosquito, in more ways than one. “He seems okay with it. Even Janette says he seems almost at peace now. And I know he’s left behind most of the ugly parts of what you made him even before I got here, and he takes on the best parts of mortality that he can manage. Even if nobody but me will tell him he can have it both ways, that seems to be enough."
“For a smart woman, you fool yourself too easily. We are joined by blood, Nicholas and I. Mortal emotion pales beside it. What you see as permanent is the blink of our eye, a momentary distraction from an existence you can never share with him.”
“I never said ‘permanent’. Nothing is permanent. My life is the blink of your eye. But my life is all I need, and all he wants to share. Don’t forget he’s joined by blood to me, as well. Try again after I’m gone, we both know you have the time. But by then you know it’ll be too late. Whatever dark is left in him from you will be gone by then. He’ll be free for good, no matter what anyone calls him, and he will do and be what he chooses. It’s not me you’re fighting, it’s Nick. Let it go, LaCroix, go and find another protégé to share your dying traditions with. Or come back in fifty years or so, and give it another shot. He’ll be easy to find.”
LaCroix advanced with a look of hatred and rage. Maura had seen it before, and knew it was no game, but couldn’t manage to be afraid. “You can’t hurt me, you can only kill me. And if you do, you’ll never have him.”
LaCroix stayed the hand that reached for this annoying bitch’s throat. How he would have loved to kill her, to remove this distracting pet permanently and thus remove Nicolas’ lingering excuse for clinging to his newest mortality-aping incarnation.
Instead LaCroix continued his verbal assault. “He has forgotten his true nature, that’s all. I have neglected our connection for too long, and Nicolas has lost his way. He would quickly rejoin me once he again tastes the richness of our former existence.”
“Oh yes, the conversion fantasy. He’s misguided is all. Like those who want to make him mortal, you think he only needs to pay proper attention to want what you ‘offer’. Well there is nothing you have that he didn’t have his fill of a and walk away from a hundred years ago. Pathetic, that’s what you are. Old and pathetic and on the wane,” she gestured over her shoulder. “Janette has done quite well living in two worlds. True, she keeps her vampire nature but has found a place for herself and others of the Community to be safe without needing to be on the run forever. You,” she walked a slow circle around the barely-contained vampire, “are an antique in modern couture. Gather dust somewhere else, LaCroix, you won’t find what you want here.”
The door to the club slammed as Nick approached. “Oh, won’t I?” La Croix purred softly. “You know as well as I do, Nicholas can’t resist his desperate need to ‘do the right thing’... we’ll see who will find what, ma doucette.” His use of Nick’s favorite endearment made Maura’s skin crawl.
“LaCroix,” Nick’s voice was flat and cold as the ice under their feet, “come to socialize?” He opened the car door for Maura, but she didn’t move. LaCroix kept his eyes on her as he spoke.
“I’ve come to discuss this difficult juncture in our relationship, Nicholas. I think perhaps instead of persuading you to embrace our former friendship I am driving you further away. I realize now I have been guilty of some... excesses.”
“Even if you had anything to say that remotely interested me, now is hardly the time.” He gently pushed Maura into the Caddy and shut the door before turning back to LaCroix.
“Your Maura isn’t afraid of me,” and LaCroix’s first use of her proper name triggered an alarm in her. “Why should you be?”
Nick laughed. “Afraid, don’t flatter yourself.”
“I mean,” LaCroix cajoled, “afraid of listening to what I have to say. Afraid it might make sense. Afraid you might once again long for the part of yourself you can’t quite shed. That perhaps you don’t want to.”
Nick tried to push past as he rolled his eyes. “Save it, it’s been a long night.”
The older vampire seized Nick by the shoulder, who shook him off with a hiss and a drop of fangs.
“See how easy it is?” LaCroix observed mildly. “Always there, just beneath the skin.” Now he turned both hands palm up, as if in supplication. “Nicholas, please, I thought perhaps with so much of your new life in order you might be in sufficient good mood to talk one last time.”
Nick paused on his way to the driver’s side door. “‘Last’ time?” His eyes narrowed.
Inside the car, Maura tensed. LaCroix was laying the snare.
“I’m weary of the endless battle royale, Nicholas, I am weary of thrashing each other into the walls. If I cannot persuade you with my arguments this one last time, I will set you free forever.”
Don’t believe him, he is a lying sack of ancient shit, Maura desperately tried to beam her thoughts to Nick. She could tell by the look on his face he was tempted to comply. No, no, even a nanosecond of hesitation and LaCroix would own him, because he was right. Nick would have to do the “right” thing, the single attraction he was powerless to resist, stronger even than his need for blood.
The two of them took a step away, LaCroix’s hand now resting companionably on Nick’s shoulder. After a moment, Nick tapped on the window and Maura wound it down.
“Just a few minutes, okay? Then we can go home.” He responded to her look of dismayed disbelief. “It’s not as if he never did anything for me, Maura. We have saved each other, he and I and Janette, a thousand times and experienced things together you can’t imagine. That deserves at least a final word.”
“Oh, Bats…” She knew arguing wouldn’t make a dent, so she simply pleaded with him, keeping one eye on the smiling LaCroix. “Don’t do it, please, just this once I’m asking you to trust me and walk away from being ‘reasonable’. Just once, Nick, be unreasonable and do the wrong thing, for me. I’m begging you.”
Nick smiled patiently, squeezed her hand where she gripped his wrist with desperate strength. “C’mon, Sweet, this isn’t like you. Don’t let him scare you, there’s nothing going to happen.” He leaned in the window and gave her a kiss. “Gimme twenty minutes. Go back inside and keep warm, I’ll come back for you.” And he walked with LaCroix until they disappeared into the dark. That had been at about 2am.
By 3am Miklos and Vachon had cleaned up and closed up the bar, and the front doors were locked. Nick hadn’t returned.
“Vachon, will you please see Maura home in that charming voiture of yours? Nicolas will receive a suitably stern answer to his tardiness when he returns.”
Maura asked her remaining coworkers, “Are you all sure Nick didn’t call? Maybe the message machine is screwed up.”
Janette put a hand on her arm. “Cherie, trust me, I know these two very well. LaCroix is exceedingly long-winded, and Nicolas would allow him to use up his last word in hopes of being rid of him.” Privately, she was curious. It was odd of him to neglect his responsibilities, and he considered his relationship with Maura to be a primary one.
“I dunno, it just feels weird,” Maura told them uncertainly.
Miklos gestured around the empty club with an ironic laugh. “If it weren’t for ‘weird’, we’d be out of business.”
So she let Vachon take her home. The message light wasn’t blinking when she got in the loft, but she found a single red rose on the table next to the machine. The note on Nick’s monogrammed linen stationery was in French, in Nick’s unmistakably elegant hand. “N’oublies jamais que je t’aime.” What the hell... she felt a cold core of nausea in the pit of her stomach.
“Never forget I love you,” she repeated to Janette in English, and the voice on the other end of the phone betrayed just a hint of confusion.
“But cherie, what could be wrong with that?”
“Oh for christsake, Janette, you know we’re not like that! No cutesy little love notes left around, none of the romance novel crap.”
“Just fully decorated Christmas trees, and heartfelt love songs, eh?”
Maura’s voice went flat. “You know what I mean. Something is going on here, we both know this is just not Nick. And why would he come all the way home just to leave me a note?”
A second’s silence. “Yes, it is unusual. But nothing is usual where LaCroix is concerned. You cannot expect to predict Nicolas’ reaction to him when even he cannot.”
“Has he talked to you about this? Nick, I mean, has he said anything that might clue me in even now about what’s going on?”
“No, he has not even mentioned LaCroix’s name since his last appearance.”
“Yeah, right.”
Janette reacted sharply to the obvious sarcasm. “Maura, do not insult me. I have been connected to Nicolas for eight hundred years, and I know the heart you say he believes he does not have. No matter if I understand it or not, he loves you more than any chance he has to be rid of the past that torments him. And for that reason alone I would never mislead you. And I am disappointed,” the word was heavy with extra meaning, “that you believe he would ask me to do so, and that I would do so even if he did.”
Maura’s response would have been inaudible to a mortal, but Janette heard its undertone of misery. “I’m sorry. I know, I do. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I confess I'm mystified by this too. But unlike you I have had centuries to become unsurprised by the surprising. In our time Nicolas and LaCroix were could disappear for many nights at a time, debating and arguing like father and son.”
“It’s not the nights that worry me.” What if something had happened, something that would keep Nick from shelter? What if LaCroix, unable to persuade him, simply locked him out after sunrise in a rage?
“Perhaps you are right. Perhaps you should go to the police precinct and talk to Mr. Schanke about this. And I will see what information is to be had from the Community. D’accord?”
“D’accord. Thank you, Janette. It could be just as you say. He could show up by sunrise all apologetic and guilt-ridden,”
“He is very accomplished at guilt, cherie. Possibly you will gain some more roses from this.”
“Maybe. Okay I’ll be in touch.”
“Bonsoir, cherie.”
As Janette switched off her phone, her brow knit in consternation. This was so entirely out of character for Nicolas’ current “persona”. She couldn’t imagine what would persuade him not to bother letting her, or Maura, or anyone else know he was safe. She hadn’t even sensed LaCroix nearby tonight, and that meant he was deliberately masking himself from her.
“Miklos! When Vachon returns please join him and visit with some of our friends. See if they might know what Lucien LaCroix is up to, and where Nicolas might be.”
Maura spent the rest of the day at the loft, desperately willing the phone to ring. By the time she got to the precinct the next evening, she hadn’t eaten in 24 hours and hadn’t slept for nearly 40. She was dressed in worn out jeans and a faded sweatshirt, her hair unwashed and her face strained. The detectives in Nick and Schanke’s new “shop” regarded her as if she were some street snitch or worse.
“Yeah? What’ll it be?” asked one.
“I’m looking for Detective Schanke. Where can I find him?” Maura looked around uncertainly. She’d only been to this precinct once, to meet Nick after work, and she didn’t recognize anyone.
“Payoffs are Tuesdays, honey. Come back tomorrow.”
She took a step toward the rude little shit, and repeated herself as if to a mental deficient. “I said, I’m looking for Detective Schanke. Where can I find him?”
Another wiseass pulled out his wallet. “Here I can let ya have five until he gets back.” She whirled on him in a rage, not caring that she looked more like a suspect than anything else, but before she could make a move or open her mouth Schanke loped into the office.
“Hey Schank, this ‘lady’ is looking for you,” said the first detective who’d spoken. “I told her payoffs are tomorrow.”
Schanke’s surprise at seeing Maura was trumped by his anger.
“Shut up, junior, this lady is a friend of mine.” Just then a records officer Maura recognized came in bearing a stack of folders. Janey, Maura seemed to remember. She’d run into her on the street once or twice.
“Hey, Maura, how’s it going?” She took a closer look. “You okay? You don’t look so good.”
“You know this snitch?” asked smartass detective #2.
“She’s Knight’s girlfriend, you moron. Here’s the files you wanted,” she flung them on his desk in disgust. “Call me if you need help with the big words.”
By this time Schanke was standing by Maura looking very concerned. “She’s right, sweetheart, you look like hell. What’s up? I thought you and Nick were gone west on vacation.”
Maura’s mouth dropped open. “What? Did Nick talk to you about going away?”
Schanke put an arm around her and took her to an interview room, “Come on, let’s talk away from the zoo okay?”
The door had barely shut when she was in his face. “What the hell are you talking about, Nick and me going ‘west on vacation’?”
He gestured cluelessly. “Nick called in this morning and said that he was gonna take some of his transferred vacation time and was headed out west for some R & R. I figured he meant both of you.” His expression became sympathetically confidential. “You two have a tiff? You seemed pretty tight to me.”
Maura paced wildly and nearly shouted, “No Schank we didn’t have a fucking ‘tiff’! He went off with... an old friend just after the club closed last night and never came back to take me home. And he didn’t come back today either. And he hasn’t called, not me or any of his friends. Apparently he did manage to call the office, though.”
“Well, yeah, if he just didn’t show up he could lose his job.” The stupidity of the statement hit him when Maura looked as if she’d been slapped.
“His job. Yeah, he wouldn’t wanna lose that, would he.”
“So this friend, male or female?” Schanke was feeling a little out of his depth and so reverted to detective mode. Bad choice.
“Male,” Maura snapped. “Someone he’s known forever, they had a falling out and the guy seemed to want to patch things up. Not much gossip potential, I’m afraid.”
Schanke guided Maura to sit down at the table. “Come on, I didn’t mean it that way. I gotta wonder what’s up, too. Did he seem interested in patching it up with this old friend?”
She nodded bitterly. “More than he should have been. This guy has been in my face for a while, trying to persuade me to leave Nick so they could return to the wild boy days.”
“Think he has a ‘thing’ for him?”
Maura laughed at how right he was, but explained, “Not the way you think. He was a mentor, almost a father, and so there’s that father-son crap and not wanting to let go, and really not wanting to see Nick succeed where he doesn’t think he should be.”
Schanke sat up straighter. “So you think maybe he abducted Nick?”
She shook her head. “I dunno, probably not by force if you know what I mean. But shit, Schank, you know how Nick is, always wanting to be ‘reasonable’.”
Nick’s partner shook his head with a knowing smile. “You know I’d hoped maybe you could help him with that. I meant that in a good way, ” he hastened to add.
“Yeah well, I’d hoped maybe I could convince him just once to stop listening. But he went off with the guy, and next thing I knew I’d gotten a ride home and found this note next to the phone.” She handed it to Schanke, not really sure what she expected him to make of it.
“Uh, real classy, but what does it say?”
“It’s French.”
“Well I figured out that part.”
“Sorry. It says ‘never forget I love you’.”
“You find anything else?”
“A single red rose, with the note.”
“Whatta guy.” He stared at the note for a minute and ventured, “Look Maura, no offense or anything, but we both know that for all his channeling Byron crap your man is not exactly the soul of contemporary romance. So this is a little out of character wouldn’t you say?”
“Exactly!” She almost came out of her chair. “Janette doesn’t want to listen, but that’s it exactly!”
He studied her for a moment, knowing something was missing. “So why do I get the feeling you have some idea what it means?”
“Never forget,” she murmured almost to herself. “That’s what gets to me. I mean, he’s all the time saying ‘I love you’, like saying good morning, so casual it’s like breathing.”
Schanke shifted uncomfortably, feeling like a voyeur (and for once not enjoying the view), but he didn’t interrupt.
“But ‘never forget’, and the rose, it means more.”
“What about the rose?" he prompted. "Aside from the fact that I’ve never noticed him showering you with flowers.”
“It’s a special kind.” Maura hadn’t actually admitted it to herself before now. “It’s imported, very rare, French.” Schanke rolled his eyes, of course. “It’s called ‘La Vie Sans Fin’, Life Without End. It’s self-preserving, once it’s cut it never fades, never dies.” She left out the unique horticultural fact that it was grown sanguineponically, by a vampire botanist, fed on nothing but immortal blood.
Finally she looked Schanke in the eye, struggling against panic. “I think he was saying goodbye, Donnie. I think maybe he’s not coming back.” Her hands were shaking.
“Hey, hey now, I think we know him better than that,” Schanke declared. “The man lights up like that Christmas tree he made for you at the mere mention of your name. Come on, Maura, I think you know he didn’t just want ‘out’. Guys who wanna break up with their girlfriends don’t usually ditch work too. Let me ask around, see if Nick didn’t mention something to anyone else, okay?” Maura wasn’t quite focusing on him, so he took her hands and gave them a shake. “Hey. Don’t go all strange on me like he does. We’ll find out where your prodigal man is, and when we do he’ll have more than you to deal with believe me. I don’t appreciate being left holding the body bag.” He hoped his admittedly lame black humor might calm her down a little. Maura nodded uncertainly, trying to return Schanke’s reassuring smile. As usual he didn’t have the whole picture, and as usual he just couldn’t be told.
Maura got up and headed for the door. “Thanks, Schank. I’m gonna go talk to Natalie, see if she knows anything.”
“Good idea. I’ll be in touch. And try not worry too much, okay?”
He was so sweetly concerned, Maura had to smile. “Okay. I’ll do my best.”
Natalie had little to offer in the way of insight, and naturally she was worried and upset as well.
“I know, it’s just not like him to do this. It doesn’t matter what Janette says, he isn’t the same as he was so long ago.”
Finally their respective attachment to Nick was making them allies, but nobody wanted it to happen this way.
“Natalie, I know you have some trouble about Nick and me, and I’m really sorry. I never wanted to hurt anyone he cares about, I hope you believe that.” For some reason Maura felt she had to explain herself to everyone. Natalie’s expression was a bit pained, but kind nonetheless.
“Nobody planned any of this. I’d say I can imagine what you’re going through right now, but it wouldn’t be true would it? You are in such a different place with Nick than I am. I’m worried about my best friend, but you guys...”
“I’m missing part of myself. I can hardly believe I’m saying that, it sounds so weak. But what’s the point in lying about it. I feel like I’m bleeding from a small precise wound, a little more every day.”
“You’re not weak, Maura, you love him. You have a life with him, one neither one of you expected. It’s not weakness to be afraid of losing it. And I have a life with him that’s taken too much effort and emotional investment to abandon so easily.” The despair on Maura’s face was so profound that Natalie had to gather her in a tight hug. “We’ll find him, for both of us. We will. And when we do, believe me he’s gonna regret he can’t die.”
Maura gave a bitter laugh. “If he only knew the growing line of pissed off people he’ll be confronted by...”
But a week went by with no word from Nick. Schanke had told Maura that Nick had at least a month of accumulated vacation time he’d never taken. Though technically not to extend it officially would make him AWOL after that, his long service and commendations might allow him to slide on that score. It wasn’t a comforting piece of news.
Maura continued to work as usual, trying to ignore the sympathetic glances of her coworkers, giving up on asking Janette or Miklos or Vachon if they’d heard anything. When a month had gone by, she couldn’t stop herself from begging for anything Janette might be thinking.
“LaCroix is deliberately hiding from us,” Janette explained, “there is nothing we can do but wait for him to reveal himself again. In 800 years, cherie, a month or so isn’t so very long.” She was trying to reassure Maura, but knew the words rang hollow to a mortal, even one with "unique" understanding.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Maura had responded flatly. She hadn’t been sleeping very well. After just a week she had finally moved to the sofa, unable to bear spending long nights alone in Nick’s tremendous bed. Any doubts about the length of his intended absence were dispelled when she rang the butcher to find out why his monthly delivery of cow’s blood hadn’t arrived on schedule.
“Well Mr. Knight, he said not to deliver until he got back to me. Said he didn’t know how long he’d be away.” The man was obviously confused that she didn’t know about the arrangement. So even the butcher knew. But not her. When she called the landlord, the electric and gas companies, concerned about payments (and wondering how she’d manage them on her salary) she was told that the accounts held considerable credit balances, paid by Mr. Knight’s attorney some weeks ago. Based on established usage, she would not have to concern herself for at least a year.
Then the letter came from the attorney, the far-flung office and unpronounceable name. It informed her in very legal language that “henceforth from this date” she had full and legal access to the “funds and fortunes” of Nicholas D. B. Knight, and the financial and legal services performed for that client now applied equally to her. It was not a bequest, but an addition of her to the rights of legal ownership. Enclosed in the package were a bank debit card and a platinum credit card (to be paid by direct debit, she was informed), a check book and five hundred checks featuring her name printed beneath Nick’s. His “funds and fortunes”, she knew, amounted to several hundred million dollars.
Five weeks.
She’d spent a few nights at the Schanke household, at his and Myra’s insistence.
“Come on, honey, you’re not sleeping, you’re not eating, you look like hell. Come enjoy gracious living for a few days, okay?”
Janette had given her some enforced time off after she’d physically attacked an unruly customer, so Maura reluctantly agreed. It wasn’t an easy few days. Accustomed to being on her own a great deal, Maura didn’t interact much with her hosts and their daughter, staying in the guest room until summoned for meals she had to force herself to eat. Myra tried hard to get her to talk about what she was going through, but Maura just couldn’t find the words to define it.
“It’s so far beyond what would ever make sense to you,” she told Myra one evening. That was the utter truth, but Myra took it in mortal terms.
“Whenever you need to talk, you know where I am," Myra assured her. "I really do understand. .”
No you don’t, Maura thought.
Maura's conversations with Natalie were nothing short of torture, for both of them. She had hoped that the different sort of link between Nick and Natalie would persuade Nick to contact his friend, but there was nothing.
Natalie was frankly shocked at the sight of Maura in her lab weeks after Nick’s disappearance. She’d expected to hear from her sooner, but to see how far she was coming apart was unexpected. Maura had always seemed to Natalie to be pretty resilient, with a keen sense of self-preservation, if sometimes rather a bitch. What Natalie saw standing before her was a textbook image of someone who has lost everything that mattered to her.
“You would have told me,” Maura began but Natalie cut her off. Though the implication was insulting, she couldn’t manage to be offended. “Of course. Just like you’d have told me.” Natalie was enduring her own pain, of course.
“I’m not here to play my heart’s more broken than yours,” Maura assured her. “There’s no hierarchy in this kind of shit.”
“You’re right there. He’s walked out on all of us.” There was a bitter edge in her voice. It was evident in every one of Nick’s friends and colleagues, that “wait’ll I get my hands on that bastard” sound. Maura wished she could even fake it, but all that she could muster was that disgusting depressed monotone. She hated herself like this, and continued the thought out loud.
“I never imagined I’d come to this, you know? All the shit I’ve been through, all the times I’ve been left twisting in the wind. It wore me out, but in the end it was just time to get up and walk. I hate being this way, Natalie, I hate being forced to admit that I’m so dependent on someone else that I can fall apart without him. I’ve always found that sort of weakness to be pretty amusing in others, not to mention disgusting. But here I am. One person gone, and I’ve been drained empty of everything.”
“I guess the difference now is that this time someone’s making sure you don’t suffer for his lousy decisions.” Natalie meant the financial support, of course, but this triggered a brief flash of resentment in Maura.
“Oh, right, no suffering here. The bills are paid until the next ice age, and I can empty his fucking bank account if I want to, and no complaints. Do you know what it feels like to see my name under his on the checkbook, on his financial papers?” Natalie remained silent. “It’s like now we’re married but only because he left!” She shook her head wildly. “That’s sick Natalie. Leave me with nothing, okay, it happens, but now I’m left with less than nothing because I’m the financial dependent of someone I never wanted anything from! I contacted that lawyer and said no, take my name off of everything, I don’t want ‘Mr. Nicholas D. B. Knight’s’ fucking charity. You know what he told me? I don’t have legal standing to do that. I own everything he does, I can spend every dime if I want, but I don’t have the power to say no. It’s like he’s made certain I can never get past this.”
Natalie was shaking her head, the implication of the situation not lost on her. “I don’t know what to say, Maura. Everything I know about Nick says he has to have some reason, but everything I know about him also says he’d tell us what it is. You know, he has people on his payroll who can trace things, history, people, find out where they are. He hasn’t used them for a long time, but you never know.”
“Well I guess it doesn’t surprise me." Maura told Natalie in a cynical voice, "Like everything else, he wants it both ways. He wants to be a vampire, but he wants to be mortal, and he won’t accept a balance of anything will he? He wants to be gone, but he wants me to be found. He wants to love me, but he wants not to have to.”
“There’s one thing I know, that I accept, about Nick as a given, that you’ve never been able to," Natalie explained, "It’s that he’s not about indecision, but about doubt. Except for his work he’s never sure he’s making the right judgment, so he hesitates to commit to anything before a long, hard debate with himself. And the final decision is always his, no matter how he pretends to listen.”
Maura tried to disagree. “But he commits all the time. He committed to his life here, to his job, to you. To me.”
Natalie’s smile was equal parts irony and sadness. “Sure he did.”
And in that moment Natalie knew that the reason that she could cope with the potential loss of the man she would gladly spend her life with was that she accepted his self-doubt as an unshakeable part of him. He listened to himself so exclusively that he could be here, or gone, at any time at all depending upon his most recent doubt. The seismic shock Nick’s exit was putting Maura through was because for better or worse she never had any doubts at all, and simply believed the same of Nick. Seeing the pain in Maura’s face increase exponentially as she absorbed the same knowledge, Natalie reached out and held her shoulders firmly, looking into her eyes.
“He doesn’t doubt he loves you, nobody knows that better than me. But everything else is in question, all the time, and that will probably never change. I’ve been hoping he’d learn not to act on it, but even that may be asking for too much. And it may be why it was so easy for LaCroix to lead him away. He knows Nick better than any of us, so he knows how to play him perfectly.”
Maura stepped back, remembering. “He said that to me that night, just as Nick came out of the club. He told me Nick couldn’t resist his ‘desperate need to do the right thing’. And Nick told me himself, that his history with LaCroix deserved a final word, something like that.” She gestured wildly. “Shit, I knew what LaCroix was up to, I begged Nick to ignore him and come home, just once not to listen, to ignore the ‘right thing’ for once. But he is, he’s so full of doubt he can believe almost anything if he thinks he’s being unreasonable.” This made it clearer, but not easier. “Thanks, Natalie. You’re the one person I’ve talked to who’s given me something to go on.” Her excitement over learning what Nick was doing and and why was immediately overcome by the question that was ruining her. “I just wish I knew why he can’t tell us.”
“That makes two of us.”
“But this is my home now. I don’t want to leave, even for a little while. You know I don’t really belong with those other people, mortals, not all the time anyway.”
Maura was in Janette’s office, desperately trying to keep her job. “Come on, Janette, how can you fire me, especially now?”
Janette was not unkind, but she was firm.
“Maura, cherie, you cannot work here in your current state. Your behavior is erratic, and you could bring attention from the authorities of the wrong kind. Please understand. I am not ‘firing’ you, I am giving you time off, with pay, for as long as you you require to settle yourself. You are welcome here as a friend and a guest, and will always be. But until you bring your emotions under control, you are a danger to all of us, and to yourself.”
The Enforcers, always on the watch for a reason to be rid of her, now sensed an opening. Though bound by strict codes, they were as prey to personal vendetta as anyone else in or out of the Community, and would be glad for a valid reason to do away with her.
“Is this what LaCroix was after?" Maura asked miserably, "To punish me by shutting me out of my own life?”
An unfamiliar look of earnest sympathy replaced Janette’s usual detached expression.
“Cherie,” she leaned forward, her face almost touching Maura’s, “you must believe me, I would tell you if I knew. If I knew anything. We have questioned our friends, I have even spoken to Aristotle. Nothing, there is nothing to tell. And believe me, there is nothing for anyone to gain from your suffering.”
“Well maybe not quite anyone,” Maura observed.
Janette handed her a debit card for a local bank featuring the name “Cherie Gardeur”. This was a shock; Janette simply did not trust banks.
“I have put some money in an account for you, it should last for some time. If it runs out I will continue to pay you every week.” Janette explained, adding with obvious distaste, “It was in preposterously bad taste for Nicolas to expect you to take his charity. And since he has abdicated his personal commitment to you, he has also forsaken his right to find you when he decides he is ready. From now on the decision will be yours.” So, Maura thought, Janette did understand. “The pin code is ‘jamaisplus’.”
"Nevermore," Maura translated, and had to smile. “Quoth the Raven.”
Janette smiled in turn. "Oui. And I created a name for you that Nicolas will not be able to trace easily.” Cherie Gardeur translated “Dear Guardian”. Janette was nothing if not clever. Now she handed an envelope to Maura. “Here is a list of some of our associates in Vancouver, New York City, Boston and some other cities in Europe. They will be expecting you if you decide to contact them; you may trust them as you trust me. If you decide to go elsewhere, let me know and I will give you more names.”
“Janette, you don’t have to do any of this.”
Janette didn't attempt to disguise her anger. “I can no longer pretend to guess what Nicolas might be thinking, or what mistaken path LaCroix might be leading him down. But it is wrong for you to pay for it.”
Maura felt perilously close to tears for the first time since all this began. It simply had been playing out as too unreal to respond to, beyond a deep numb shock, but now she realized how attached to this life and Community she’d become, quite apart from Nick. She didn't want to beg, she hated begging, but still...
“Janette, please, it’s not that I’m not grateful, but please don’t make me leave.”
The firmness returned to Janette’s voice. “Maura, you have found protection here. The time has come to repay it in kind.”
So Maura rose and Janette followed her across the empty club floor. “But where’s Vachon? I want to say goodbye...”
Janette continued to usher her to the door. “Vachon knows,” she said, not unkindly, “and he and the others wished not to make this harder for you.” Seeing Maura’s stricken expression she added with a smile, “We are immortals, cherie, and our world is full of comings and goings, and no one can predict which will come upon which. You cannot travel far enough to leave the Community behind.” At the door the usual kiss of parting was augmented by a surprisingly warm hug.
“Á bientôt, cherie. I have no doubt we will meet again.”
The sun was rising as Maura stepped onto the sidewalk. Hearing the door bolt behind her triggered a physical stab of pain she hadn’t expected. Sucking in a deep breath, she hailed a cab and went back to the loft.
“I’m gonna try some time back in Boston, it’s been a long time. And it’s where I’m from, after all.” Maura had come to the lab to leave Nick’s car and loft keys with Natalie. “The apartment and garage are paid up for a year or more, I don’t know if you knew that. Utilities and heat are paid for at least a year in advance, and I set and locked the thermostat and have the blinds and a few lights set on timers to discourage vandals.”
Natalie wasn’t quite believing all of this. “What about Nick’s stuff?” Art work, music, movie collection, his original paintings and antique instruments were worth a fortune.
“The alarm codes are inside the key tag there,” Maura indicated. “Don’t worry, everything’s still there.”
Natalie frowned. “I wasn’t ‘worried’, Maura.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, I meant for insurance and stuff.”
“So is this a taking-a-break thing, or what?”
“Janette has me on leave from work as a defensive measure. I was ‘acting out’ a bit on the customers. I can’t blame her, even a mortal club couldn’t have a troublemaking security manager. She gave me a list of contacts for various cities in case I need anything.”
“‘Contacts’?”
“You know, the Community, like that.”
“Oh yeah. Could come in handy, I guess.”
Maura reached into her bag and pulled out an envelope containing the checkbook, debit card, and platinum card Nick’s lawyer had sent her. “Here. I won’t be needing these. Janette set me up an account under a different name, and I have the debit card for that.”
Natalie looked inside and the impact of seeing Maura’s and Nick’s names together was evident. “Wow. I see what you meant by ‘sick’. But what do I do with them?”
“Just keep them safe, I guess. And if he ever shows up again, give ‘em back.”
“Before or after I drive the stake through him?” Natalie muttered darkly.
“Your choice.” She gave Natalie a quick hug. “Look, I know things with us are usually, uh, ‘problematic’, but I know what you mean to Nick.”
“Yeah, about like I know what you mean to him. Just about enough to ignore us both. But really, what should I tell him when he comes back? You know he will.”
“Tell him I’ve ‘gone west on vacation’. After all he deserves the same consideration he gave all of us. Well I’ve got a lift from an ‘associate’ of Janette’s later tonight, so I won’t be seeing you again.”
Natalie looked worried. “But it’s nearly new moon, can you trust him?”
Maura laughed. “Believe me, he fears her more than he’ll want me. Things are different now with that situation, now I have a whole Community looking out for me thanks to Janette. She has way more power than even I suspected.”
“I guess she’d consider it vulgar to show it off.”
“You got that right. Well, see ya.”
Maura was halfway out the door when Natalie stopped her with, “So you said goodbye to Schanke already?”
She didn’t turn around. “Uh, no.” Then she turned and asked hopefully, “Natalie could you? You know how excitable he is, I don’t want to upset him.”
Natalie was shaking her head firmly. “No-no-no-no. Of Nick’s ‘inner circle’ I think maybe poor Schanke is suffering the most, because he understands the least. He really is fond of you, Maura, and you’d break his heart if you just left without a word.” Before Maura could protest Natalie added, “And I think Nick’s broken enough hearts around here on his own, don’t you?”
“You're right, I really have to see him before I go. And Natalie, do me a favor will you?”
“Name it.”
“Don’t tell Nick where I’ve gone. If he wants to find me... he’s gonna have to play detective.”
“No problem. I’d say he’s given up his right to that information.”
So Maura sat in Schanke’s chair, trying hard to ignore Nick’s name plate on the adjacent desk. Captain Cohen paused on the way from her office.
“Maura, are you waiting for Detective Schanke?”
Maura liked Nick's new boss, though she'd only met her once. She was no-nonsense, and had a real appreciation for her detectives.
“Uh-huh. Do you know where he is?”
“He’s interviewing a witness with Detective O’Brien.” Seeing Maura's confusion the captain added, “Knight’s sub.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Detective Knight?” Maura could tell the question wasn’t easy for her.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, his time off officially runs out next Wednesday, so the mystery should be solved by then.”
“Sure. Thanks, Captain.”
Schanke blustered in with a very young detective in tow.
“Hey, Maura! This here’s Bill O’Brien, the space-filler til Nick gets back.” She stood and shook the young man’s hand.
“Donnie, you got a minute?”
“Uh-oh,” he turned to the “space-filler”, “when my partner’s partner calls me ‘Donnie’ that means trouble. Be right back. Try not to screw anything up while I’m gone.”
Schanke followed Maura into an empty interrogation room and shut the door. “So? What’s up?”
“I’m leaving town for a while. Maybe for a long while.”
This alarmed him. “Huh? But what about when Nick comes back?”
Maura's voice grew so hard she could scarcely recognize it as her own. “What about it? Five weeks with no word, not to me anyway though he’d managed to cover his ass with about everyone else. I’d say I’m past caring.”
Schanke studied her. “Excuse me, but I don’t believe it.”
“Then I’ll believe it for both of us. I gave all my keys and the keys to the Caddy to Natalie. Janette has fronted me some traveling cash and given me some contacts to help set me up.”
“But I thought Nick took care of you...”
“He 'took care' of me all right, but I don’t want his fucking money.” Suddenly the hard edge crumbled. “I never wanted his money, Donnie, and I still don’t. I don’t want his roses or his notes or the eternal vigilance of his financial advisor. All I ever wanted was him, and the life together we managed to jerry-rig out of good intentions and spare parts.”
Schanke advanced a step and put his hand on her shoulder. “I know it’s been hard for you.”
“Do you really?" Maura retorted, "Well then maybe you can requisition a ‘space-filler’ for me too, for the space on the sofa and the space at the table and the space in the bed.” She gulped back tears and shook off Schanke’s comforting hand. “I’m suddenly lousy with space. You gotta understand,” now she clutched his sleeve, “I need to go somewhere I can lose all this goddamn space and quit waiting for someone who didn’t even care enough to tell me the lies he told everyone else.”
“He left you that note.”
“Fuck ‘that note’. Notes are easy. Dealing with things is hard. And I just can’t deal any more, okay? So I’m taking Janette’s largesse and running. Shit, even if Nick showed up right now I’m afraid I’d of what I’d do to him.”
“Whatever it was, I’d hold him down for you,” Schanke offered grimly. He was keenly aware of the pain and trouble his partner had caused everyone, including himself. “I know it doesn’t mean much from where you’re standing but he’s drilled us all full of holes. Knight's not getting any welcome home parties when he does show up. You wouldn’t be on your own with it…”
“Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind. But I gotta go, and I’m saying goodbye because you should be treated like you matter by at least one half of this fucked up equation.”
“Where will you be? When are you leaving?”
“Friend of Janette’s giving me a lift in a couple hours. I don’t know where I’ll end up,” she felt lousy about lying, but the fewer that knew the better, “but really I’ll call you, I promise. It’s just...”
“Just what?”
“If Nick wants to find me... he needs to work for it, you know? So when I get in touch it’s gonna have to be one-way, and you won’t know where I am.”
Schanke was shaking his head, obviously distressed. “Man, how did this all happen anyway? What the hell is he thinking?”
“Maybe he’ll tell you when he gets back. He sure as shit won’t be telling me.”
French translations:
voiture: automobile
d'accord: agreed
Á bientôt: until another time, until we meet again