Disclaimer:  The characters and situations of Forever Knight are not mine.  They 
are the property of Sony and are being used without permission.

Special thanks to my beta readers Jean and Jonna.


Reawakening
by Anne Jensen (ajensen@west.net)


It came to him slowly as he slept--a scent of apricots and calla lilies.  It 
surrounded him and, in its way, cradled him as his body healed.  How long it 
filled his mind before he put a name to it, he couldn't say--hours, days, 
perhaps even weeeks.  He had no way of knowing, nor did he care.  It kept away 
the darkness which crouched at the corners of his mind waiting for a chance to 
come in.  Finally, after that undeterminable time, a name emerged from the 
recesses of memory:  Tracy.

With the name came images--a golden haired woman who brought an aura of sunlight 
with her wherever she went, who valiantly fought the evils of the world, a light 
against their darkness.  The sunlight and the strength of those images burned at 
the shadows on the edges of his thoughts, driving them back farther and farther 
until they were left with nowhere to go, and, trapped by the light, were burned 
to ashes.

"Tracy," his reawakening mind said, and he opened his eyes.

Dirt pressed down on him.  For an instant he panicked, his body struggling to 
draw breath but not able to.  Reason reasserted itself--he didn't need air.  
Relaxing a little, he took stock of his situation.  He was covered in dirt--
buried probably.  It made sense--he could feel his hands crossed over his chest 
in a gesture of repose.  He wondered who'd done it--Knight, possibly, or 
Lacroix, or maybe even Tracy.

Tracy.  He had to see if she was all right.  His last memories were of getting 
an uncontrollable urge to attack her (Careful Javier--he cautioned himself as 
the shadows threatened to return) and instead managing to turn so he landed on 
the stake she'd raised.  Staking was supposed to be fatal to his kind, but he 
wasn't surprised that it hadn't worked.  After all, it hadn't worked on his--for 
lack of a better term--brother.  He couldn't feel the wood in his chest any 
more, so Tracy (or whoever) must have removed it.  That must have been why he'd 
survived.  Already weak from the attack of that demon masquerading as a child, 
the stake must have knocked him out for long enough to recover from her 
poisonous influence.  

He moved one hand, starting to swim up through the dirt.  It had been a while 
since he'd taken refuge in the ground, but some skills you never forgot.  When 
he finally broke through the surface, he took that breath he'd tried for 
earlier, and leaned back, spitting out dirt.  Looking down, he noticed a jar of 
what smelled like apricot jam, and the tattered stalks of a bouquet of calla 
lilies which he'd somehow managed to hang onto as he'd dug his way out.  Well, 
that answered the question of who'd buried him.  No one else would have made 
such a tribute.  

She'd even buried him by Screed.  He recognized the shore, although intervening 
rain had tamped down the soil and caused a few plants to spring up, hiding the 
exact spot.  The gesture warmed his heart, figuratively speaking, and gave him 
hope.  If Tracy could have gone to all this trouble, then that little demon 
child-killer probably hadn't finished whatever attack on Tracy she'd tried to 
carry out through him.  Or perhaps it hadn't been her attack at all, but instead 
just her general desire to kill which he'd taken out on the person nearest to 
him.  In that case, with him under the soil, Tracy was safe.  Tracy safe.  It 
was a very comforting thought.

She'd be so surprised to see him alive.  He grinned at the irony of it.  He, who 
was supposed to live forever, and she'd watched him dying two times--three if 
you counted the plane crash.  True, he hadn't really been dying that time, but 
she'd seen him as a "corpse" and then found him again when he was searching for 
his hand.  He'd been somewhat scruffy-looking then.  She'd probably let him take 
a shower at her place to avoid having to stare at the tatters and grime as much 
as get information from him.  He'd have to borrow her shower again--the clothes 
were in better condition this time around, but he was covered in dirt.  

He wondered if she'd faint again when she saw him.  She'd never lived down 
fainting those two times when they'd first met.  With a wistful smile, he gently 
laid the mangled remains of the flowers on his friend's grave and took to the 
air.

Tracy was out when he slipped in her window--still at work probably.  Just as 
well, he thought, catching a glimpse of himself in her mirror.  He looked like 
something the cat had dragged in.  This way he could greet her when he wasn't 
wearing the dirt of his own grave.

A hard scrubbing later, he wiped away the layer of mist on the bathroom mirror 
to see his face.  Much better.  The scratches that brat had made were almost 
healed, as was the hole the stake had left in his chest.  He almost looked 
presentable.  Taking a comb he found by the sink, he pulled the tangles out of 
his hair.  There.  Grooming finished, he put down the comb and began going 
through Tracy's medicine cabinet.  

It hadn't changed much since he'd last been in here, so he must not have been 
gone long.  She'd switched brands of toothpaste--but still tartar control, he 
noted.  And there was now an expensive-looking bottle of body lotion which when 
he opened it smelled exactly like--

"Lilies!" he exclaimed, surprised and a little pleased.

He recapped the bottle, pulled on his shirt and wandered out into the rest of 
the apartment.  Now that he was actually looking for it, the apricot and calla 
lilies theme had taken hold elsewhere, too.  A vase containing a few of the 
flowers now occupied one side of her dresser while a bowl of apricot-smelling 
potpourri sat at the other.  And on the nightstand he recognized one of the 
lower candelabra from the church standing next to a framed picture.

Not a picture, he realized when he picked it up.  He didn't think she had one of 
him, anyway, unless she'd somehow made a still from that "informant meeting" 
they'd done for the Jerry Show, and she probably wouldn't have risked someone 
asking why, or recognizing him from elsewhere.  No, this was something more 
personal--and less easily identified.

She must have found it when she'd cleaned up the church--something he'd noticed 
when he'd stopped by to pick up clean clothes on his way here tonight.  It was 
an attempt at a poem he'd scribbled on the back of a garage sale flyer one day a 
week or so before the attack, to while away the hours until night.  Lighting the 
candles with the matches she'd left next to them, he sat down on the bed to 
reread the words he'd written then.  

She the day, and I the night.
She moves, all unknowing
        through my shadows
Brightening them.
Her eyes burn into my soul
        with their intensity.
She is all that I am not.
What I never was and never
        wanted to be.
Until I first saw her--
Hovering over me like an angel
So strong, yet seemingly fragile.

And with barely a word, a gesture
She has caught me in her web of light
And I remain.

Well, it had been a *long* day, and the blood he'd been drinking had probably 
been cut with a little *too* much wine.  Even for a free verse poem, it was 
worse than any bit of doggerel he'd listened to back when he'd been hanging out 
at university pubs.  But from the tearstains on it, it had obviously struck a 
chord with Tracy.

He set the frame back down on the nightstand, sinking back against the pillows 
which still bore traces of the scent which had revived him.  She'd really 
mourned him.  It was a strange feeling, knowing someone had missed him.  "I'm 
usually the one left behind," he'd told her once.  He hadn't even been dead yet, 
but already grief had etched itself onto her face.  He'd felt that grief 
countless times sharing the last moments of mortal friends, and most recently, 
Screed.  But in all his long life, there had never been anyone to mourn him.  If 
anything, his new knowledge only fueled his desire to see her, tell her that 
he'd survived.

There was no way of knowing where she was or when she'd be back, but he fully 
intended to be here when she did.  Reaching for the remote, he turned on the TV.  
He might as well spend the time waiting by catching up on the events of the past 
however long it had been.

"And an update on tonight's shooting in a police station," the anchor announced.

"Nasty," he muttered.  That sort of thing always put cops on edge, not to 
mention the confusion it caused.  No wonder Tracy was still out.  She might not 
be back until morning helping to straighten out that mess.

"We've just learned that the suspect, Delbert Dawkins, has died of his injuries.  
Dawkins reportedly grabbed a gun from an officer during a routine prisoner 
transfer, and took refuge in a locker room.  One officer and Dawkins were shot 
before the conflict was resolved.  The officer, identified as Metro Homicide 
Detective Tracy Vetter, daughter of Police Commisioner Richard Vetter, remains 
in critical condition at Toronto General at this hour..."

The candles guttered and went out in the sudden wind of his passing.

Fin.


06/03/98

All comments, flames, and apricot potpourri can be sent to ajensen@west.net