Disclaimers:  The characters of Forever Knight don't belong to me.  (If
they did I would have treated them a bit better.)

Special thanks to my beta readers Mary, Jean, and Jenny (as well as Cousin
Bob and Micki).

Permission to archive this story at Mel's fanfic site and the FTP site.
All others please ask first.


No More Yielding  
by Anne Jensen (ajensen@west.net)


"Blast you, Nicholas!"  The stake raised high in the air...

"Nicholas?"

Nick opened his eyes to see Lacroix standing over him.  He blinked, images
from his dream still floating through his mind.  It had seemed so real.  He
glanced at the floor, half-expecting to see Nat lying there, but
thankfully, she wasn't.  And Lacroix simply waited, no upraised stake in
hand. Nick breathed an inward sigh of relief.  So that horrible scene in
his loft had only been a dream.

Memory slowly returned.  He'd turned on the radio in the car out of habit,
only to hear the new DJ at CERK.  Then he'd come home, sat down on his
couch and tried to make his decision.  Somehow he must have dozed off, or
perhaps the guilt which had been building since the plane crash last year
had finally caught up with him.

He shook his head, clearing it.  "Lacroix," he greeted.

"Well, Nicholas, have you decided whether to leave these mortal friends of
yours, or stay and cause them more pain?"  Lacroix's voice lacked the
taunting edge it sometimes contained, but it echoed oddly with the remnants
of Nick's dream.

Nick stared into the fire watching the flames.  Half an hour ago, even, he
would have been unsure of his answer.  But now, thanks to that dream, he
knew what his choice must be.  He couldn't abandon his life here.  If he
left, in a few years Natalie could end up like that friend of hers.  She'd
devoted so much of the past few years to looking for a cure for him, he
owed it to her to stay and keep trying.  She'd been right all those months
ago:  he couldn't just walk away.  And Tracy--was she still alive?  Or had
she died while he'd been sleeping?  He had to know.  And what would Schanke
and Cohen have thought if they knew their trusted partner and colleague had
simply walked out when life got tough?  Well good ol' Skank would have been
the first to tell him, "Life's tough sometimes, pal, but you still have to
get the job done."  He *did* have job to do, one he was good at, and which
gave him a real sense of satisfaction.  Even if he never found a cure, he
could still dedicate his immortal life to catching those who preyed on
society.  He could still spend what time his mortal friends had with them.
After all, wasn't he trying to regain that fleeting mortal existence
himself?

No, he couldn't leave.  No matter what it took, he had to stay.  Walking
away from problems was the vampire thing to do, and, like so many aspects
of his immortal life, one he wasn't sure he wanted any more.

Of course, if he tried explaining any of this to Lacroix, the older vampire
would see it simply as Nicholas off on that ridiculous quest in search of
mortality again, pretending to be human in the hope that pretense would
become reality.  He might even take steps to bring that pretense to an end,
as he had before.  But there was one explanation which fit in both of
Nick's worlds, mortal and vampire.

"I can't leave," he said, meeting Lacroix's eyes.  "I have responsibilities
here."

"Responsibilities?  To your mortal friends, I suppose?"  The sarcastic edge
was back.

"Yes, to them.  Perhaps I do cause them pain, but so would leaving them now
when they need me more than ever."  Nick played his trump card.  "Could you
abandon me if you knew I truly needed you?"

A tense silence passed, and then Lacroix said darkly, "Stay here, then, and
watch your human friends wither and die, if it gives you pleasure.  I'll
talk with you when you've come to your senses."  With that he took off
through the skylight.

Nick leaned back against his couch, relaxing slowly.  He hadn't been
certain what reaction he'd get from that last comment, but he'd meant every
word.  They needed him and, if truth be told, he needed them.  It was as
simple as that.  He drained the remaining contents of his glass, not even
tasting it for once, and reached for his coat.  His partner was in the
hospital, and even if he couldn't make her well again, he was determined to
be there for her, at least.  He'd swing by the coroner's office to pick Nat
up.  She needed a break anyway, and perhaps, as they stood vigil over
Tracy, they could finally have that conversation they'd been
needing--hopefully without the ending the dream had had.


"Natalie?"  The lights in her examining room were all off when he arrived.
She hadn't mentioned knocking off early tonight.  In fact, she'd insisted
on working her full shift when he'd suggested she leave this autopsy for
someone else.  Of course, that had been before their conversation by
Tracy's hospital bed.  There were a dozen logical explanations, but with
his dream still fresh in his mind, he could only think of one.  Fear robbed
his body of what little warmth it had.  Had he come too late to save her
from herself?

Grabbing the arm of someone in a lab coat walking past, he demanded, "Dr.
Lambert--do you know where she is?"

"Sorry, Detective Knight, you just missed her," replied the person he'd
caught, whom Nick vaguely recognized as one of the med students.

"Did she say where she was going?"  The student's heartbeat thundered in
Nick's ears.

Eyes glazed slightly over, the mortal answered, almost in a sing-song
voice, "She got a phone call from the hospital about your partner and she
went over there."

Tracy!  "Did she say what was wrong?"

The mortal shook his head slowly, too bemused to speak.  Realizing what he
was doing, Nick pulled back from the man's mind and let go of his arm.  The
student blinked.  "No, she just rushed out of here."

"Thanks--Andy," Nick said, finally coming up with the student's name.

"Glad I could help."  Andy started down the hall.  "Oh, Detective, I just
wanted to tell you how sor--"  He turned back, but Knight was gone.  He
shrugged, and rubbing his arm, went back to the lab and the tests he'd been
running.

Flying over the city, Nick was tempted not to bother using the door to get
into the hospital, but decided that it was worth the time on the off-chance
that someone might see him in Tracy's room and wonder how he got in.  A
quick pass over the parking lot told him Natalie was there.  One mystery
solved.  That didn't mean he wouldn't hurry, though.

He hit the ground running--literally.  Flashing his badge at the security
guard, he charged through the doors.  Narrowly missing two orderlies
wheeling a gurney and a kid in a wheelchair, he continued his mad dash
through the halls and up the stairs, not stopping until he was outside the
door to Tracy's room.

He met Natalie as she was getting out of the elevator.  Safe.  "Nat!"

"Nick."  Her voice was cold, emotionless.

"Andy said you were called over here."  Some of the worry he was feeling
must have shown because she softened a little.

"The head of the ICU is an old friend from med school.  I asked her to let
me know if there were any news."

"There's news then."  Nick's heart sank as he braced himself to hear the
words that he'd lost another partner.

"Not yet.  But they said if anything's going to happen, it'll be within the
next couple of hours."

It was something of a reprieve, at least, for which Nick was grateful.
They continued down the hall at a more sedate pace.

"Nat, I--"

"I really don't want to talk about it right now, Nick."

Nick opened his mouth, then closed it.  Better to let it go for the moment.
Instead he concentrated on Tracy.  As they got closer to her room he could
hear her heart monitor beeping, reassuring him that she was still alive.
And then, just outside her door, he caught a wisp of something that made
him freeze.  Another vampire was in her room.

"Stay back," he said in a low voice to Natalie.  Not that whoever was
inside wouldn't be able to hear, but maybe his words would get lost in the
noise of the hospital.

"What do you mean--" she protested.

Silencing her with a grim glance, he backed up against the wall to one side
of the open door, and carefully peered in.  A dark figure was standing over
Tracy's bed.

He didn't hesitate.  All but flying in, Nick grabbed the other vampire by
the collar and forced him up against the wall.  "If you've hurt her,
I'll--" he started to hiss, only to find himself staring into the face of a
man he'd thought dead.

"Do you do this to everyone you meet, or is it just me?" Javier Vachon
grunted, Nick's hand wrapped around his throat.

"Nick!" Natalie was pulling at his arm.

"Oh," He unclenched his fist and stepped back.  "Sorry."

"Thanks," the younger vampire rasped, rubbing his neck.

Giving Vachon time to collect himself, Nick checked on Tracy, his eyes
going to her neck almost involuntarily.  Nothing.  He wasn't sure whether
to be relieved or not.  For all that his dream had convinced him that he
had to stay, it still left open all the other questions that had preyed on
his mind of late.  To which had been added one more.

"What are you doing here?" Nick asked Vachon, not angry, just curious.  "I
thought Divia had killed you."

"Who?"  Vachon gave him a blank stare.

"Blonde girl, looked about 12 or 13 at the most, had sharp nails, pointy
teeth and a thing for killing anyone close to Lacroix?"  Nick said.

"The demon-brat," Vachon nodded.  "So her name is Divia?"

"Was.  She's gone now, like we thought you were," Nick not-so-subtly hinted.

Vachon frowned like he was dredging up bad memories, a feeling Nick well
understood.  "She attacked me all right.  When she finally let me go, I
went home but I could feel her still in my mind.  Urs stopped by, and then
Tracy."  His eyes wandered to the still figure on the bed.

"You were saying about Tracy at the church?" Nick prompted before the
Spaniard got too lost in the emotions.

"There's not much more to tell.  She came over--said I'd called her or
something.  I could feel that brat's thoughts taking over my own, all that
pain and torment she'd caused and reveled in, so I asked Tracy to stake me.
She said she wouldn't.  When her back was turned to me, I started to
attack her.  It was like I couldn't stop myself.  All I could do was turn
enough so I landed on the stake she was holding.   She must have pulled it
out because the next thing I knew was waking up buried on the beach
tonight.  I dropped by her place to tell her I'd made it after all, caught
the story on the evening news and, well, here I am."  He ran a hand along
the edge of Tracy's face.  "Just in time to watch *her* dying."

Nick awkwardly patted Vachon's shoulder.  "She'd be glad you were here."

"How did it happen?"  Vachon turned hollow eyes to Nick, not removing his
hand from her face.

***********************

Nat watched as Nick stumbled through an explanation of the events which had
taken place at the precinct earlier.  It was strange.  This was the first
time she'd heard the unedited-for-mortals version, and she found she didn't
even care.  With everything that had happened tonight, friends dead and
dying, all of her emotion had just been used up.

Nick wound up his story with the list of Tracy's injuries, pausing to see
if Natalie would take over at that point.  She didn't.  She already knew
them by heart, listing them over and over again in her mind, knew how slim
the chances for survival were.  They were almost as bad as Richie's had
been.

Richie.  Even after four years, it still hurt to think of him gone.
Whenever she saw Sarah and Amy, it brought everything back.  The shooting
at the station, her ultimatum to Nick.  She'd begged him to make her
brother a vampire, and wound up creating a monster instead.

Too many deaths, that's what there'd been.  Richie, Cynthia, Schanke,
Cohen, Cal, Lora, and now maybe Tracy.  Did normal people with normal
mortal lives lose so many friends?

"Where's her family?" Vachon was asking.

"Her parents are both out of town.  Her mother lives in Montreal and her
father is off at a big family birthday party for her uncle Sonny up at
their hunting lodge.  The captain told both of them and they're going to
get here as soon as they can, but they won't be here before morning at the
earliest," Nick replied.

"So there's no one here for her?"

"Except us."

"Except us," Vachon agreed.  He bent down and lightly kissed Tracy's forehead.

"They've done everything they can," Nick assured him.  "All we can do is
wait and see."

Wait and see.  Small comfort *that* was.  "But *you* haven't done
everything you can for her, have you?"  Nat heard herself saying.  "If you
made her one of you, there would be no question of her survival."

"Nat--" Nick started to say.

She cut him off.  "No, we all know how you feel about it, Nick, but I want
to know what *he* thinks."  She didn't even know *what* she was saying
anymore.  The deaths, the half-life of whatever it was she had with Nick,
all that pent up anger and frustration came flooding out in a rushing
torrent.

"It's not that simple," Vachon said quietly.

Of course it wasn't--it hadn't been for Richie.  But she wanted to
know--needed to know.  There were so many times she'd felt a kindred spirit
to Tracy in their shared attraction to vampires.  A part of herself was
lying in that bed caught between life and death, and it was for that part
she was asking.  "Do you think you will," she pressed, "if it looks like
she won't make it, or if she'll be in a coma for years?"

"I don't know," Vachon said, turning back to Tracy's recumbent form and
taking her hand.  "I honestly don't know."

Silence settled like a thick veil over the room, broken only by the steady
beep of the heart-monitor--which only echoed the heartbeat Nick and Vachon
could hear perfectly well.  Vachon stayed at Tracy's side, holding her
hand.  Nick took his position in a shadowy corner of the room, sketching
randomly on a pad of the hospital stationary.  Nat stationed herself by the
window staring out at the night.  None of them seemed inclined to
talk--what was there to say?--or to leave--where would they go?  Vachon was
here because he wanted to be here for Tracy.  Nick was temporarily
suspended during the IA investigation of the shooting, and as for
herself--well, she wasn't up to facing any more dead people right now.
Being alone was even worse.  Here, at least, they had each other, united by
mutual concern for a friend.

The hours stretched on.  Outside the door, activity continued.  Overhead,
outside the hospital window, the sky turned.  In the reflection on the
glass, Natalie could see Vachon's head bent over Tracy's hand, although she
was sure he wasn't sleeping.  He suddenly sat straight up.  A bit
surprised, she turned to see what had startled him, just in time to see
Tracy's head move on the pillow.

As she and Nick were starting to rush over, Tracy's eyes fluttered open.

"Javier?" she mumbled.

"Yes," Vachon said, gripping her hand in his.  "I'm here."

"So this is what it's like to be dead," Tracy's voice was slightly clearer.

"No, you're fine," Vachon insisted.  "You're going to be fine.  Rest now."
He smoothed her hair gently.

Tracy nodded and her eyes closed again, but her breathing was better and
her heartbeat seemed stronger.

The three people awake in the room looked at each other and smiled.  It
wasn't much, but it was a sign and their hope had been restored.  Tears
streamed down Nat's face and Nick gave her a handkerchief.  As a doctor,
Nat knew that Tracy was far from out of the woods yet, but the hope that
here was one life which wouldn't end too soon, one person who would make it
through this horrible day, continued to grow, taking away some of the
emptiness she'd been feeling.


She'd had the strangest dream, Tracy thought muzzily. It had been about
Vachon.  Not that that was unusual.  She'd dreamed about him almost every
night since that last horrible one.  But normally her dreams featured him
at the church strumming his guitar, or drinking a glass of his favorite
beverage, not sitting by her bed holding her hand.  Waking hurt--really
hurt.  Her stomach and head ached and there was a strange beeping sound.
Heart monitor, she realized.  But where?  And what?  She opened her eyes
and looked around, only to meet the eyes of a ghost.

"You're dead," she said, not believing what she was seeing, and not quite
certain she wasn't dead herself.  Sure, she'd always thought that pain
stopped when you were dead, but she'd never been dead before, so how would
she know?

"I think the technical term is 'undead,' Trace," Javier said with that old
smile.

"But I staked you--you're dead," she insisted.

"You pulled the stake out, though, and then after Divia died, I started to
heal.  I woke up tonight, and went to find you, found out you were here,
and so I came over."

"I'd been hurt," Tracy repeated.  Dawkins.  Right.  He'd had a gun and
Nick--"Nick!"

"Yes?" Her partner came out of the shadows.

"You could have trusted me," she accused.

Nick came around the bed and took her other hand.  "I know.  After so long,
it's easy to forget sometimes.  But I promise you, as soon as you're
feeling better, I'll tell you all about it."

"Everything?" she demanded, mustering a smile.

"The better parts," he told her, smiling himself.

"All right you two, enough."  Nat appeared, all professional, and took her
pulse.  "She needs her rest.  Nick, you'd better get the doctors and tell
them she's awake."  Natalie's bustling manner seemed almost like normal
again, instead of the almost wax-like stillness she'd had since that
so-called friend (what kind of friend would send someone a personalized
suicide note, anyway?) had died.

A more immediate concern occurred to her, through the haze of pain.
"You're not going to leave me?" she begged Vachon, suddenly worried that
she would wake up and find that *this* had all been a dream.

Natalie snickered.  "He can't, and neither can Nick."  She pointed out the
window to the sky, already bright with the dawn.  Nick and Vachon were
stuck here for the day unless they wanted to risk becoming the main event
at a barbecue.

"Will you be safe here?"  Tracy asked.  After all, it *was* a big window.

"We'll draw the curtains, and if that doesn't work, well, there's always
the bathroom," Nick assured her.

"The bathroom?"  Javier was frowning.

"It's bigger than the trunk of the Caddy," Nick shrugged.

"The doctor, Nick, before the sun gets any higher," Nat reminded in her
most professional tone.  "And you too, Vachon.  I want to examine her."
She shooed the two vampires out of the room and shut the door firmly.  She
really did seem like her old self again.

A new thought occurred to Tracy.  "You knew.  About Nick, Vachon, and
everything."

Nat laughed.  "Remind me to tell you about the time I treated the entire
Toronto vampire community for an epidemic.  But that can wait.  For now,
you need to concentrate on getting well."

Fin.

Anne Jensen
ajensen@west.net