Incarnations of Immortality TheBear! Disclaimer: The characters that have been invited to play in this construct belong to TPTB. In case you are reading this story and have never heard of the following television shows; X-Files, Forever Knight, Highlander; I hereby inform you that there is life beyond Baywatch Nights, WWF and VIP. Also, I did not create any of these characters, and I do not own them. Superfluous Also, I am in no way profiting from the writing of this story, at least not in any tangible, taxable way. (So far our government has not yet figured out how to place an enforceable tariff on joy, personal fulfillment, and satisfaction- though grants have been made and studies are in progress.) This romp through my subconscious includes the usual detritus found in such places; superlative sex, vivid violence, and additional alliterations. So, young children and those who like to pretend that sex offends them should be sure to change the channel now. Go on now, git! Go read something clean and wholesome, something that won’t offend. I suggest picking up your bible and reading Song of Solomon. Oh yeah, for those who like abbreviations, this is an N&N Packer, T&V Packer, MSR story- all NoRomo, non-shippers should run. There is Angst, UST, RST (Lots and lots of RST), BDSM and assorted fluff. Plot! Yeah, there’s also plot. You Have Been Warned! ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Prologue Washington DC 2:55 p.m. Friday December 8th The cell phone in his pocket started ringing. “Mulder” “Mulder, it’s me. Where are you?” “On my way back to the office now, why?” “Skinner wants to talk to us.” “10 minutes, Scully.” He reviewed everything he had been doing in the last two weeks, trying to figure out what they were in trouble for now. “Did he sound pissed-off?” He heard a sigh, then “Not really. Why, what have you done now?” “Me? Nothing Scully.” He swore he could actually hear her eyes rolling. “Seriously, Scully- Nothing. Look, I’ll be right there, ok?” “Ok.” She didn’t sound convinced. “It’s not *always* my fault…” he muttered to himself, as he pulled into the parking garage and looked for a spot. “No, really… Damn- I don’t sound very convinced either,” he thought. Mulder went directly to Skinner’s office, knowing that she wouldn’t wait in their office. When he got there Kimberly, Skinner’s assistant gave him a look of slight annoyance- pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes- and then told him that they were waiting for him. No need to ask who “they” were. He entered Skinner’s office to find Scully sitting across from him with a slightly ambivalent look on her face. “Nice of you to join us Agent Mulder,” Skinner said with his customarily lemony look. Mulder glanced at his partner and got the “Don’t-piss-him-off” look. Suppressing a sigh, he turned to AD Skinner and said, “Thank you Sir.” He sat down next to his partner and put on his best mask of impassivity. He waited for the other shoe to drop. Skinner just stared at Mulder for half a beat, then settled back in his chair and addressed his best, and most frustrating, pair of agents. “There is a conference in Toronto next week.” He paused waiting to see if there was any response. When there was none he continued, “I am assigning both of you to attend.” His tone was flat. He stopped speaking at that point, and leaned back in his chair, his gaze flicking back and forth between the two. After a moment the agents seemed to realize that Skinner was done speaking. Skinner waited with anticipation; he knew what was about to happen. Mulder and Scully swiveled their heads towards each other about 15 degrees and made brief eye contact. They then leaned forward to identical positions of uprightness and paused before speaking. Another brief head swivel and eye contact, again, perfectly timed, and Mulder pursed his lips while Scully spoke. “Sir, if I may ask, what is this conference about?” Skinner wondered if they were even aware that they did that- Always. Every time. It was as though they rigorously rehearsed the choreography of their movements ahead of time. The movements were different each time, and they seemed to trade off which one of them would speak, but always, their movements mirrored each other precisely. Sometimes they really were spooky. He wiped the almost grin off of his face and answered the question, “You may, Agent Scully.” Again, the choreographed silent communication. Identical eyebrows rose. Skinner broke in before Scully could ask the next question, “The conference is being hosted by the Toronto Metro Homicide department and Coroner’s office. Kimberly has your itinerary. A representative from each department will meet you at the airport. That will be all agents.” They waited perhaps 2 seconds and then arose as one. After another pregnant pause, in which Skinner opened and began to peruse a file on his desk, Mulder and Scully walked out of the office and got their itineraries from Skinners secretary. They walked in silence to the elevators and Mulder pushed the down button. They got on the next car and rode down locked in silent communication, each trying to determine from the eyes of the other if they knew anything beyond what they already had. Scully thought she saw something in Mulder’s eyes- a glimmer of interest beyond trying to figure out what was up with Skinner. They entered their office and she turned on him, asking, “What is it Mulder? What’s in Toronto that’s got you so excited?” “Jesus, Scully,” he looked at her, astonished for a moment, “if I didn’t know better I would say you were a mind reader. I think I had better open up an X-File on you.” He tried to divert her line of questioning, “What do you think about Skinner’s behavior?” “Very funny Mulder,” she said- allowing him to divert the discussion for now. She knew he would tell her soon enough. “I think it’s obvious.” “Yeah, you’re right. He wanted us to know that this assignment came from somewhere else, somewhere other than his office,” he said. “Someone else you mean,” she said quietly. “Yeah,” he sighed, “Probably.” ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Toronto Homicide, 96th Precinct 11 p.m. Friday December 8th Nick was lost again. Tracy was sitting at her desk and watching him stare off into space. Again. “Nick, pay attention! I need you to help me finish this report!” Tracy growled at him. Nick came to, and said, “Sorry Trace, I…” Tracy saw Nick’s face light up, and he smiled at someone behind her. “I wonder what Natalie’s doing here,” she muttered, smiling when she was rewarded with Nick’s sudden sharp glance and his look of confusion. “How did you…” Nick began, but Tracy ignored him and turned around to greet Nat. “Hey Nat, what are you doing here so early?” Tracy asked. “Hi Tracy , Captain Reese called for me,” she said with a smile. “Hello Nick,” “Hi Nat,” Nick replied, with a silly grin on his face. Just then they all heard a bellow come from the Captain’s office, “Lambert, Knight! Get in here!” ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Incarnations of Immortality By The Bear! Disclaimer: See Prologue Chapter 1 Toronto Homicide, 96th Precinct 11:10 p.m. Friday December 8th "So let me get this straight," Nick said, his voice raising slightly and taking on a tone best described as exasperated, "You want us to baby-sit a pair of United States federal agents. For a week!" Nick practically shouted at the captain. "Nick, you two were going to have to attend the conference anyway…" "What about the cases we are working on?" Nick asked almost resignedly. "Nick, you and Vetter just completed the Shultz homicide, Klock is in custody and the case is airtight. Vetter can finish up the paperwork on anything else you guys have left to wrap up…" "She's going to love that," Nat murmured. "As I was saying, you have nothing else outstanding right now," continued the captain with a narrow-eyed glance at Nat. "Look guys, I don't particularly care for this either, but the commissioner was adamant that the two of you were to be put on this. These two agents are something different- they generally work cases involving 'unexplained phenomenon.' was how he described it to me." "Captain, I wonder why he wanted me on this as well as Nick," Nat said- looking bemused. The captain leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head as he regarded her. "I don't know, Natalie. One of them,” he paused to flip through the file, “Agent Scully, is a forensic pathologist in addition to being a field agent. Maybe that’s why." he sat up, leaning forward to thump his open palm on the desktop, "In any case, I don't like it either. I want you two to let me know if you find out anything that may explain this. If they let on that they may have a hidden agenda, or that sort of thing- I want to know about it." "Right Captain." Nick and Nat said almost simultaneously. "Come on Nick, I want to hear you give Tracey the good news" said Nat with a smirk on her face. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Flight 3251 to Toronto 4:57 p.m. Saturday December 9th. "I don't know, Mulder. When's the last time you ever heard of a conference being held at night?" Scully asked with a sigh. "Look at this schedule…" "I know, I read it already," Mulder exhaled sharply. "I think its official now." Scully’s eyes widened slightly. "Punishment detail?" she asked. Mulder raised his eyebrows as if to ask what else it could be. "That or an elaborate trap of some kind." "Great. Just great," she clipped out between clenched teeth. They sat in companionable silence for a moment, each seemingly lost in thought. Scully started slightly when Mulder loudly cracked a sunflower seed between his teeth. Her eyes darted immediately to his mouth and she stared in wonder as his lips twitched while his tongue and teeth worked the meat free from the shell. She felt a shudder run slowly through her, beginning at her center, and flowing from there down to her toes and up to her scalp. All of the tiny little hairs on her arms lifted straight up from her skin and her nipples became painfully erect as she imagined those lips moving over them. "God, how pathetic is this?" she thought to herself. "He chomps a seed and I'm creaming my panties." Her mind began playing scenes from selected fantasies- the ones involving his lips on selected portions of her anatomy. She ruefully gave herself a little shake, "Stop it! This is your partner. Your friend. Its against the rules!!" she almost chuckled out loud at that. If she believed that he felt for her even half of what she felt for him, she would have stripped him naked and devoured him whole, long ago. The truth was that she didn’t think he had any desire for her at all. "I know he loves me- as a friend, a sister even, but not a lover." Deep down inside she fantasized that that might change someday, but the rational Scully didn't believe it. Mulder was trying not to look at her. "Please, think of some thing else, anything else…" ran over and over like a mantra in his head. "Get a grip, Fox! She is your partner- she doesn't think of you like that!" He tried to think of baseball, but all he could picture was her; wrapped in his arms, gamely trying to learn how to hit a baseball. He tried to think of basketball but the picture of her lying up against him, asleep, on his couch while watching college hoops filled his thoughts. "At least when we have a case I can concentrate on that," he complained to himself, "How the hell am I going to survive being around her for the next 10 days with nothing but some boring conference I don't care about anyway to fill my thoughts. Images of her sleeping in the hotel room next to him, mere feet away from him began to fill his head and he started to feel stirrings in his groin. He almost moaned out loud. Turned toward Scully slightly to see if she might have noticed anything and was shocked to see her staring at him. "Busted again," he thought as he saw her blush slightly, "I'm surprised she hasn't kicked my ass before for this." She was slightly startled herself when he turned toward her. "Great, Busted again," she thought, "I'm surprised he is even willing to sit next to me anymore, as much as I stare at him." "What?" Mulder blurted out. Scully felt her face grow hot and tried to think of something to say. Finally she recalled what she thought she had seen in his eyes during the elevator trip down from Skinner's office. "Why were you so interested in Toronto , Mulder?" "Reprieved!" Mulder shouted in his mind. "Remember when you called me before the meeting?" At her nod he continued, "The gunmen just got back from Toronto a couple of days ago and wanted to show me a nifty little device they got from one of their contacts there. A Body Scanner." "Ok Mulder, I'll bite, what's a body scanner? Some twisted new device to capture porn for the Internet?" Scully smirked. "No, although that's not a bad idea," Mulder smiled, "It's a device that detects body heat and heartbeat signature. They took an IR detector and a hypersensitive microphone and slaved them to a microprocessor that can filter out extraneous noise and heat source to discriminate a human body from its surroundings. It would be good for search-and-rescue operations and they think they can further tweak the software to not only differentiate humans from their surroundings, but even from one another. A unique 'fingerprint' so to speak" "What about that makes Toronto particularly interesting?" Scully asked. "Isn't that enough?" Mulder said with that classic half-grin on his face. "For others, surely, but for you?" Scully grinned herself. "Are you sure you're not psychic Scully?" Mulder was smiling now. "I assure you Mulder- I am not psychic- though I must be psychotic to hang around you this long," she teased back. His breath caught slightly and his smile faltered, but he swiftly recovered and continued, "Well, they were telling me about how they were driving around testing it when they came upon someone who didn't seem to register on it." Scully's eyebrow arched as he continued, "They watched her walk into a club in the warehouse district. They figured that the thing must be malfunctioning, so they tried it out on some of the people in line for the club, and it worked fine. They ended up parking across the street from the club and trying it out on everyone in line, you know, just to see if it was an isolated anomaly, and found some disturbing results." He paused for a moment to gauge her reaction, "They said that it worked on everyone in line, but that the bouncer and several patrons leaving the establishment did not register at all. Furthermore, patrons entering that were allowed to bypass the line didn't register either." Scully tried not to let her eyes roll, "And they concluded from this…" "Well, that's where they seem to disagree," Mulder said. "Byers thinks they had some sort of shielding or something, Langley thinks they must be some kind of alien hybrids, and Frohike…" "I can hardly wait to hear what Frohike thinks," Scully muttered. "Well, Frohike thinks they must be vampires or something." "Vampires," Scully said flatly. "Well they said the club was pretty gothic, and Byers thought that was affecting Frohike's judgment. Frohike said that Byers was just jealous because he didn't figure it out first." Mulder said somewhat sheepishly. "And you think we should check this club out." Scully said somewhere between exasperation and resignation. "Well, can you think of any reason not to?" "Sure Mulder. A night at a classy Gothic bar in the Warehouse District. You sure know how to show a girl a good time." she said, her expression indecipherable, as a sudden mental picture of him showing her a very good time crossed her mind. Mulder's eyes glazed over a bit at Scully’s words as he suddenly had mental image of himself showing her an extremely good time. Had they not simultaneously averted their gaze from one another, each would have seen the other blushing furiously. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Terminal 3 Lester B Pearson International Airport 6:02 p.m. Saturday December 9th. “They are FBI Agents, Nick. How hard could it be to recognize them?” Natalie asked. “Nick looked puzzled, his brows drawing together, “How do you mean, Nat?” he asked at they waited for the passengers to begin departing from the plane. “Well, they will probably both be tall, conservative looking, and dressed in Brooks Brothers Navy blue suits, carrying briefcases,” Nat said with a giggle. “I think you’ve been watching too many Cop movies, Nat.” Nick said with a sardonic grin. “It’s a good thing I brought a sign,” he said, waving the hand-printed Mulder & Scully sign in her face. Passengers were starting to come out of the jet-way at this point and the two noticed two figures clad in black suits and trench coats exiting and looking about them. “God, Nick,” Nat whispered. “Look at those two, they dress like you do.” “Must be a cop thing,” Nick said with a grin. She playfully punched him on the shoulder and said, “That’s not what I meant and you know it!” “Well, they are walking this way, maybe they'll let you check their teeth,” Nick whispered in her ear, feeling unusually playful. Natalie felt her heart beat faster and shivered a little at the feeling of Nick's cool breath on her ear. She suddenly felt flushed and overheated. "Get a Grip Nat!" she thought furiously at herself. "He's just being friendly. Emphasis on *friend.* Even If he wanted more than that he would just go see Janet, not seduce you in an airport." she thought, getting angry with herself. Nick heard the increased heartbeat, smelled and saw the flush of arousal that Natalie was giving off and jerked back as though he had been bitten. His control was becoming more and more tenuous lately- especially around her. An idea was hovering around the edge of his consciousness, getting closer and closer every day, but nonetheless eluding him when he focused his attention toward it. He could feel that it was about Nat, and that it was of extreme importance, and he thought it might have something to do with his quest for mortality as well, but he wasn't sure. "No time for such musings now," he chastised himself as the two objects of their conversation reached them. Scully silently appraised the two as Mulder took out his identification and introduced the two of them as Agents Mulder and Scully with the FBI to the pale blond man holding the sign with their names on it and the curvy brunette standing next to him. She noticed that the woman was blushing and the man seemed slightly lost in thought. Half a beat later the man spoke up and introduced himself as Detective Nick Knight with Toronto metro homicide, and the woman as Doctor Natalie Lambert of the Toronto Coroner's office. They each smiled and shook hands with Mulder and herself. She noticed that Lambert's hand seemed very warm, while Knight's felt quite cool. Mulder made some inane pleasantries while she quietly studied the two people who were here to shepherd them during this conference. She couldn't shake the feeling that there was a great deal more to them than there seemed on the surface. She wondered if they knew why She and Mulder were really here. Finally she broke her silence, "Well detective, please lead on, we'd like to get checked in and I could really go for something to eat right about now." Natalie broke in with, "Actually that sounds pretty good. Why don't you let Nick and I take you out for a meal? There's a decent café on the way to the Plaza." She turned to Nick with a smirk and said, "When's the last time you ate, Nick?" Deciding he wasn't going to win this one, Nick capitulated without a fight, "Fine," he said turning to Mulder and Scully and continuing, "Lets go to the luggage retrieval and get on our way." ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Outside Victoria Café 6:58 p.m. Saturday December 9th. The conversation has somehow lapsed into docspeak during the ride, with Mulder and Nick listening, bemused, to Scully and Natalie as though they were speaking Yiddish. They pulled into a parking slot in the mall lot about halfway between the restaurant and office building beside it along the highway. As they exited the caddie, Detective Knight suddenly struck a pose, as though he was listening to something far away. Mulder noticed and began to ask what was going on when he heard Knight mutter under his breath, "Swords?" He stood there, dumfounded for a moment as Knight took off toward the back of the office building at a dead run, then collected his wits and ran after him. He could hear Scully and Doctor Lambert running behind him, each calling out their respective partner's name. As he got closer to where he had seen Knight disappear around the corner of the building, he heard the crash of metal on metal and a shout of 'There can be only one!' followed by a moment of silence. Nick had come around the edge of the building in time to see a man kneeling before another who was swinging a sword toward his neck. Before Nick could even ponder the question of whether or not to use his Vampiric speed, the blade hurtled through neck of the kneeling man and his head practically leapt from his shoulders. He heard Agent Mulder coming around the corner behind him and drew his weapon and pointed it at the battle's victor. He shouted, "Metro Homicide, drop the sword and put your hands on your head!" Agent Mulder stopped next to him, his weapon drawn, a question on his breath when his attention was suddenly refocused on the headless corpse, which began to raise off of the ground while lightning began to arc from the neck and into the man standing with his sword raised above his head. Nat and Agent Scully came around the corner in time to see arcs of electricity blowing sparks off of the transformers on the wall of the building and a headless corpse hitting the ground as though it had been dropped from a height. A man with a sword in his hand was standing up from the ground and running away on the other side of the showers of sparks coming off of the transformer. "Nick, what's going on?" Natalie breathed, hearing similar sentiments echoed by Agent Scully toward her partner. Both of the men had their guns drawn, but they were pointed to the ground and they each had their mouths hanging open in surprise. She heard Agent Mulder recover first and say 'Wow!" in a loud exhale. Nick seemed entirely at a loss for words. Scully took a moment to try and reconcile what she thought she had seen with anything she might have ever seen before but gave up after a moment. She would have to think about it later. Right now there was a headless corpse to look at, and she wanted to be sure she had a chance to make some close up observations before anything could happen to sweep this under the carpet. She heard Detective Knight tell Doctor Lambert to take a look at the body while he went to go call it in. Mulder caught up to her as she approached to the body. "How much did you see, Scully?" he whispered to her. "What do you mean?" she asked. Mulder explained to her what he thought he had seen. "Oh, Mulder. That’s not possible- lightning doesn't come out of people's bodies- you must have seen the arcs coming off of that transformer." she said. "Scully- I saw the lightening for almost 2 seconds *before* the transformer blew!" Mulder whispered loudly. "I'm telling you, Scully- I saw it come out of him," indicating the corpse, "and into the other guy- repeatedly." Natalie overheard most of the conversation and wondered what Nick would have to say about it, as he had apparently arrived on the scene first. She examined the corpse and noticed the sword still clutched in the out-flung hand. She also noticed that the area where the neck had been appeared to be seared and charred as if by high heat. She would have to check the feet when she did the autopsy to see if there were corresponding burns where the electrical current should have gone out to ground. Scully walked over and squatted down next to the severed head, examining it for anything unusual, beyond the fact that it was no longer attached to the body. She wondered about the sword "were they really having some sort of duel to the death?" she asked herself, "what century did they think they were in?" She noticed Doctor Lambert joining her and asked, "anything interesting on the body?" Natalie noticed the lack of any burns on the neck of the head and said, "Other than its unnatural lack of height?" she continued, "The burns were obviously made after the decapitation. We'll have to take a look once we get him out of here to determine cause." "I'd like to observe the autopsy if you don't mind, Doctor Lambert" Scully said. "You would have to get permission from my Captain, but I certainly don't mind." Natalie replied. Just then Nick returned to the scene and told them that more officers should be arriving in a couple of minutes. He paused for a moment as he looked at the body, at the burns on the neck and remembered the scene as it had unfolded. Natalie noticed his reverie and asked him what had happened. He began to describe what he had seen but left out the part about the floating body and the lightening pouring out of the neck and into the other man. Mulder of course brought it up and asked Nick to confirm what he had seen. "But that isn't possible, is it Agent Mulder?" Nick asked, somewhat bewildered. He had never seen anything like that before in his 800 years of life/unlife. "Impossible or not, it is what happened" Mulder countered. "Frankly, agent Mulder, I can't be sure what I saw. I remember it as you said, but I'm not sure I believe it myself,” Nick said softly as the patrol cars and coroner's van arrived on scene. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== International Plaza Hotel and Conference Center 2:28am Sunday December 10th. It had been after midnight before they were done at the precinct, and Scully had wanted to observe the autopsy. Mulder had told her he would meet her at the hotel. Scully was focused on the task at hand and had barely acknowledged him with a glance and a non-committal grunt as she followed Doctor Lambert off to the morgue. Detective Knight dropped him at the hotel and assured him that 'Nat' would see to it that agent Scully made it to the hotel when the autopsy was completed, and that they would see them at the conference Monday evening. Mulder's mind was awhirl with what had happened that night. He was also hungry. He knew his partner, and the fact that while focused on the autopsy, she would undoubtedly forget her own hunger until she got back to the hotel and then she would immediately be ravenous. He also knew that he had better be ready to assuage that hunger or she would be extremely unpleasant to be around. He called the desk and got a number for an all-night Chinese place that would deliver. He had eaten his fill, and even taken a brief, and cold, shower before he heard her entering the adjoining room. He immediately knocked on the door and entered bear ing gifts to satisfy the hungry Scully, hopefully before she became the crabby Scully. Scully dragged herself in the door, dropping her bags on the floor immediately in front of the door and wearily walked over to the chair and flopped down- too worn out to even make it all of the way to the bed. She heard Mulder's knock on the door and turned her head in time to see him enter with so much as a 'by your leave.' "Oh no! He’s wearing that tight gray T-shirt and jeans," she thought to herself. The material of the T-shirt was stretched tightly over the frame of his chest and shoulders, causing her mouth to water slightly and she felt herself getting slightly damp between her thighs. "Oh Mulder, why tonight?" she thought as she silently condemned her traitorous body for reacting so palpably to his mere presence. "Dammit Mulder, what now?" she said out loud, sublimating her desire into annoyance, hoping that he would misread the tension she was clearly displaying. "Too late" he muttered under his breath. "Food, Scully. I thought you might not have eaten yet and I knew you would be tired and you probably wouldn't want to have to get up and get anything or wait for delivery so…" He was clearly babbling and desperately wanted to shut up but couldn't seem to get his brain on the same wavelength as his mouth. Finally he noticed that he seemed to have drifted to a stop in the middle of a sentence so he finished with "…so I got you some… It’s General Tso's Chicken, Scully. I know you really like General Tso's Chicken…" Damn. He was babbling again. This time he just kept his mouth shut. "God I can be a bitch sometimes," she thought as she saw the wounded puppy look on Mulder's face and listened to him babble. "Why does he have to be so sweet and understanding, and so damn sexy!" she practically shouted at herself. She quickly stood up and took the box from him and set it down on the hotel-room table- turning her back on him as she did so before he could see the welling of tears in her eyes. "Thanks, Mulder." she murmured as she grabbed the box from him. She looked so small and fragile sometimes. He had to restrain himself from swiftly closing the distance between them and wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her hair as he held her tight. "So much for the effectiveness of cold showers" he thought as he felt himself tighten in his jeans. "I'm beat Mulder. Could we discuss the case in the morning? I really need to get some sleep," she said; even though what she really wanted was for him to sweep her up and throw her on the bed. She imagined him pounding into her with an animalistic ferocity, while she was shouting his name as he made her cum over an over again. She was afraid if he didn't leave now she wouldn't be able to keep the feelings that were choking her from spilling out and revealing everything to him. He didn't feel that way about her and she was afraid that it would destroy their partnership if she told him how she felt. "She knows. She knows and it repulses her." Mulder felt his heart crack a little. "How can I be such a beast? She is tired and worn out and hungry and I'm standing here with a hard-on like a geeky high school kid." Mulder berated himself and wondered even more how she could stand to stay partnered with such totally screwed-up freak like him. "Sure Scully. Hey, don't worry about getting up early- we need to acclimate ourselves to the nights anyway while we’re here." he said, his voice only wavering a little. "Ok Mulder. Good Night," she said as he closed the door behind him. Neither of them was able to fall asleep for several hours that night. Each tossed and turned and wished they were in bed with the other. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Incarnations of Immortality By The Bear! Disclaimer: See Prologue Chapter 2 Nicks Loft 3:10 p.m. Sunday December 10th Nick roused from a nightmare and sat up with a gasp, his body dripping in blood-sweat. He had been stuck in a swirling mishmash of images- images filled with blood and terror, but in them he had seemed to be the observer rather than the instigator. He tried to sort out the images in his mind as best he could and what he began to see was something that he had never thought of before. He saw his old partner Schanke being shot, and himself not being able to reach the shooter in time, he saw himself not quite reaching, falling short, showing up just a little too late, failing to save people that he knew he had rescued over the past several years. He saw a myriad of incidents that he had successfully resolved in reality, but in his dream, he wasn't able to stop the horrors from occurring. Finally, as he heard a loud roaring in his ears, the images culminated in seeing himself enter that greenhouse where Roger Jamison was going to rape Natalie, but this time he got there just after Roger was done, instead of just before he started. Natalie was asleep on the couch downstairs. She and Nick had stayed up until nearly 8 a.m. discussing the extraordinary events of the previous night, including the unusual events surrounding the autopsy. She woke up to the anguished sound of Nick roaring her name at the top of his lungs. She rushed up the stairs to his bedroom door. She heard Nick sobbing and it tore at her heart. She knocked at the door and opened it, calling his name softly "Nick? Nick, are you alright?" The scene in front of her scared her as much as it saddened her- Nick was sitting on his bed, his bare chest covered in a fine sheen of blood, his mouth hanging open, fangs dropped and a high-pitched keening pouring out. His eyes were glowing red and blood-tears were running down his face and dripping onto his chest and stomach. He seemed to be lost in thought and didn't even notice her presence. "Oh Nick…" he heard Nat whisper under her breath as he snapped back to reality. He looked at her through a haze of red and realized what condition he was in. He stood up suddenly and walked away into the corner of his room, facing away from her, "Don't look at me, Natalie. Please. Give me a moment to put myself together" he said as he wrapped his arms around his chest tightly. He knew that if she touched him it would be over. He would sink his teeth into that lovely ivory neck and drain the last drop of her precious life into himself to fill the aching void he was feeling. She took a half step toward him and heard his tortured whisper "Please Nat, I don't think I could stop…” She just nodded, knowing that he couldn't see her but unable to form any words, and walked out and down the stairs. She walked to his refrigerator and pulled out the first green bottle she saw and poured a big glass of it for him. She so desperately wanted to be able to comfort him, but she knew that she wasn't what he needed. Wasn't *who* he wanted. She choked down her own sob and determined that she would do whatever she could do, and ignore what she couldn't do, to help. He needed a friend and she would be that friend, even though she wanted to be so much more. Nick took a quick shower and tried to put the images from his dream out of his mind. He knew what had caused his failure in each of those scenes playing out in his mind- he was human. He was convinced that the Beast in him was trying to poison his desire to be human, trying to get him to give up his quest. Maybe it was LaCroix. Maybe LaCroix was sending these images to him to try and… He tried to ignore the little voice deep inside his head that was telling him that maybe he needed to think about what the consequences of his quest would be if he succeeded. Negative consequences as well as positive ones. Nick shook himself out of his reverie and finished drying himself off and getting dressed. He never once met his own gaze in the mirror as he dried and combed his hair. He slowly walked down the stairs and saw Natalie sitting at the table, the chair across from her pulled out and a large glass of blood on the table in front of it. Her eyes were fixed on the glass and she didn't seem willing to look at him as descended and sat at the table. "Natalie, I…" he started to say. She interrupted and said, "Drink." When he hesitated she finally moved her eyes to his and said, "Drink, then talk." He could smell her blood- like mulled, spiced wine- and it was all he could do to choke down the bovine swill before him. He did feel a little better for having done so, however. He looked up at her and saw her patiently waiting for him to speak. "She is so beautiful," he thought, staring at her face, her mass of brunette curls framing it, her neck like pale ivory, the pulse of her life's blood visible against the soft skin of her throat. He felt himself becoming aroused, he felt the vampire becoming aroused as well. He heard his own voice saying, "It was just a nightmare Nat." She heard his voice, knowing it was a lie the moment it fell out of his mouth. It was clearly more than just a nightmare. She also saw his eyes fixed on her throat, caressing it like the lips of a lover. She noticed tiny flecks of gold starting to form in the green of his eyes. She also felt the affect his gaze had on her body- her nipples were hardening, and she was starting to feel warm and damp at the juncture of her thighs. She cursed her body for its betrayal of her desire, knowing his heightened senses could detect it. Nick Knight had an epiphany. He realized suddenly and for the first time that Natalie Lambert wanted him. Not just a little. Not mildly attracted to him or slightly fond of him but desperately in love with him. Looking back over the past several years, he realized that she wanted him all along. In fact, in retrospect he discovered that her desire for him was obvious- obvious to everyone but him. How could he have been so thickheaded? He knew that he was very often slow to catch on, but 6 years? "What a complete moron I am!" he yelled at himself. "Oh God," Natalie thought to herself. “I’m going to lose it!” She had to get out of there. Now. She felt that if she failed to leave immediately she was going to collapse and bawl her eyes out. She plastered her best fake smile on her face and stood up, “Look Nick, I’ve got to go home and clean myself up. And I’m sure Sidney is waiting to be fed, and I’ll call you later, Ok? Thanks for letting me crash here last night, I was beat.” She couldn’t seem to stop the verbal hemorrhaging from her mouth as she swiftly walked to the elevator and got in. Nick had two other thoughts as he watched her close the door of the elevator and begin the descent to the ground outside. One was that maybe mortality was not the key to his atonement. The other was that Natalie would feel betrayed if he told her he didn’t want to be mortal. He wasn’t looking forward to that conversation at all. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== International Plaza Hotel 3:10 p.m. Sunday December 10th Mulder sat at the table slowly sipping his iced tea as he considered what Scully had told him. The body was in perfect condition. Not counting the missing head, of course, and the burnt neck- which Scully couldn’t explain, though she still didn’t seem to accept his explanation of events. But the body, no scars- not even a vaccination scar- no healed injuries, no breakdown of any tissues or organs- a total lack of the normal wear and tear that is part of life as we know it. “He would have had to have lived with a perfect diet and exercise… no, even then gravity would have had some effect on him,” Scully said, frustrated by her inability to come up with even a theory as to how this could be scientifically explained. “I suppose you think he was a vampire, Mulder?” “Well, beheading is one of the given ways to kill a vampire, but nothing else seems to fit. I’ve never heard of vampires engaging in sword fights, and you didn’t find anything unusual with the teeth, did you?” Mulder asked. “No, Mulder. There was nothing unusual about the teeth, except that there was no evidence of any dental work ever being done. No caps, bridges, fillings or otherwise.” she answered. “Do you think it could be a clone, Scully?” Mulder asked, his voice low and quiet. “Dammit! Only Mulder could make that question sound sexy,” Scully thought furiously to herself. Out loud she said, “If it was a clone, Mulder, it was unlike any other we have seen.” “Yeah, no gas, no melting into green ooze, etc…” Mulder muttered. “Is there anything else we can do at this point? “Well, the DNA results should come back tomorrow or Tuesday, but I don’t seriously expect anything unusual from that. “Why not?” Mulder asked. “The standard forensic tests don’t look for much beyond identification” she replied. “We should…” Mulder started to say. Scully interrupted, “Already done, Mulder. The Gunmen should get the DNA sample by tomorrow morning” she said with a small grin. Mulder just stared at her for several seconds. “Maybe she really is psychic,” he thought. Seeing his widened eyes and unblinking stare, Scully said, “I don’t require psychic powers to know you were going to suggest sending a sample to the Gunmen for a more ‘in depth’ analysis. Nor do I need it to know that your next thought was going to be some smart comment about my being psychic.” Mulder calmed down after a moment of near panic and realized that if Scully were psychic she would have been slapping his face approximately every 10 minutes for the past 5 years. He smiled sheepishly and said, “I don’t think anyone in my whole life has ever known me as well as you do, Scully.” “Sometimes Mulder, I feel like I don’t know you at all.” she said to herself. “We have about 24 hours before our first course at the seminar, Mulder. Any ideas on how to fill that time?” Scully asked with a raised brow. That was a loaded question! “Oh boy, I’m sure glad I wore a loose pair of trousers today,” Mulder thought. “Actually Scully, I do.” Mulder said with a leer, “but your going to have to change clothes first.” Scully’s eyebrow climbed even higher as she said, “Why Agent Mulder, are you propositioning me? Whatever did you have in mind?” Mulder managed to reply smoothly, even though his mind was whirling with images of how he would like to proposition her, “I was thinking of spending an evening at a classy Gothic bar in the Warehouse District.” “Oh no. The Raven, Mulder?” “The Raven, Scully.” ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Natalie’s apartment 4:45 p.m. Sunday She had barely made it home without breaking down. She managed to get the door to her apartment closed behind her and collapsed to her knees on the floor right there in front of her door. Wracking sobs shook her, and bitter tears of humiliation poured down her face. She berated herself for her lack of control. She had made a decision to accept friendship and just be there to comfort him and the moment he looked at her she creamed in her jeans like a sophomore prom date. And he had to know! That’s why he just sat there staring at her like she was an idiot. Pretty soon the humiliation faded and the despair came to the forefront. She wanted him so badly that it felt like someone had kicked her in the stomach. She loved him so much and she felt so selfish for being unable to accept the lesser role of friend, rather than lover. She knew that Nick had brought Janette back across, but she had hoped that after Janette had left in anger over it that Nick might turn to her. She tried to console herself by remembering that Nick was worried about how LaCroix would react after the fiasco on that long-ago Valentines Day. However, she also knew that the two of them seemed to have resolved their differences after that child vampire Divia had gone on a rampage, so she didn’t think that was it either. She had to face the facts: He just didn’t want her anymore- if he ever had at all. She felt like something was squeezing her heart until it threatened to pop like a grape. Eventually she was cried out. There were no more tears to shed or emotions to feel. She was utterly exhausted and she fell asleep right there on the floor. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== The Raven 8:45 p.m. Sunday They had been in line for about 15 minutes when she noticed a big green Cadillac Convertible drive by and park down the block. She waited until she saw a familiar blond detective get out and head toward the front entrance to the Raven. She nudged Mulder and gestured with her chin toward the approaching detective. Mulder broke off his fantasy about how he could be keeping Scully warm right now and noticed whom she was indicating. They both watched in silence as Detective Knight walked right up to the doorman, who immediately jumped up from his stool and held the door open without so much as a word or glance from Knight. “Well.” said Mulder, loading that one word with volumes of meaning. “Come on Mulder, even if they exist, I hardly think that homicide detective would be the kind of job they would hold down.” Scully said with more than a bit of sarcasm in her voice. “I don’t know Scully. What better way to cover up any ‘indiscretions’ shall we say, that might pop up from the group?” Mulder said, “It’s too bad I couldn’t persuade the Gunmen to give up their new toy and bring it here myself.” ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Nick entered the Raven lost in thought. He thought LaCroix would be happy that he was giving up his quest, but would he be happy enough to forgive him his debt for Fleur? On top of that, even if LaCroix allowed him to woo Nat, would she still want him if he gave up on mortality? He thought so, he was pretty sure she wanted him any way she could get him. Unfortunately, he was equally sure that he didn’t deserve her under any circumstances. She would be better off without him, wouldn’t she? He used to think so, but lately he wasn’t sure. If vampires were not inherently evil, then would he really be condemning her if he brought her across? If that’s what she wanted? He was very confused. He was paradigm shifting without a clutch, and the gears of his reality were grinding noisily. He felt sure of two things though. He thought that he could atone- could be forgiven- and that was much more important than being able to see the sunshine again. Also he was certain that he loved Natalie with all that he was. If she would have him, he would be one with her forever. She was all of the sunshine he would ever need. He made his way through the crowd to the bar and spoke with Miklos, “Is LaCroix available?” “He’s just finishing taping his broadcast. Your usual while you wait?” the bartender asked. “No. The house special, please. And leave the bottle- I’ll wait in his office.” Nick said, his eyes locked on Miklos’, daring him to say anything. Miklos merely raised an eyebrow and handed him the bottle and two glasses, saying, “Of course. I’ll let him know you’re here.” ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== The Raven When Mulder and Scully finally got in, about 20 minutes later, they didn’t see Knight anywhere. “Where do you think he went?” Mulder shouted over the loud music. “I don’t know, Mulder.” she replied “Look, there’s a booth near the back. It looks like it has a good view of the whole place.” They made their way back to the booth and sat down just as the table was cleared. The waitress was a scantily clad and very curvy blonde. Her skin was extremely pale and her eyes were very blue. “What can I get you guys?” she said. Scully was immediately self-conscious thinking how she was definitely Mulder’s type- just like on those videos that he denied owning. “Just a beer.” she said. Mulder was looking at Scully, imagining her wearing the same getup this waitress was wearing and having some difficulty breathing. “Uh, yeah. A couple of Mooseheads would be great.” he stammered out. Scully snapped her eyes to his, expecting to see them locked on the waitress’s backside, and was surprised to see them raking her up and down. “Great, he’s comparing me to her- like that’s any contest.” she thought. Mulder finally noticed that she was staring at him and he felt himself blush furiously. He immediately looked away and saw very tall, intense looking man step out of what looked like a broadcast booth and make his way toward a door by the bar. Scully noticed his focus and turned to see what he was looking at now. She saw the tall man in the Armani suit walking into what looked like an office, and she saw Detective Knight sitting in there, apparently waiting for him. “Who was that guy, Mulder” she asked. “I don’t know. I saw him walking out of that sound booth,” he gestured to the studio across the bar. “But I’m pretty sure that was Knight waiting for him in the office.” “Curiouser and curiouser.” Just then the waitress returned with their drinks. “There you go guys. By the way, my name is Urs, if you need anything else,” she said, while blatantly checking Mulder out. “Actually, Urs, do you know who that guy who was in the recording booth was? He looks familiar to me, but I can’t place him.” Scully said, hoping for a little info. “Her eyes narrowed slightly but she answered, “That’s Monsieur LaCroix. He is the owner of the club, and does a radio show called The Nightcrawler from that booth.” She looked back toward Mulder and dropped her voice about half and octave and said “If there is anything else you need, you just let me know.” and then turned and walked away, swinging her hips just a little bit more than usual. Scully looked pissed, and he couldn’t figure out what he had done now. “Look, I’m sorry if I dragged you here against your will, but you have to admit its getting pretty interesting.” “Lord! How can I be jealous of a freaking cocktail waitress?” Scully asked herself. “I’m surprised you didn’t get her number, Mulder,” she said. “Jeez, can I get any more catty?” she wondered. At his look of total confusion she said, “Never mind Mulder. What do you think about Knight meeting with the club owner?” “What was that all about?” he wondered. “I don’t know, Scully. I can think of several reasons why he might be meeting with this guy. Some of them aren’t even sinister,” he said. She chuckled at that and took a long pull of her beer. She then returned to watching the crowd and trying not to think about her partner sitting across from her, looking damn sexy in his tight black turtleneck and pleated slacks. He took one last look at his partner in her tight black jeans and black silk blouse, trying not to be obvious about reaching down to adjust his erection to relieve some of the pressure, before returning his gaze to the crowd himself. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== The Raven “Nicolas, to what do I owe the honor of your visit?” asked LaCroix. Nick wasn’t sure how to begin, so he dropped his shields and allowed his feelings to flow along their blood-link. //fear/anxiety/desire/confusion// washed over LaCroix’s consciousness and he felt his own surprise that Nicolas would allow him access like this. “It has been so long,” he thought, wistfully. “Come my son, I feel your trouble. Tell me what is wrong.” “Father, I…” LaCroix’s eyebrows raised at that word “I don’t know where to begin. There’s… There is so much I need to say, to ask.” Nick began- his voice rough with emotion and his eyes turning golden. LaCroix suddenly rose from behind his desk and took his son by the arm. “Come, Nicolas, let us retire to my rooms and discuss this in a less formal setting.” With that, he led Nick through the back door of the office and up the stairway to his private apartment above the club. He sat Nick on the couch and sat himself down in the armchair perpendicular to him. “Now then Nicolas, perhaps you should begin from the beginning.” Nick didn’t really know where the beginning was, but he knew the thing that he felt most strongly. “I love her, father. With all that I am, I love her.” “Ahh. We are, of course speaking of the delectable Doctor Lambert, I presume?” Nick nodded his head sadly. “Why is that a concern my son?” Nick shied away from his gaze. He whispered, “because of our bargain. My debt to you for Fleur.” LaCroix smiled. “That’s right Nicolas. You owe me the life of a mortal whom you love in recompense for denying me your sister, whom I loved,” he paused for a moment as Nick hung his head, “and you wanted to ask me what I would accept in place of the dear Doctor’s life?” “Yes father. I would give you anything, do almost anything…” Nick began. LaCroix jumped in, “Almost, Nicolas? What wouldn’t you do?” he asked, wanting to draw this out a bit. Nick raised his eyes to meet LaCroix’s. “I will not kill for food, LaCroix.” “Is that all?” LaCroix asked with interest. “You would give up your ridiculous quest for mortality, your ‘humanity’?” he asked in disbelief. “I still feel the need to atone, father. I still seek to make up, however I can, for the horrible things I have done. However, I no longer believe that mortality is the key to that atonement.” “I see. You would give up drinking that bovine swill you have been choking down for the past century?” Nick smiled and indicated the bottle they were sharing now, “I already have. I had a case of donated blood delivered to the loft this morning. I dumped the last of the cow before coming over here.” LaCroix sat back in his chair- Astonished. “I am so very pleased to hear that Nicolas.” “Is it enough, my father? Would you release me from my debt? Would you let me have the love of my existence?” Nick asked, plaintively. “It is not enough, Nicolas. Nothing could ever be enough to repay that debt.” Nick broke in, “LaCroix, if you take her, you must take me as well, for her death will be my own.” “You would fight me over this?” “No father, but surely on the day of her death I will greet the sunrise with open arms.” LaCroix sat back in his chair and considered his son. This was indeed a change in both behavior and attitude. Nicolas was not trying to be confrontational; he seemed to be genuinely trying to communicate like a dutiful son, showing the proper deference for once. “Since you destroyed Divia, I have spent a great deal of time in thought; considering many things, including your debt to me,” he paused, waiting for Nicolas to make eye contact with him. “I knew you loved Natalie, even though you lied about it at the Azure. I have decided that I should not have sought that bargain from you. You were right. I loved your sister for her innocence, and I would have destroyed that goodness then if I had brought her across. And, I am in your debt for Divia.” LaCroix stood up and turned to face his son. He reached out and gently laid his hand on Nicolas’ shoulder. “I release you of this debt, Nicolas.” Nicolas fell to his knees before his maker and grasped his hand, pressing his lips to it and shedding his tears on it. “Thank you father. I thank you with all my heart for this boon that you have granted me.” Lapsing into the style of speech from his days as a mortal in the early 13th century- speaking as vassal to Liege-Lord. “Now I have to convince Natalie,” he said, leaping to his feet and racing out of the apartment- taking the back exit and leaving the Raven to return home. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Nick’s Loft 10:05 p.m. Sunday Natalie entered the loft and wondered where Nick was. She had noticed that the caddie was gone, but she didn’t remember him having any plans for the evening. The first thing she noticed was the 5 empty wine bottles sitting by the sink. She thought he must have gone on a real bender to empty 5 bottles at once. She once again berated herself for her behavior earlier today. She had woken up two hours ago stiff and sore from sleeping on the floor. She had cleaned herself up and gotten dressed and decided to come over to see if she could apologize and maybe get some videos or something. Even if she couldn’t have him the way she wanted him, she would take what she could get. Just sitting with him on the couch and enjoying his company was better than moping about her apartment longing for what she could never have. She knew she couldn’t live without him. As she approached the bottles, she noticed that they had been carefully rinsed out and set to drain on a towel. They looked as though they had been dumped, not drank. She could only think of two reasons why he would dump all of the blood in his refrigerator- all of the cow’s blood. She didn’t think he had found a cure to vampirism since she left the loft earlier that evening. That left only one reason. She reached for the refrigerator door and stopped. “There has to be another explanation. He wouldn’t give up on this, would he?” she asked herself. She closed her eyes and opened the door. After several seconds she opened her eyes and the image before her matched almost perfectly with what she had been imagining: Wine bottles. Row after row of green bottles with Raven Cellars labels. She knew without a doubt that LaCroix would never put the Raven label on a bottle of cow’s blood. A great crashing wave of despair smote Natalie Lambert like the hand of God wiping out Sodom and Gomorrah . She crashed to her knees for the second time that night and again hot tears flowed. “He doesn’t want me for me, and he doesn’t need me for a cure anymore. There will be nothing left for me. This is the end.” kept repeating like a mantra over and over in her head. Finally she dragged herself up and out of the loft, down the elevator and out to her car. She started driving, not sure where she was going. She knew she didn’t want to go home to her depressingly empty apartment. She drove around randomly for about 45 minutes when she noticed that she had reached the Raven. She sat, parked outside it for several minutes before she thought to herself, “Why not. I can get drunk there as easily as anywhere else,” and it seemed strangely fitting. She got out of her car and walked over to the door, ignoring the line. She walked right up to the bouncer and locked eyes with him, daring him to deny her entrance. The bouncer recognized Nick Knight’s pet mortal, and while part of him wanted to wipe the smug look of superiority off her face, the majority of his intellect wisely decided that such an action would result in him having to face a very angry Nick Knight. Others might make jokes about the vampire who would be human; but he had been an unfortunate witness to several altercations between Nick and LaCroix. The thought of an enraged Nick Knight coming after him left him scared bloodless. He decided that, at least in this case, discretion was definitely the better part of valor, and opened the door for her without a word. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== The Raven 11:12 p.m. Sunday Scully nudged Mulder, who’s eyes were fixated on the mass of humanity on the dance floor, and pointed to the entrance where Doctor Lambert was just entering, and looking extremely upset about something. They watched in silence as she made her way to the bar and placed an order. They continued to watch as the bartender paused for several moments before filling her order. He then set up 6 shot glasses and took a bottle of what must have been either vodka or gin, something clear anyway, and filled each glass before her. He then stepped back and waited. Doctor Lambert didn’t even hesitate before picking up the first and slamming it back. She only paused long enough to return the first glass- upside down- to the bar before picking up the next and repeating the process until all six were empty and arranged in a small pyramid. She then asked for and received what looked like some sort of whiskey on ice and wandered over and sat down in a booth across the dance floor from them. Mulder and Scully looked at one another for a moment before Scully said, “Maybe I should go over and talk to her, Mulder. You keep watching for vampires, Ok?” “Sure, Scully. Let me know if you need any help, right?” Scully just rolled her eyes and began to make her way across the dance floor. She approached the booth Doctor Lambert was sitting in and noticed that the alcohol was definitely beginning to take hold. “May I join you, Doctor Lambert?” Scully asked. Natalie whipped her head around and noticed the petite redhead standing there. “Uh, sure, agent Scully, and please, it’s Natalie, Ok?” “Ok Natalie. Please call me Dana.” Scully replied. “Ok Dana.” They sat in silence for several moments. Suddenly Natalie asked, “What was the first thing you did when you realized you were in love with your partner?” Scully choked on the swallow of beer she had just taken, and took several seconds to recover her ability to speak. “What?” “I mean, it must have been hard, you working together and all, I mean. Were you worried that he didn’t feel the same way? Or did he tell you first?” Natalie began rushing the questions out without waiting for an answer. “I mean, obviously it worked out, for you guys. How long were you together before you took it all the way?” To say that Scully was stunned would be to say that Rush Limbaugh was somewhat conservative in his political views. She just sat there with her mouth hanging open for several seconds before it shut like a trap. “Thank God Mulder didn’t decide to join me over here” she thought. “Uh, Natalie, wha-what makes you think Mulder and I are together. That way, I mean” “Oh, I understand that you guys can’t advertise it. Probably some kind of problem with rules, right?” Natalie asked, her eyes beginning to glaze from the drink she had consumed already that evening. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell your secret. I’m glad for you two. I know what it’s like to want someone that badly, and *not* be able to have them.” She started to ramble, “Now that he doesn’t need my help anymore, there’s no need to keep poor pathetic little Natalie hanging around anymore is there?” The bitterness contained in that statement was enough to choke a horse. Scully’s head was spinning when Natalie switched topics again, “Where is he anyway? Your partner, I mean.” “Uh, he’s watching for vampires,” Scully blurted out, not even noticing how ridiculous that must sound. “Freaking bloodsuckers, first they want a cure and then they just throw away six years of research and work like you don’t count. Frankly he doesn’t even deserve me!” Natalie whispered venomously. Scully realized that Natalie was well on her way to utter intoxication. “Uh, Natalie- could I offer you a ride home?” Scully said in what she hoped was her most soothing voice. “Don’t worry, Dana, I’ll take a cab or something. Right now I am just getting warmed up,” Natalie said, her voice almost clear, but filled with anger. “Actually, If you don’t mind, I would like to be alone right now. I’ll see you tomorrow night at the conference.” “Ahh, sure Natalie… If you say so.” Scully said softly. She paused for a moment and then got up and made her way back to Mulder. Her mind was whirling with what Natalie had said. “Am I that obvious about my feelings? Surely Mulder would have noticed by now, and why did she think we were a couple? Mulder doesn’t think of me that way at all.” “So, what’s up with her?” Mulder asked. “Uh, I’m not sure. Something about 6 years of research being thrown away, and not mattering and someone not deserving her and, uh, some other stuff.” Scully broke off as she realized that she needed to think about the other stuff, but not talk about it. “I thi-I think she was drunk, Mulder.” “Are you ok, Scully?” Mulder asked. “I’m fine, Mulder, why?” “You’re stuttering.” “I-I’m what?” “Stuttering, Scully.” “I most certainly am not, Mulder!” “Ok, ok. Jeez, Scully, Its not just a river in Egypt anymore, huh?” Mulder trailed off as he turned away. “What was that, Mulder?” “Nothing Scully.” “Look Mulder, this is going nowhere. Can we get out of here?” “I wanted to see how long Knight was going to stay in that office.” “Just ask him tomorrow when we see him. Seriously Mulder. What do you suspect him of doing?” Scully asked when she saw the ‘sad puppy’ look starting to form. She leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered, “Do you think he’s a Vampire? A freaking bloodsuck…er…” she trailed off. Mulder didn’t seem to notice, “Well he’s awfully pale, Scully.” he said, only half-jokingly. She just stared at him, lost in thought. Mulder misinterpreted it as annoyance and said, “Ok, Scully. We’ll go.” He left some money on the table and they made their way across the dance floor and out onto the street. The first thing Mulder noticed was that Detective Knight’s car was gone. “Damn, how did he get past us, Scully?” “Come on Mulder, If he is a friend of the owner, don’t you think he could have used a back door or something?” she pointed out. “Obviously he must have. Or do you think he turned into a vapor and sneaked out with the cigarette haze?” she teased. Mulder started to smile a little and decided to humor her, “No, he probably turned into a bat and flew out a window.” “Do you think they license bats to drive in Canada , Mulder?” Scully asked, “How would they reach the pedals?” Mulder laughed out loud at that, smiling widely at Scully. “I would give anything to make him smile at me like that every day for the rest of my life,” Scully thought to herself wistfully. Sometimes when he looked at her, he was so stricken by her beauty that it felt like his heart would pound its way out of his chest and throw itself at her feet in supplication. Frankly he wondered how long it would be before he slipped and drove her away. He wasn’t sure they would still be partners by the end of this conference. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== The Raven Natalie watched as the two agents left the club, His hand on the small of her back, guiding her through the crowd and looking down at her with adoration clearly written on his face, and she felt jealous. “She has someone who loves her and isn’t afraid to show it. Why can’t I have that?” she thought morosely. “I’m a good person! I’ve stuck by him in good times and bad. I’ve forgiven him when he backslid and encouraged him when he was down, Dammit!” Of course she knew the answer- Janette. “He has loved her for 800 years, and now he’s her master as well as her lover. How can I compete with that?” she wondered. The answer, of course, was that she couldn’t. “I would have made do with his friendship,” she told herself. She would have died a little to see him with her, but anything to stay in his life. “God how pathetic is that?” she whispered out loud. She was rapidly becoming more and more inebriated. At that moment LaCroix came out from his office and noticed her. “What’s this?” he thought to himself. “Surely Nicolas hasn’t spoken to the good doctor already?” He felt himself becoming angry. If she could not accept that Nicolas was going to remain a vampire, if she had rejected him after he declared his undying love for her… He suddenly had a flash vision of Nicolas embracing the dawn. “Yet, I haven’t felt anything from Nicolas.” He opened himself to the link with his son and felt him at peace. He decided to find out what was going on. “My Good Doctor Lambert, what a delightful surprise to find you here. What, may I ask, brings you to my humble establishment this evening?” Natalie slowly raised her eyes to meet his, trying to focus the bleary image before her. When she figured out who was speaking to her, she felt suddenly furious. “You. You son of a bitch. How dare you even speak to me?! You are responsible for this, aren’t you? You finally brow beat him into giving up, didn’t you? Giving up on humanity, giving up on me! You couldn’t be happy unless he was miserable, you bastard!” Natalie hadn’t raised her voice, but the low, venomous tone carried and several of the surrounding patrons turned to stare at the foolish mortal who would speak to the ancient in that tone. LaCroix grabbed Natalie by the arm and escorted her into his office, firmly closing the door behind them and dropping her unceremoniously into the chair before his desk. “What, exactly, are you babbling about Doctor? What has Nicolas said to you?” he demanded in a commanding tone. Natalie sat upright, well as upright as her intoxicated state allowed, in open defiance and said, “He didn’t have to tell me anything, LaCroix. I saw it. I saw the blood in his refrigerator. It’s clear to me that his return to human blood can only be your doing,” she pointed at him as if daring him to contradict her. “You have been against him and his search for a cure all along!” “Interesting,” he thought. Leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers before him he said, “And this affects you how, exactly?” Natalie slumped in her seat a bit and whispered, “He told you he was using me for a cure, remember? I thought if I could cure him he might want me to be with him,” she sobbed, so lost in her cups that she didn’t even notice that she was breaking down in front of the monster that was ruining her life. “Now he doesn’t need me anymore. He’ll just go find Janette, and leave me behind.” she trailed off, tears running down her face as she slowly slipped into unconsciousness. “Oh Nicolas, why can nothing ever be simple or easy with you?” LaCroix said to himself as he pondered this latest course of events. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Nicks Loft 3:05am Monday Nick was sitting in his armchair thinking. Pondering. How would he broach the subject with Natalie? He was pretty certain that she would be upset with him, and he wasn’t sure how he would overcome her feelings of betrayal and convince her of the necessity of the situation. He also was worried about her reaction to the images she would see the first time he drank from her. He thought if he told her everything first, just so she would be prepared for it, it might help her overcome it. She already knew in a vague way that he had killed a lot of people, and that he had enjoyed it, reveling in the hunt. She also knew that that was all in the past- the distant past. She knew it intellectually, but not emotionally; not viscerally. He knew that his love for her was stronger than anything he had ever felt in his 800 years of existence. He was reasonably confidant that his love would overshadow the horror she would feel at his actions in the past. He also resolved to go as slowly as she needed. He had waited 800 years to find her and he would wait as long as it took. But he *would* have her, and it would last forever. His daydreaming was interrupted by the sound of his elevator activating. Was she coming to see him? How utterly perfect that she would arrive now. Surely this was an omen of good things to come. Nick’s spirits were soaring! The door to the elevator opened and Nick’s soaring spirits took a nosedive for the tarmac. LaCroix stood there with an unconscious Natalie slung over his shoulder. Nicolas’ first fear was quickly assuaged when he heard her steady heartbeat. LaCroix gently laid Natalie down on the couch and turned to Nicolas, expecting a torrent of accusations to flow forth. For once in his life, Nick paused to think for a moment before reacting to what he saw before him. He believed LaCroix’s sincerity in their earlier conversation. If LaCroix were going to kill her he would have done so already. Obviously, something had happened to Natalie, and LaCroix had somehow found out and brought her here. The proper course of action would probably be to find out what happened. “What happened, father?” LaCroix was surprised, almost shocked, that his son was calm and hadn’t attacked him in some misguided belief that he had done harm to his beloved. “She was at the Raven. She was drunk, still is in fact.” “That isn’t like her at all,” Nick said. “Why would she do that?” he asked rhetorically. “I might actually be able to answer that for you Nicolas,” LaCroix said as he gently laid her upon the couch. “The good doctor seems to have become aware that you have given up on your ridiculous quest for mortality. She has concluded that you no longer need her, as you were only using her to try and gain a cure in the first place.” Nick was dumbfounded. “Why would she think that I was using her?” “Why, my dear boy, because you told me so, as you stood before me with her in your arms.” “She remembers that Valentine’s Day?” Nicolas whispered, heavy hearted. LaCroix sighed. “It would seem so, my son. You will have a great deal of explaining to do when she awakes.” “Yes. I have a great deal to answer for,” Nick said as he kneeled beside her and cupped her cheek in his palm. “I hope she can find it in her heart to forgive me,” he whispered. “Nicolas, I know we have had our differences these last several centuries, but I want you to know that in my heart, you will always be my beloved son. If you can think of any way in which I may be of assistance, you have but to ask.” “Thank you, father,” Nick said as he looked up at his master. “That means a great deal to me.” “What will you do?” “I think I will confess everything and throw myself on the mercy of the court,” he answered. “Will you bring her across?” LaCroix asked with interest. “If she consents to it, yes. But not today, I think. I will not do this on the spur of the moment. She would need time away from work to acclimatize before she could be around mortals.” Nick answered. “Very well, Nicolas,” LaCroix said. He then steeled his tone; “I will expect to hear from you very soon, my son,” LaCroix commanded and then flew up and through the skylight and away.” ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Nick’s loft 8am Monday Natalie awoke with bleary eyes, a headache, and a serious case of cottonmouth. She tried to determine where she was; she remembered going to the loft, and then the Raven. Things got a little hazy after that. She remembered what she found at the loft, and why she went to the Raven, so she supposed that she had succeeded in drinking herself into oblivion. The black satin sheets rustled as she tried to sit up, and she instantly realized where she was. Nick’s Loft. She wasn’t sure how she got there, but this was definitely Nick’s bedroom. In a panic, she checked herself to see what state of dress she was in, and was both relieved and disappointed to find herself fully dressed, save for her shoes. She noticed a glass of water by the bed, and a bottle of aspirin sitting on an envelope on the nightstand by the bed. She gratefully popped some aspirin and downed the glass of water. She saw that the envelope was addressed to her. She opened it and read the letter inside; “Natalie, If you would care to take a shower and change into something more comfortable, I would very much like to speak with you before you leave. Please Natalie. I have many things I need to tell you. Nick.” Natalie noticed the pajama top and robe that were draped over a chair by the door and decided that a shower might help make her feel a little more human before she went down and faced the music. She wondered if she had come here after her little bender and tried to give Nick a piece of her mind. “Good Job, Lambert! If he wasn’t sure about leaving before, that would certainly have helped him make up his mind!” As she opened the bedroom door and walked to the bathroom, she heard the gentle strains of a Chopin Nocturne drifting up from the piano below. Nick heard his beloved move into the bathroom and start her shower. He was so nervous that he had butterflies in his stomach. He hoped she would let him explain himself before she slapped him and walked out of his life forever. He began to pour himself into the music. He poured in his sorrow for the lives he had taken. He poured in his resolve to make amends, to do right where he had once done wrong. Finally, he poured in his absolute, unswerving love and devotion for Natalie, the love he had hidden from her, and himself, for so long. Natalie dried off and put on the silk top and robe. She walked out of the bathroom and was struck by the music Nick was playing. It sounded raw and passionate and forceful. She had always enjoyed Nick’s playing, but it had never sounded like this before. She made her way down the stairs and walked over to the couch. She sat down and tucked her legs underneath her and just listened. She felt at different parts sorrow, pain, strength and joy flowing through the music. The emotions were almost tangible. She had never heard music performed like this before. It was almost as though her heart was an instrument and Nick was playing it like a virtuoso. The effect became even more pronounced as he built up to the finale. As he concluded the piece she realized that she had been holding her breath, and exhaled forcefully. Nick whipped around, startled. He hadn’t noticed her enter the room and sit down, so focused on the music he had been. “Natalie! I-I didn’t hear… T-Thank you for letting me speak with you,” he said- his nervousness back with full force. Natalie felt like she was made of glass, and the vibrations she was getting were threatening to shatter her. “Formality usually means bad news, Nick” she said, “Are you going to give me some bad news?” Even her voice was brittle now. “I need to tell you some things, Natalie. Some of them are bad… horrible,” he said- the pain evident in his voice. Some of them are good, but they might be hard to understand.” Natalie felt like a vice was gripping her heart and her breathing was becoming rapid and shallow. Her voice was high and breathy, like a frightened child, “When you are done telling me these things, will you be leaving?” she asked, the tears in her eyes threatening to overflow. The iron band tightened around Nick’s own undead heart loosened a little bit at that. “She wouldn’t have asked that question if she had already decided she didn’t want me,” he thought. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Natalie- that will depend on you. On whether or not you still want me around when I am finished,” he said. “I get to choose?” she asked, startled. “Yes, Natalie. But please, wait until you hear everything I have to say before you make a decision.” The vice around her heart loosened entirely, and a burgeoning feeling of hope began to grow in its place. The cynical voice inside her rose up and said “Don’t get your hopes up, Lambert. Just because he is staying around doesn’t mean he wants you. He’s probably going to tell you Janette is back and they're moving in together.” “I know you remember the Azure,” Nick said, his head hung in shame. “I need to tell you about my sister, Fleur.” Nick proceeded to explain how LaCroix had fallen in love with his sister and wanted to bring her across. How he had convinced him that to do so would destroy the very innocence that he loved in her. How LaCroix had exacted from him a debt in return for releasing his sister- LaCroix would claim a mortal love of Nick’s in recompense. Nick had bluffed on Valentines Day, hoping that he could convince LaCroix that he was just using her to further his quest. “I don’t know what I would have done if he had called my bluff, Nat,” he said- meeting her eyes for a moment. “At that time I thought that being a vampire was to be beyond redemption, to be evil incarnate.” Nick dropped his gaze and continued, “I owe you an apology Nat, not only for the horrible things I said about you that night, but also for presuming to choose your fate for you, without even asking your opinion.” “That hurt Nick. It hurt a lot that you could do that and then just wipe my memory of it like it was nothing,” Natalie said. “I know, Nat. I betrayed you that night. At the time I thought it was the only way to protect you, to save your life. But it was betrayal nonetheless. Sorry doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Nick said, shame faced. “Unfortunately, the other things I am going to tell you aren’t any better. But I want you to know the truth, Natalie. The whole truth, with no more secrets between us.” Nick told her about Janette. How he had used her for sex and blood because he couldn’t have Natalie without killing her. He told her about his wife, who he had tried to bring across on their wedding night, and how he had taken too much- killing her; which was why he didn’t trust himself to try Janette’s cure. He told her about his being married to Janette for nearly a century. He told her how he had brought Janette back across, rather than let her die in the fire. “I thought that keeping these secrets was the only way to protect you. However, by keeping them from you, by not explaining them and allowing you to have some say in the decisions that affected both of us, I was betraying your trust.” Nick said. I can never take it back, I can’t undo the pain you feel, Nat. I can only say that I deeply regret the hurt that I have caused you and that I don’t want any secrets between us in the future.” Nick fell to his knees before her and asked, “Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?” “As long as that behavior remains a thing of the past, I can and do forgive you Nick.” Nick bowed his head, “Thank you Natalie,” he said. A single blood tear slid down his cheek as he raised his head to meet her gaze. Even though these were things she had been dying to hear, she was still unsure and worried. “Why now Nick? Why are you finally telling me all of this now and not years ago?” Nick stood up suddenly and began pacing back and forth in front of her, “I’ve come to the realization recently that my goals have been incorrectly defined. I have been striving for absolution; to atone for my sins. I thought regaining my mortality was a prerequisite for forgiveness,” he said shaking his head sadly. “Now I know that it isn’t. I also know that I am in a better position to help people as I am; to try and repay humanity for the destruction I wrought in centuries past. I’ve realized that my being a vampire has nothing to do with whether or not I am evil or good. The demon that possessed me was more evil than I ever was. And it was the good that was in me that set me free.” “What about the blood?” Natalie asked, gesturing to his fridge. “If I am going to be at my full strength, I must drink human blood. Cow weakens me. The blood is all donated- I won’t kill for food, Natalie. Nor will I drink blood taken by force.” he paused, then added, “Can you accept that Natalie?” She left that unanswered for the moment. “What was the second reason?” she said tightly. “LaCroix.” “LaCroix? How…” “He has released me from my debt, Natalie. He will not harm you.” “Are you sure, Nick?” she desperately wanted to believe what she was hearing, but she was afraid of LaCroix. Afraid of the monster she remembered from the Azure. “Natalie, LaCroix has changed. I would not have believed it was possible either, until Divia came back.” “Who was she, Nick? I know she was a vampire, and that she went on a killing spree… I know she tried to kill Vachon and you…” “Natalie. I told you that there would be no secrets between us. But I cannot tell you everything about Divia, because she is a part of LaCroix’s history, and it is not for me to reveal his private life.” He saw that she was about to protest, and hastily continued, “I can tell you about what happened here, though. She wanted to hurt LaCroix. She tried to kill everyone he knew and/or cared about. If Janette had been around, she would have tried to kill her as well. She caused Vachon to go insane- he made Tracy stake him, Natalie.” “Oh Nick, Poor Tracy . But how… I thought… I’ve seen him- I saw him at the Raven, Nick.” “ Tracy pulled out the stake, and once Divia was dead, the madness left him. He managed to regenerate and claw his way out of the shallow grave that Tracy buried him in.” Nick smiled at the memory, “He said she took it pretty well, of course, she nearly shot him when he went to her apartment to tell her.” Natalie giggled a little at that. “Finally she attacked me and left me for dead. Then she went after LaCroix.” Nick’s eyes went unfocused as he lost himself in the memory. “LaCroix was able to defeat her?” Natalie asked, interrupting his reverie. “No, she had beaten him, and was about to kill him when I got there. I ran her through with a spear as she poised to strike the final blow.” “You saved his life.” “Yes, but at a cost.” Nick whispered. He then shook his head slightly as if snapping himself out of a trance and continued “It changed him Natalie. He is much more open to me now.” “You feel strongly for him, don’t you Nick.” Natalie asked, softly. “For all that he has done to me, for all of the bad times we have been through, he is still the only father I have ever known. When I was mortal, my father was always away. He was in one war or another, or away at court.” Nick sighed heavily. “In every way that matters, both good and bad, LaCroix is my father, Natalie.” He looked deep into her eyes and asked, “I am a vampire. LaCroix is my father. Can you accept that Natalie?” “Tell me this Nick, are you giving up mortality for LaCroix, or to protect me?” “No Natalie. I would have given it up to protect you if he had asked it of me. But, honestly, I decided to seek my atonement as a vampire, to accept who I am and what I am- and what I am not, Natalie; before I went to discuss with him my feelings for you.” “I-I thought you wanted to be human, Nick.” “Do you think that I am evil now, Natalie? As a vampire, am I beyond forgiveness?” “No, Nick. I’ve never thought that. I just thought you wanted to be human again. To see the sun again.” Natalie dropped her gaze and continued softly, “To have a family.” “I do miss the sun, Natalie. Especially not being able to spend time in the sun with you. But honestly- when I get past the guilt and self- loathing, the night is really beautiful. As a vampire, my senses are acutely tuned to the night. There is no darkness that I cannot see through. Everything looks alive, vital, and light.” Nick responded. “As for a family… It’s true that I will never be able to sire a child, and a part of me longs for that, but in truth, I can still have a wife, and if we wanted to, there are other options for having children. There are human couples that are unable to have children in the traditional manner, and yet they are able to live full happy lives as parents.” Nick waited until she met his gaze again and continued, “The truth is that Vampirism is a condition, it places restrictions on my life that I have to accept. However, it can only ruin my life if I let it. Just as any mortal disease or condition can be overcome to achieve a full, rich life, so I can do the same. I have spent the last century longing to be human, thinking that it could only happen if I could regain my mortality. I have finally come to realize, really in the last few weeks, that humanity is an ongoing choice of attitude and lifestyle. I have seen so many mortals that are as monstrous, if not more so than I ever was. I now know that mortality is not the key.” Nick smiled and lightly said, “Besides, unlike mortal handicaps, vampirism has many benefits that I think more than make up for the restrictions.” “If you have made this decision because it is what you want, Nick, then of course I can accept it.” “I want you to know that I am deeply grateful for your help all these years Natalie. I really thought I wanted to be mortal again, and you were there for me constantly. You sacrificed a great deal of your life for me, and for my quest. For a long time I wondered why. Why did you give up so much for me?” She blushed furiously and refused to meet his gaze. “I know we are just supposed to be friends, Nick…” “I love you, Natalie” Nick said. “…but I can’t help it! I-I just…” then it dawned on her what he had just said, “you- what? What did you say?” she stuttered, thinking to herself “No he didn’t. He did *not* just say he loved me. Did he?” “I need for you to know how I feel about you, Natalie. Words just won’t do, I cannot think of the words to adequately convey the depths of my love for you, Natalie. There is a way for you to see for yourself.” Nick took a deep breath and continued, “If I were to taste your blood- from your wrist- you would see everything. I cannot drain you from your wrist, so the danger to you is minimal. I have to warn you, though- you will see everything, though it will be jumbled and may not make a lot of sense. That means you will see images of my past- of the terrible things I have done, Natalie. Everything. It will be a lot to swallow at once.” “Oh, Nick.” Natalie’s eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Of course, I will also be able to see your whole life as well. If there is anything you don’t want me to know, you may not want to do this, because *everything* will be laid bare by the blood link.” Wordlessly, she pushed up the sleeve of his pajama top and thrust her arm out to him. Nick smiled and took her hand. He laid one reverent kiss on her palm and said, “Wait one moment, my love. I mustn’t be hungry when we do this.” And with that he whipped around and up off of the couch, literally flying to the refrigerator. He pulled out the cork with his teeth and downed an entire bottle in one long draught. He then took a second bottle and brought it and a glass back to the couch. He set the bottle and the glass on the coffee table and took her hand once again, “Natalie, I-I’m afraid.” Natalie’s own heart was racing in fear, joy, dread, and anticipation. She couldn’t believe that this was really happening. “Of what?” she choked out. Nick dropped his gaze down to her palm and whispered, “I’m afraid that you will see the things that I have done and be repulsed. I am afraid that you will leave me.” Natalie’s heart slowed, and a sense of calm swept over her. She shivered as a single blood tear fell onto her palm. “Look at me Nick.” she said in a strong, even voice. He raised his head and looked into her eyes. “Trust me. ” she said. “I am, without a doubt, the single most fortunate creature in existence.” Nick thought. He slowly grasped the back of her hand in his left hand and brought her wrist to his lips. He reached out with his right hand and cupped her cheek. He never broke eye contact as he willed the change- his eyes turning and his fangs dropping. She felt the sting of his bite and was suddenly swept up into a swirling maelstrom of image and sensation. She exulted in the hunt. She savored the hot blood of the kill. She saw entire villages destroyed, men, women, and children drained of their precious life’s blood. She felt the horror of realization, what it was like to discover that you were a monster. She felt the desire for atonement, the constant failures, and the small victories. She felt herself wrapped in a warm glow of love and adoration- centered on a bright light like a beacon in the night. As she drew closer to it she felt the warm glow become a burning flame until she was utterly consumed by love, desire, and longing. It burned her up leaving nothing behind as she finally got close enough to see what was at the center of the light. When she looked into the light she saw… Herself. Through Nick’s eyes she was the most beautiful, desirable, and alluring creature in existence. Suddenly she was back into herself, opening her eyes and seeing Nick withdraw his fangs from her wrist. He licked the wounds in her wrist until they stopped bleeding, and savored the sweet, sweet nectar that was his beloved. He had seen her love and devotion to him, her faith in his salvation and her hope that they could have a future together. He had also seen her fear that she wasn’t good enough for him, or sufficiently desirable to him. He saw a huge inferiority complex in her psyche that was centered on the death of her parents at a young age, her grandmother’s indifference and abuse, and, most recently his dalliances with Janette. “Oh, Natalie. Janette is my sister, my daughter, she was my wife for a hundred years. I will always love her. However, if there is such a thing as a soul mate, you are it, Natalie. Janette and I are in the past. You are my future, if you will have me.” Tears were streaming down Natalie’s face. Tears of sadness for the horrors she had seen, and tears of joy for the future she could see. “Oh yes, Nick- I will have you… Forever, if you will let me.” “Forever? Are you sure, Natalie?” “Absolutely, Nick. I have never been more certain of anything in my life.” “I believe you Natalie. I have to ask, though, what about the sun, what about a family?” “Nick, when I dreamed about your cure, I dreamed about being in the sun with you. I dreamed about having *your* child.” She shook her head and asked, “Don’t you see Nick? I don’t want to be in the sun if you aren’t there. I don’t want a child, if it isn’t yours. I would a thousand times rather be in the night with you than in the day without you.” “Day or night, Natalie. I choose to be with you.” She was so happy that she thought her heart would burst. She threw her arms around him and drank his mouth like a woman dying of thirst. He reciprocated with an overwhelming passion of his own, as if the two could become one through mouth contact alone. When he finally pulled away, he said “Soon Natalie, soon. But not tonight.” “Mnhf! Why Not!?” she whined. He chuckled lightly. “Don’t you think your department would miss you if you didn’t show up for the next several weeks?” He leaned his forehead against hers, cupped her face in his hands and said, “We need a couple of days to make some arrangements, Natalie. But very soon we will be together forever.” “You’re right, of course. I just feel like we have been waiting for so long already, and I am sick of it,” she said. “Stay here today, Natalie. Let me hold you in my arms and sleep with you beside me. That would wonderful,” he said wistfully. Natalie breathed out, “Yes, beloved.” With that he wrapped his arms around her and flew them up to his bed. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Incarnations of Immortality By The Bear! Disclaimer: See Prologue Chapter 3 Toronto Homicide Investigation Innovations Seminar 5:30 p.m. Monday December 11th Nick and Natalie met with Mulder and Scully in the lobby of the Plaza and checked out their schedule of events. All four had the seminar on Interdisciplinary Communication and Cooperation. Essentially it dealt with the importance of the homicide investigator working closely with the medical examiner in order for both parties to understand the needs of the other in order to facilitate rapid and accurate case solutions. Mulder made a comment on already realizing the importance of close contact with his medical examiner, and Natalie blushed furiously, Scully only slightly less so. Scully noticed throughout the conference that Knight and Lambert seemed to touch quite a bit. She hadn’t noticed that when they had picked Mulder and her up at the airport. “Hmm, I wonder what happened after we left the Club?” she thought to herself. “Last night she was jealous of Mulder and I, thinking that we were together, and now she and Knight are sure acting like a couple. During the break between seminars they decided to eat at the hotel’s restaurant. Knight declined, mentioning that he had some intense food allergies and was on a special Diet. He did have a glass of the wine they had ordered, although he only poured about a quarter of a glass. At some point during the conversation, while Natalie was recounting one of their cases and asking Nick’s clarification on a particular point, Mulder noticed Scully frowning ever so slightly at Knight’s glass. Mulder glanced over and noticed that Knight’s glass was nearly full, and it seemed to be very slightly darker than everyone else’s wine. The bottle was across the table by Scully. Surely he would have noticed if Knight had reached all of the way across the table and retrieved the bottle. When he looked back to Scully, she was focused on Natalie who was continuing with the anecdote. He merely filed the discrepancy away for future reference and continued in the conversation. The second half of the day found them scheduled apart, Natalie and Scully were slated for a seminar on advances in forensic technology, “New product sales pitch session” as Scully called it. Nick and Mulder were headed for a presentation on computerized criminal demographics profiling. As Nick and Mulder stood outside the entrance to the auditorium their presentation was to be held in, Mulder was surreptitiously observing his companion. The paleness, the refusal to eat, the ‘mystery’ of the wine, the way he moves, the sheer presence of him. He knew Scully would never believe him, but he was pretty sure that Detective Nick Knight was a vampire. “Now, what the hell do I do about it?” he asked himself. So far as he could tell, this vampire was unlike what he expected a vampire to act like. He was catching killers, not killing. He’d had the gunmen hack the Toronto PD and pull his jacket. Not only was he clean, he seemed to be a star detective. He and his partner, Detective Vetter- who was, coincidentally, the daughter of one of the police commissioners- had the highest solve rate of any of the homicide detectives in any precinct in Toronto . Not what you would expect from someone who lived off of human blood. As he was pondering this he noticed something through the glass doors that led outside of the hotel. A face that looked familiar. It looked like the face he had seen through the shower of sparks behind that office building Saturday night. He interrupted Nick, who was recounting the steps taken so far in the investigation of the decapitation, “Uh, Detective Knight, I think the perp. is walking toward the door right behind you.” Nick whirled around and looked out the door. He saw a medium height man with short black hair and a bear d, wearing a brown trench coat. His skin was suntan brown, and looked well weathered. It was definitely the same man he saw taking the head of their unidentified victim. “I think we should follow him,” Mulder said. “We’ll find out where he is going and then call in for backup” Nick said as they went out the door once the perp had passed. They split apart immediately, Nick trailing about fifty meters behind, while Mulder crossed the street and paralleled Nick. After trailing him for about 20 minutes, he crossed over to Mulder’s side of the street and ducked down an alley between two smaller apartment buildings in a rather disreputable neighborhood. As Mulder came to the corner and looked down the alley, he noticed the perp. disappearing over top of a fire escape onto the top of one of the buildings, 4 stories high. After whispering a couple of harsh expletives, he took off down the alley and quickly climbed the fire escape. As he neared the top, he looked down and saw Knight just entering the alley. He didn’t feel that he could afford to wait for the Detective to catch up, so he jumped over the top and raced across the roof after the perp. As Mulder ran past one of the large HVAC units on the roof, he was grabbed and thrown back into the side of the unit, striking his head and tearing the skin at his temple. He fell to his knees, momentarily stunned. “What the hell are you, man?” the perp asked him. “I can barely feel you!” he said. Mulder said, “What?” as he tried to make sense of what the guy was saying, but his thought processes were a bit sluggish. The perp opened his trench coat and withdrew a short, broad-bladed sword with a plain cross hilt. He said, “It might be weak, but I’ll take it.” He raised his sword and said, “There can be only one!” Suddenly two gunshots rang out and Mulder saw what looked like two puffs of dust bloom from the chest of the perp. He staggered back several steps and fell by the roof’s parapet. Mulder looked over his shoulder and saw Detective Knight standing at the other side of the roof, about 30 meters away. A small part of his brain whispered to him, wondering how he had managed to come up there, when the front of the building didn’t have a fire escape. Nick quickly ran over to where Mulder was and helped him up. “Are you alright, Agent Mulder?” “Yeah, just a little stunned.” Mulder said, wincing only slightly at the pain in his head. “Nice shot, by the way,” he said to Knight’s back as he approached the downed perp. Mulder drew his own weapon to cover Knight, just in case. The guy definitely looked dead, he wasn’t breathing anyway, and there were a couple of bloody holes in his shirt right in the middle of his chest. Nick approached the man without fear. He couldn’t hear a heartbeat or respiration at all. Suddenly the perp’s eyes shot open and he gasped in a lung-full of air. He immediately thrust his sword into Nick’s chest and stood up. Mulder immediately began firing, emptying his entire clip into the perp’s chest. Each impact caused him to stagger back until he fell over the parapet and down to the ground 4 stories below. Mulder ran over to Nick, who was sitting with his back against the parapet and the sword sticking out of the right side of his chest. “Would you like me to call 911?” Mulder asked, making no move to grab his phone. “No, just pull it out please,” Nick answered. “Will you need blood?” Mulder asked. “You mean, will I need your blood, Agent Mulder?” Nick said. Mulder just nodded his head. “No. I have a flask in my coat.” “Ok.” Mulder said, and then he grasped the sword hilt in both hands and yanked on it, jerking Knight forward but not making much progress on freeing the sword. “Sorry” he said. He then put one foot on Knight’s shoulder to brace him and pulled it free with a sickening wet sound. Nick said, “thanks” and grabbed his flask from its pocket and drained it in one long swallow. “You aren’t surprised,” he said, more a statement than a question. “I have had dealings with vampires before.” Mulder said. Just then they heard a clattering from below and watched, dumbfounded as their perp stood up and ran away. “Was he…” Mulder began. “One of my kind?” Knight completed the question. “No. Frankly I haven’t seen anything like him before.” “What are you going to do with that, Detective?” Mulder asked, as Knight picked up the sword from where Mulder had dropped it. “Nick locked his gaze on Mulder’s. He listened for his heartbeat, and asked, “Are you a hunter, Agent Mulder?” Mulder felt his consciousness falling into the bottomless wells of Knight’s eyes. “What’s a hunter?” he heard himself say as if from a distance. “Agent Mulder, there are no such thing as vampires.” Mulder felt his awareness snap back into his body. “Oh, that’s funny. There sure are a lot of people running around with prop fangs and green contact lenses then.” Dammit! Either Nick was loosing his touch, or there were a hell of a lot more resistors than there used to be! “You said you had dealings with us before. What did you mean?” “I worked two cases involving vampires in the states. One involved three of them that were stalking the gothic club scene and killing wannabes. The other involved a small, rural community that turned out to be entirely populated with them.” Mulder answered. “And what did you do with these ‘vampires’ you were dealing with, Agent Mulder” Nick asked. “Is that what you mean by Hunter? Are you asking if I Hunted these creatures down and killed them?” Mulder asked. “Did you?” “No. I am not a Hunter, Detective Knight. In the first case, one of the three torched the house they were in, killing them all. In the second case, the entire population disappeared once we uncovered their secret.” “We? Am I to take it that Agent Scully knows about us as well?” Nick asked. He was beginning to worry about the danger these two could represent to The Community. Mulder chuckled. “Scully is a skeptic, Detective Knight. She wasn’t there for the first case, and didn’t see everything I saw in the second. She remains unconvinced that vampires exist. However, she is an extremely sharp observer and medical doctor. She has already noticed some of your, idiosyncrasies, shall we say? She won’t automatically reach the conclusion that I did, but she will be suspicious.” They walked over to the fire escape and began to descend. Mulder asked, “Why don’t you go down the way you came up?” Damn the man! “You didn’t see me come up, Agent. What makes you think this isn’t the route I took?” “That’s just it, Detective. If you came up this way, I would have seen you. And so would have our perp.” They reached the alley and Knight stepped in front of Mulder and said, “Please listen to me very carefully, Agent. The community takes a very dim view of mortals even knowing about us. It is forbidden. Our law demands that those who find out be dealt with in one of three ways: They either have that knowledge removed, they join our ranks, or they die. There are those among us who would kill not only you, but me as well if they found out that you knew about us. I cannot urge you strongly enough to keep quiet about this. Don’t even tell your partner! If the enforcers were to get wind of this, I couldn’t protect you. “I will try to keep that in mind, Detective.” Mulder said tightly. “What about the sword, we can’t really log it in as evidence, and no one is going to want to hear how we came across it.” Nick thought about it for a moment and said, “Look, we’ll just keep it to ourselves for now. We should be able to perform a more detailed investigation anyway. As you said, the powers that be aren’t going to be able to accept the more unusual aspects of this case anyway.” “I can accept that,” Mulder said, “but we are going to have to bring Scully into this. Even if I wanted to keep her out of it, she would figure it out on her own pretty quickly. Skeptic or no,” Mulder said. “Look Agent, I can understand that you want to share this with her. But do you really want to endanger the life of the woman you love like this?” Mulder stopped short like he had run into a wall, “What!? What do you mean?” “As I explained, Agent, knowledge of my kind is dangerous…” Knight started to say. “No! the other part!” Mulder choked out. “Agent Mulder, you and your partner do not hold a monopoly on observational ability. That’s why they call it Detective. We detect.” Knight said. “We are just partners, Detective.” Mulder said tonelessly. “I can understand that the FBI probably has some kind of rule about fraternization between partners. You two do a good job of hiding it, really. However, you have to realize that I can hear your heartbeats speed up when you look at each other, I can see your pupils dilate and your skin flush. You couldn’t hide your feelings for each other from any one of us.” Knight said with a grin. “Don’t worry, Agent. Your secret is as safe with me as mine is with you.” “Look, Detective, you have made a mistake here. We care about each other, yes. We are partners and have been for nearly seven years. But that is all.” Mulder said. Nick listened to Mulder’s heartbeat and watched his eyes as he spoke. He realized that Mulder was being honest; at least in-so-far-as the fact that they weren’t together. “You poor, stupid man,” he thought, comparing Mulder to himself. “As someone who has only recently done so himself; I advise you to pull your head out of the sand, Agent Mulder.” Nick said softly. “I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not to bring your partner in on this, but please take me seriously when I say that you will be putting her life on the line if you do. I also think it would be a good idea if you didn’t discuss any aspect of this unless you are absolutely certain that you cannot be overheard by anyone.” Knight thought for a moment and said, “Why don’t I bring you to my loft tomorrow evening and we will discuss it. You can take today to decide whether to invite your partner along for the ride.” Mulder was lost in thought and responded, “yeah, sure.” They continued walking in silence for a bit when some of the puzzle came together for Mulder and he said, “I’ve been thinking about the fight we saw the other night, Detective. What if, whatever these guys are, the only thing that can kill them is decapitation? I mean, being shot several times, and then falling four stories didn’t seem to kill him. And they both had swords, right? Maybe that’s the only way they can be killed.” “He was dead after I shot him the first time.” Knight said. “I heard his heart stop and he wasn’t breathing. I wouldn’t have been so careless about approaching him otherwise. He was dead, and came back to life.” “There was a pause between when he hit the ground and when we heard him get up and run away as well. So they can be killed conventionally, but don’t stay dead unless they lose their head?” Mulder theorized. “Well, the guy whose head he severed definitely stayed dead. Of course, I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t stay dead if they lost their head.” Nick added. “That sword didn’t seem to affect you too much.” Mulder ventured. “No, steel isn’t really a problem for me. Wood is a very different story. But even we can’t come back from decapitation.” Knight answered reluctantly. Eager to change the subject he asked Mulder a question, “I heard what he said to you just before I shot him. What do you think he meant by, ‘It might be weak, but I’ll take it,’ and, ‘There can be only one?’ Only one what?” “I honestly have no idea, detective.” Mulder answered. “Believe me, I have been shot on occasion in the past, and never once did I get up and try to run someone through with a sword immediately afterward.” “Really. What did you do?” Knight asked. “Mostly I lay on the ground bleeding until someone took me to the hospital.” Mulder replied, chuckling. “Hmm, get shot a lot do you, Agent Mulder?” Nick asked jokingly. “Look, just call me Mulder, ok? Nobody calls me by my first name, and I’m not sure I can listen to ‘Agent Mulder’ over and over again. It reminds me of my Boss.” “Ok Mulder. I’m Nick.” “Oh, by the way, Nick. Thanks for saving my ass up there tonight.” “Well, I didn’t feel up to explaining to your partner that I had let you get killed.” “Right.” They continued back to the hotel in silence, each lost in their own thoughts about the events of the evening. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== LaRouge Lounge After listening to blatant sales pitches for questionable products Scully and Natalie decided to skip out at the first break and hang out in the lounge until the guys got out of their presentation. They talked about some of the challenging cases they had worked on and their medical backgrounds. They each found the other surprisingly easy to talk to, probably because of their similar situations- a woman in a ‘man’s job’ as it were- both excelling, and working the kinds of cases that most coroners never even heard about. Helping to catch madmen and serial killers was a normal part of their lives. Several glasses of burgundy helped the conversation flow as well. They eventually fell into girl talk. It felt so nice to sit and chat with another woman, especially one who had such a similar job, and could understand what it felt like to dig through dead bodies looking for clues and solving crimes for a living. “So, Natalie, what has you so giddy today?” Scully asked. “You seem positively giggly.” Natalie blushed furiously, and looked away. “Uh, lets just say that Nick and I finally came to an understanding last night.” “Ahh, I see.” said Scully. Natalie was still blushing and explained, “We have had a long and often frustrating ‘friendship’ and finally realized that it is time to take it to a new level. I was so afraid that he didn’t feel the way I felt it was tearing me apart.” “I know how that feels,” Scully thought to herself. “I’ll bet you do, Dana. Was it harder because you are partners?” Natalie asked. “Oh, no! Did I say that out loud?” Scully thought in horror. “What do you mean?” she said to Natalie. “I mean, did it create problems at work? Does the FBI have any rules against that sort of thing?” “Uh, Natalie? I think you might have made a mistake here, Mulder and I are just partners.” Natalie just stared at Scully for several moments. “Your aren’t together?” she asked. Scully slowly shook her head side to side. Natalie felt extremely embarrassed and could feel her face getting hot, but the words slipped out before she could stop them, “Are you sure?” “Pretty sure, Natalie” Scully said wryly. Natalie’s hands flew to her mouth as if to stop her from opening it again. “Ohmygosh. I’m sorry. You guys just seem… that is, I thought… Uh, sorry.” She realized that Dana and Mulder were in the same place she and Nick had been until last night. “Oh no! It’s got to be eating them up! You poor, stupid woman,” she thought to herself. “Look Natalie, It’s complicated. We have a very unusual partnership because of the kinds of cases we work, and the experiences we have had. We care about each other a great deal and trust each other absolutely, but those kind of feelings just aren’t there.” ‘It’s complicated.’ How many times had she uttered those very words to describe her relationship with Nick? “Look Dana, it’s none of my business, but take it from someone who has, up till very recently, been exactly where you are, If you feel that way, you should tell him. You deserve to know, and so does he.” She stood up at that point and added, “I’m going to take a cab home and clean up a bit. I’ll leave word at the desk, but if you see Nick, tell him I’ll see him at his place, Ok? I’ll see you tomorrow night, Dana.” Scully was too stunned to think of anything beyond an automatic, “Ok, goodnight Natalie.” ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Plaza Hotel “Uh, Mulder?” Nick asked as they entered the hotel lobby. “Yeah, Nick?” “You might want to head back to your room and clean up a bit before we meet the ladies.” he said as tactfully as he could. Mulder looked down at himself and said, “I guess that rooftop was a little dirty.” “A little, yes.” Knight said. Look, I’m going to go put this in the caddie and change my shirt. I’ll let your partner know where you are. You two may have some talking to do.” “Yeah. That’s probably a good idea,” Mulder replied. “I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon when I get up.” and you can let me know what you have decided.” “Ok,” he said and then headed off toward the elevators. Scully was still sitting in the lounge, Natalie’s admonition tumbling around in her mind, when Detective Knight walked up to her. “Agent Scully?” he asked, hesitantly. Scully slowly regained focus and looked up to see Detective Knight staring down at her. “Detective?” she asked. “Your partner went up to his room. He wanted you to join him when you had a moment.” he said. Scully was so wrapped in her thoughts that it didn’t even occur to her to ask why he didn’t just come in with the detective. She just stood up and grabbed her coat and seminar materials. “Thank you, Detective,” she said. “Not a problem, Agent Scully. Uh, where is Doctor Lambert?” he asked. “Oh, she said to tell you she would see you at your place. She wanted to go home and clean up,” she answered. “Oh, Ok. Well, goodnight Agent Scully.” “Goodnight Detective” she said and walked away to the elevators. Nick shook his head and wondered if Mulder and Scully would ever get a clue. He could sympathize. Even with his supposedly enhanced senses, it took him six years to see it himself. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Incarnations of Immortality By The Bear! Disclaimer: See Prologue Chapter 4 Room 1013, International Plaza Hotel 2:26am Tuesday December 12th. Mulder was sitting on the bed in his room, lost in thought. He didn’t think he was going to be able to do it. “How can I *not* tell her that he’s a vampire?” he thought. Of course, he didn’t imagine that she would believe him anyway. “This is about her safety! He’s a vampire!” Of course, that wasn’t fair- he didn’t think Knight would ever be a threat to Scully. But she was going to have to know that if she was going to understand the rest of it. How could he explain about the guy they chased, and how it was that they happened to get the sword, unless he told her everything? He was so lost in thought that he didn’t hear her unlock and open the door. She walked into the room to see Mulder lost in thought. She stopped, almost in shock at the sight, “He is so beautiful,” she thought. “Can I risk this? Can I risk driving him away?” She paused as her heart felt like it was trying to painfully climb up her throat and escape out of her. “Can I continue on with this farce of an existence knowing that he doesn’t feel like I do? Can I…” At that moment Mulder turned fully toward her and she noticed the blood slowly oozing down the side of his face from a ragged-looking cut at his temple. She was struck suddenly with a surprising anger. Anger at whoever did that to him, anger that she wasn’t there to protect him… and suddenly it became fury. Fury at *him*. He saw her standing there, looking pensive, and then her face changed. She looked like she was getting really pissed off. She was looking at him, but not meeting his gaze. She seemed to be staring at his forehead for some reason. “Hey Scully” he said. Something snapped. How could he sit there with that endearingly goofy grin on his face? How could he sit there as if he hadn’t gone off and risked his life, again- leaving her behind to pick up the pieces- *again*? “Dammit Mulder! What if I had lost you!?” she screamed in her head. “…Scully?” he said softly, hesitantly. Her face seemed to be getting red and he imagined that he could almost see steam coming out of her ears. “What’s wrong?” he whispered. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” she said, her voice rising as she repeated the words. “You did it again! You went off and risked your life- Again!” She was shouting now. “You could have died, you inconsiderate bastard! What was I supposed to do then?” She threw her hands up and let them fall, spent. He goggled at her. “Where did that come from?” he wondered silently. He was suddenly struck by her appearance. That smart navy suit she wore, her face flushed and upper chest heaving as she breathed fast and deep. He was confused and aroused at the same time. As the blood left his head for parts further south, the centers of higher reasoning in his brain began to shut down. Unfortunately, it seemed, the areas of the brain that generated untimely witty rejoinders were less swift to cease operations. He heard, as if from a great distance, the words “Gee Scully, I didn’t know you cared.” fall out of his open mouth. Instantly he wished that he could retract them. Mulder blinked one time and when his eyes reopened he saw that all of the color had drained from Scully’s face. She looked like a ghost- “white as a sheet” was the phrase that seemed to fill his consciousness as time slowed to a crawl. He blinked one more time and she was gone. She slammed the door to her room and collapsed on the floor, as though the weight of her feelings were too much for her to carry any further. “OhGodOhGodOhGodOhMyGod” reverberated through her head like a jackhammer chiseling away at her mind. She was unable to think. She felt like she was going to die. She felt like she was dead already. The last vestiges of the doctor in her made the clinical observation that she was going into shock. “He’s right.” She whispered to herself. “He doesn’t know. I never told him…” “It’s only a cut on the head!” she sternly told herself, “you’ve seen much worse!” She knew this to be true, but she couldn’t overcome the feeling that he could have died and she had never told him she loved him. It didn’t matter that he didn’t feel the same way. It didn’t matter that she would have to watch him fall for some 5’ 10” brunette with long legs and big breasts and a vacuous smile. It didn’t matter that she would never find anyone who could satisfy her longing like she just knew that he could. He deserved to know. She needed him to know. If he had died and she had never told him it would end her. The pounding she heard in her ears seemed to be causing her whole body to vibrate. After several moments she became aware that she was still sitting on the floor leaning against the door to her hotel room. She then realized that Mulder was pounding on her door and yelling for her to open the door. She slowly got up off of the floor and turned to the door. Choking back a sob and taking a few deep breaths to steady herself, she opened the door. Mulder stood there, one hand raised beside his head as he drew it back to pound forward against the door. His mouth was open wide as he stopped in the middle of his shouting. His face looked angry and she silently berated herself for her unforgivable behavior, “was it just moments ago?” in his room. He took her in. The sight of her- suit rumpled, hair mussed, eyes red and brimming with unshed tears. He stood there, unmoving for a moment as she turned and walked into the room. “Scully, what wrong? I don’t understand…” he trailed off as she sat on the edge of the bed and gestured for him to sit in the chair facing her. “Scully, please. Tell me what’s wrong.” “You’re bleeding Mulder,” he heard her say as she pointed at the side of his head where he had been struck when that guy- “Guy? Not a vampire. Something else?” he thought- had thrown him into the HVAC unit. “Wait right there, Mulder” she said as she stood up and walked over to the bathroom, “I’ll get a washcloth,” she added. Scully tried not to look at her disheveled image in the mirror as she saturated the washcloth with hot water and wrung it out. “Well, its not like I could grow 8 inches and 2 cup sizes in the next thirty seconds anyway.” She thought to herself. She hung her jacket on the door and went back out to “face the music.” She just hoped that today would not mark the end of their partnership. Mulder waited with a sense of growing dread in the pit of his stomach. He looked at her as she exited the bathroom, washcloth in hand. He tried to meet her gaze as she stood before him and slowly, gently wiped the blood away from the side of his head and face. “Scully, I…” he stopped mid-thought as their eyes met and he caught the resignation in her eyes. He could read the intent on her countenance- she was going to tell him something she knew he didn’t want to hear. He had seen the same look on her face just before she told him his mother had committed suicide. “I’ve finally done it,” he thought to himself. “She is going to tell me she can’t be my partner anymore. She is going to tell me it’s over. Oh God… Don’t let this be happening. Please!” She saw the crestfallen look on his face. She had seen this before. “He knows what I’m going to say.” Her eyes began to brim with tears, “It’s going to drive him away from me.” She had seen the same look on his face just before she told him that his mother’s death was indeed a suicide- the look that said he knew he was about to hear something he couldn’t accept. “Can I really be this selfish?” she screamed at herself. “How can I tell him that I love him knowing it is going to drive him away?” Seeing his face, she knew their relationship to be over anyway. The look on his face was enough to give tell her that. “At least he will know the truth,” she thought. He deserved that. Their lives were spent searching for the truth. No matter how ugly or painful the truth was, the lie would be worse. It would be a betrayal of his trust, and she couldn’t let herself do that - no matter how much she screamed at herself to back away now. “Mulder I have to tell you something. It’s going to be uncomfortable for both of us, but…” “Scully, I…” She interrupted him, “No, Mulder! Just don’t! I need to do this. I have to do this.” She could feel his stare like a crushing weight, begging her not to do this. She sat down on the edge of the bed and steadfastly refused to meet his gaze. “She looks so small,” he thought. He longed to wrap his arms around her and make all of her pain go away. That desire, of course, was the reason why this was happening. How could he think she could ever love him? All the pain she had been through for the last seven years was his fault. Every wound, every scar, every loss was his doing. Her sister Melissa, her daughter Emily, her infertility, her cancer, her abduction, Antarctica , that damned chip in her neck- all of it. “I am poison to her,” he thought. Everything he touched turned to dust. She was better off without him, even though it took her seven years to come to her senses and realize it. And that was his fault too, wasn’t it? “I should have let her go,” he realized. His selfishness knew no boundaries. “But not this time, damn it!” he resolved. He would take his medicine and then he would leave her- never to darken her path again. Maybe she would be able to get on with her life. The life she deserved. The life his obsession had denied her for so long. It didn’t matter that it would kill him to let her go. It didn’t matter that he had just found proof of vampires. It didn’t matter that there were wackos with swords running around chopping each-other’s heads off and causing lightening storms… Her words interrupted his self-flagellating reverie. “Mulder, I know that it’s selfish of me; that it’s not fair to you; but I cannot keep pretending not to feel what I feel. I just can’t do this anymore,” she sighed tiredly. “I just can’t. I have been trying, really trying. For the sake of our partnership, for the sake of the work- because I know how important it is to you, to us.” “God, how long has she felt like this?” he wondered. “She’s known for a while apparently, but she stuck it out even longer for the sake of ‘the work.’ More like my obsession,” he thought bitterly. “I know you don’t feel for me what I feel for you,” She said. What?… “I’m sorry that I couldn’t just get past it and move on. You don’t deserve to have some hopeless pale little redhead pining away after you like a sappy teenager. What?… “I know that I am not the type of woman you find attractive, but I really wish I were.” “What the…” he said. “What the hell is she saying?” Mulder thought. “I want you to know that I don’t expect anything from you because of this.” “Scully, wait. What are you trying to say” Mulder choked out, his mind reeling. “Oh Mulder, please don’t make me actually say it. How can you be so cruel?” she thought. She whispered- almost too low to make out, “I love you Mulder.” “Scully! What did you say!?” Mulder demanded. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t have heard what he thought… How could she… She finally looked up at him, her eyes locking defiantly onto his, “I said, I love you, Mulder.” Her resolve faltered and her eyes dropped back to her lap. “I’m sorry, Mulder. I wish I didn’t, but I do.” She waited for the rejection she was sure she would hear. For a moment he headed once more down the path of self pity- “How can she love me after all I have…” he began to think, but then a different feeling stopped him. Shame so great that the pain of it overwhelmed his soul. *She* was worried about being selfish, when he had been the one focusing on himself to the exclusion of her. He had determined that he was unworthy and in doing so had denied her what she felt she needed. Him. He had ignored her needs and desires, instead focusing on his feelings of self-loathing and pity. Her eyes were still locked onto her lap. He hadn’t moved since she had said it. It was as though time had stopped. She knew her heart seemed to have stopped while she waited for his response. “Mulder, please say something,” she whispered at last, looking up into his eyes. As though the floodgates had been opened- hot, bitter tears began to flow down his face. He still felt unworthy- he thought she deserved so much more than he could ever give- but he made an instant decision to spend the rest of his life trying to make up for it. He dropped to his knees, and leaned forward until his forehead was touching her knees. Great wracking sobs began to shake his body as he wept freely. He was suffused with sorrow for what he had done to her and at the same time filled with joy at the gift she had just given him. He needed to speak, to tell her, but the emotion inside him poured out so fast and furious that he could scarcely breathe, let alone speak. Scully began to panic, “What have I done?” she whispered to herself. She could feel his tears like droplets of fire striking her shins and running down her ankles. “Mulder,” she began and then paused. No response. “Mulder,” she said a little louder this time. “Mulder, I’m sorry…” Her words, or more accurately the fear he felt from her in them, gripped his heart, slowing the flow of emotion enough to return his ability to speak. At first all he could get out was a litany without pause, “Scullysosorrysosorrysosorrypleaseforgivemesosorry” over and over until he ran out of breath. When he was finally able to gasp for air he raised his head to meet her eyes once again. “Sc-Scully,” took all the breath he had. He gasped in another lung-full and continued, “I am *so* sorry.” His pain almost tore her heart from her chest. “It’s not your fault, Mulder. You can’t blame yourself for how I feel…” “Scully, stop,” Mulder said. If you think you are unattractive, ‘not my type’; if you think of yourself the way you described to me just now then it is my fault.” “Please Mulder, you don’t have to…” “Yes I do have to, Scully. Not because I am trying to patronize you or pity you. No. I have to because you are wrong. Dead wrong,” he said. Gripping her hands in his he continued, “I could spend all day telling you how beautiful you are. God knows I have spent entire days thinking about it. Cataloguing every look, every aspect, and every nuance that is Dana Scully. Frankly I am amazed that you didn’t catch me staring at you more often,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. “I actually used to worry that my career would end with a sexual harassment claim if you ever caught me staring. If you could have heard some of the things I was trying not to think about, you would have at least slapped me, if not just outright shot me.” Mulder caught his breath a bit before continuing. “I could spend the day telling you that, but I won’t. Because what was admittedly pure lust at first has become the least of what I feel for you.” “Mulder, please. You don’t need to say anything just to make me feel better.” “Don’t I Scully?” he interrupted her. “I hope what I am going to say makes you feel better. After all, my stubborn, pigheaded, obsessive selfishness is obviously what has been making you feel bad.” Mulder looked ready to cry again, “please let me tell you this, Scully. You told me how you feel, let me tell you how I feel,” he whispered. “Please Scully” She could barely bring herself to nod her head. Speech was utterly beyond her. She still felt as though she were in the midst of some kind of dream fantasy and was waiting to wake up. She was so convinced that he was going to reject her that she still expected it to happen. “He’s just trying to break it to me gently,” she thought miserably. Mulder settled back onto his heels, still kneeling before her. He looked down at his hands in his lap and, with a deep breath began speaking. “When you first joined the X-Files I was certain that you were there to spy on me. I had been waiting to see who they were going to send to interfere. I was waiting to see how they were going to do it. When you were assigned to me I figured that they wanted me to fall for you. So you could exert your ‘evil influence’ on me. Frankly I wasn’t worried too much- I wouldn’t let mere physical attraction interfere with my quest. Besides, how attractive could you be, I thought?” Mulder looked up from his hands, his eyes traveling steadily up her body to her face- meeting her eyes again. His voice dropped an octave and he said, “I had no idea, Scully.” She saw raw emotion and arousal in his eyes. She was confused. “Why is he telling me this?” she wondered. His eyes suddenly dropped back to his hands and he somewhat hesitantly said, “I lied to you, you know. I told you that I made my parents call me Mulder. The truth is that I thought that if I made you use my last name, I could keep things strictly professional. I could avoid developing any feelings for you. You were the enemy, and I had to keep my guard up.” “You succeeded, Mulder,” she thought. “You never let that guard down. I wish I could have done the same.” “It just got worse, Scully. You weren’t just beautiful- you were smart too. You didn’t take any BS from me, but you also didn’t try to change me. Even when I could tell that you didn’t believe my theories, you respected the investigation. You never belittled me for my ‘wild ideas’ even though you obviously disagreed with them. You adopted the quest for the truth as your own.” His eyes returned to hers, “I began to trust you, Scully. You weren’t the enemy any longer. I realized that you never were. I know now, that I had already fallen for you at that point, even though I didn’t realize it at the time.” Wait, back up a minute, did he say… Mulder continued, “I realized it after Duane Barry. When you were gone it was as though my life had ended. If you hadn’t come back- if you had died instead of coming out of that coma…” The tears started again and he took a deep, shuddering breath, “I’m sorry, Scully. I would have… I couldn’t have gone on.” Her breath caught at the implication. “Could it be?” she thought. He squeezed his eyes shut, “I never told you this before…” “Shhh. It’s ok, Mulder…” “No! I need for you to know, Scully.” He reached up and cupped her face in his hand, “I was given an opportunity that night- the night before you woke up. I was told that the men who had done that to you were being sent to search my apartment. I was told that their lives were mine to take if I wanted them.” He drew another great, shuddering breath, biting back a sob and dropping his hand he continued, “I said yes, Scully. I was there waiting for them. I had my pistol and I was going to kill them. Then I was going to turn it on myself.” She gasped, “Mulder…” He ignored her and continued, “I welcomed it. I yearned for it. Finally there was a knock at the door, but it wasn’t them. It was your sister. She convinced me that you needed me; that you were going to come back to me if I would be there for you. So I went. And you did. And I was the happiest man alive. I just wish now that I would have told you then. That I wasn’t such a coward.” “Mulder, your not a…” “Aren’t I, Scully? When you got cancer did I ever tell you how important you were to me? When you went into remission did I let you know that I felt like a sixteen-ton weight was lifted off of my chest? Obviously not or you wouldn’t have thought that I didn’t find you attractive. You wouldn’t have wasted a second comparing yourself to those other women. You wouldn’t have believed for a moment that I could ever find them more attractive than I find you. You wouldn’t have hidden yourself from me so that I never thought in a million years that you were attracted to me at all.” She looked into his eyes again and saw them darken in emotion. His smell, his strong, masculine Mulderscent, began to overwhelm her. She felt her nipples harden and hot moisture begin to pool in her center. He caught the scent of her arousal and he felt himself begin to stiffen, his erection beginning to show in the slacks he was wearing. “I thought you didn’t want me, Scully. I didn’t believe that I could ever be worthy of your desire- of your love. I blame myself for everything that happened to you while you worked on the X-files. I am the cause of all of your pain and I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for it. I knew I should let you go. Give you a chance for a life. A real life.” “Mulder, I have a life. A real life,” She said. “I didn’t stay on the X-files out of duty or obligation. I stayed because it is my quest too. And because I love you.” Tears began to well in her eyes, “There is nothing to forgive, Mulder.” “Scully, intellectually I know that your abduction, your sister’s death, your cancer and all the rest are not directly my fault. I know that I didn’t do those things to you, but I cannot help feeling that way. I wanted you to stay because I was selfish. Even if that is not the reason you stayed, that is what I feel.” He sighed, “But, I don’t want to argue about that. Despite the fact that I think you would have been better off if you never met me, I am still being selfish. I desperately want you to stay.” She said, “Mulder, I want to stay. I value our partnership, our friendship…” Mulder interrupted her, “God Scully, and you think I’m dense.” He shook his head sadly; “Let me spell it out for you. I. Love. You. With all my heart. With all my soul. With all that I am.” He closed his eyes and said, “I still don’t think that I deserve you, but I want to spend the rest of my existence trying to prove myself wrong. Will you let me try?” he asked her. She was stunned. She couldn’t think. Her mind revolved with, “He wants me? He loves me?” over and over. “Please Scully,” he whispered. His voice became rough and low- dripping with passion “I need you, Scully” “Oh God, Yes!” she said, her own voice gravelly with need and desire. Mulder reached up and cupped the side of her face with his hand, slowly guiding her toward his lips for a kiss. The kiss was light, delicate, his warm soft lips playing over hers for a moment and then traveling all over her face. Bestowing his adoration to her cheeks, eyes, chin and forehead as her breath began to come in pants and the smell of him began to fill her with an exquisite longing. Suddenly his mouth was back on hers- and there was nothing gentle about this kiss. His tongue demanded entrance and it was granted. As his tongue swirled about her mouth, her tongue danced with his, entering his mouth. God, he tasted salty and bittersweet- like sunflower seeds and dark chocolate. She was filled with an overwhelming desire to taste him everywhere. She broke the kiss and began to work furiously at the buttons of his shirt and before she knew it she had his shirt off and was leaning forward, tasting the warm skin of his chest. Mulder moaned, his whole body vibrating, “No fair,” he panted huskily, “you’re still dressed.” “Well,” she mumbled against his chest, “fix it!” He stood them up and began tearing at the buttons on her blouse, and then, having gotten that off, he reached around to unhook her bra. She noticed that he seemed to be having trouble with the hooks and pushed him back, down onto the chair by the bed. He was suddenly hesitant, “Too fast?” he asked. “Too slow!” she growled back at him, swiftly unhooking and removing the bra, and then before he could do more than gasp she unzipped and shimmied out of her skirt. She stood before him clad only in a small pair of sodden panties and her sensible pumps, her eyes challenging him, as if to say “Well, Do something!” “How could she ever think she wasn’t attractive?” he thought, then spoke aloud, “You are perfect, Scully. Absolutely perfect.” Then he stood up and toed off his shoes and socks and dropped his slacks to the floor. As he stepped out of the puddle of clothing on the floor, his boxer shorts tented out from his body, Scully felt the impact of his words and his actions. She read the sincerity in his admiring gaze and felt a fresh wave of arousal flow to the junction of her thighs. He swooped down upon her, crushing her lithe body against his hard muscled chest, and kissing her with such soul-searing passion that she felt as though her very spirit was being drawn out through her mouth and into him. She could feel his erection trapped against her belly as he devoured her. He laid her down on the bed and broke the kiss, gasping for air, as she did the same. Mulder looked into her eyes and said, “You own me, Scully. Body and soul, I belong to you.” She bit back a sob at his assertion, but before she could answer, the sensation of his mouth on her aching breast robbed her of the ability speak. She was unable to do more than groan aloud. As he worked over her nipples with his tongue, lips and teeth, all she could think of was, “Thank God for Sunflower Seeds! I am going to buy him the biggest bag of seeds I can find.” Mulder left her breasts behind and began to travel south over her abdomen- licking, sucking and biting his way to her navel. As he dipped his tongue in, he heard her breath catch and then, “M-Mul- Mulder, I’ve never… You don’t have too…” His eyes met hers and he saw her discomfort. “No one has ever done this for you before?” he asked. She shook her head, eyes wide and breathing raggedly. The few others she had been with had been relieved when she didn’t feel comfortable with them going down on her. She had, for some reason, been shy of a man seeing her that closely. She worried that she would smell funny, or taste bad. “Oh Scully, please let me do this for you,” he begged. “I want to taste you, I need to taste you. Please, Scully, Please,” he punctuated each word with a kiss to her belly. How could she deny him when he wanted it so badly? When he wanted to do it, not out of obligation, or desire for reciprocation, but because *he* wanted it, needed it. She nodded her head and his face actually brightened. He smiled at her as though she had done him a favor. Oral fixation indeed she thought happily. He slowly slid her panties down and off of her. As he pulled them over her feet, he kissed his way back up her legs, loving the sensation of her smooth, creamy skin against his lips. He kissed her right at the junction of her tightly closed thighs and she relaxed allowing him to spread them gently apart. He glanced up at her from his vantage point between her legs and saw that she was somewhat embarrassed. She was blushing hotly and her eyes kept darting away from him, as if she was torn between the desire to see his reaction to her, and fear of the reaction she apparently expected to see. He needed her to understand what she meant to him and how he felt about her. “I love you so much. Oh Scully, you are so beautiful. You’re so wet for me. Do you know how happy this makes me?” he asked as he gently stroked her with his fingers. “To know that you are this wet, for me; because of me? Thank you, Scully.” And with that, he began to explore with his lips and tongue. Tears began to flow freely down her cheeks. Tears of relief, joy, and love. Scully’s mind began to revolve, “He really loves me. He’s not just saying it; he doesn’t feel sorry for me. He doesn’t pity me. He wants me! He loves me!” She began to feel a sensation coiling tightly inside her, like a spring being wound tighter and tighter. She howled as he suddenly took her clitoris into his mouth, sucking on it while he inserted 2 fingers into her and began to rub them against the roof of her vagina, looking for that spot. Then he found what he was looking for and she screamed his name as the orgasm crashed down upon her. Wave after wave of pleasure rolled over her. She closed her eyes and bright spots of light winked at her behind her eyelids. She began to feel disoriented and dizzy, and still the orgasm rolled on and on and Mulder continued to stroke that spot inside her and suckle at her clit like a newborn against his mother’s breast. Mulder was watching her face as she came, and came and came and came. Her scream had ended in a long, drawn out, shuddering howl as the pleasure kept flowing over her. The look on her face was agonizingly beautiful. He was amazed; this had never happened before. He was overjoyed that he was able to do this for her. Suddenly he noticed that she had stopped moving entirely. He rose quickly from her and was near panic until he saw the reassuring rise and fall of her chest- that lovely chest. He began to feel pretty proud of himself, a little cocky even. When she came to she saw him standing before her, his boxers tented by his erection and a big, dopey grin on his face- pride and satisfaction practically glowing from him. “Well, he has darned well earned it this time,” she thought in awe. “Mulder…” her voice was raspy, “that was… That was… That has never…” The pride on his face softened into adoration for her. He wiped his mouth with his hand and came down upon her to kiss her reverently. “Oh Scully, thank you. Thank you for giving me that. Thank you for letting me see you cum. You were so beautiful, Scully.” Tears began to fall down his cheeks and he leaned in for another kiss. She loved him more at that moment than she would have ever thought possible. “Only Mulder,” she thought. Here he was; still in his underwear; obviously painfully erect from the way he winced when it pressed into her thigh; having just made her cum so hard and so long that she had been rendered unconscious; and he was profusely thanking her for the experience. He was grateful and she had yet to even touch him. Well! It was high time to fix that! Mulder was slightly shocked when she suddenly rolled them over with her ending up on top. She broke away from the kiss and began to work her way down his body with her lips and tongue. She began to lightly stroke him through his underwear as she tongued his nipples. She felt him twitch in her hand and he suddenly groaned loud and low in his throat. She tried to continue down toward the elastic of his boxers when suddenly his hands were in her hair, feeling the soft, silky strands, and trying to move her back up to his face. She broke off from her attentions to his nipples and looked at him. “What’s wrong Mulder?” “If you complete that thought you may get an unpleasant surprise, I don’t think I can hold out long.” He said, somewhat chagrined. “I want that, Mulder. I need that right now- I need to make you cum.” “Tonight I want to be inside you when I cum, Scully,” he whispered. “Mulder, what makes you think this will be the only time you cum tonight?” she said with a wicked grin on her lips. Mulder actually began to pant. “OhMyGod, Scully!” he gasped, his chest heaving. Scully let out a delighted laugh and continued on her original course. She removed his undershorts and paused a moment in appreciation. He was so hard that the head was purple and the veins on the sides were throbbing in time with his heartbeat. She licked her lips and smiled up at him. His eyes were wide and staring. She said, “This looks serious, Mulder. It’s a good thing you’ve got a doctor handy,” and with that she gave it one long lick, from the bottom of the base to the underside of the tip. She immediately gripped the base, squeezing with her thumb to keep him from cumming. “Not just yet, Mulder.” He thought he was going to die. No scratch that, he thought he was already dead and in heaven. She would take him into her mouth sliding slowly down him until her nose was buried in his pubic hair. Then she would make a few short bobs of her head before slowly withdrawing, swirling her tongue around the underside of him as she withdrew. She would then grip him, cutting off his orgasm while she would lick and suckle his balls. After what seemed like hours, but was probably only a couple of minutes she took him all the way in again and began bobbing up and down furiously, rubbing her saliva slicked fingers along his perineum, beneath his balls. He hadn’t stopped groaning since the first lick. He tried to speak, “Sc-Sc-Scu-ul-ly, I’m… gonna… unh… gonna…” she locked gazes with him as if to let him know that she knew. She wasn’t stopping, however. She started moving faster and groaning herself. The combination of movement and vibration was too much and he came. “Oh, God! Oh, Scully,” he shouted over and over as he emptied himself into her. She felt him cum and she concentrated on not choking. She wanted this, wanted to do this for him, to show him a little of the happiness he had given her. She wanted to show him a little of the love she felt for him. In the end she drank him all down and slowly withdrew, cleaning him with her tongue. She looked up and saw the awe and joy in his eyes. She felt a little proud herself for being able to bring him to this. She made a slow, languorous ascent up his body, tasting and feeling as she went. When she got to the summit, she stopped to taste his mouth once more. After a moment she leaned away from him and gave to him the gift he had given to her earlier. Her voice rough and thick with emotion she said, “I am yours Mulder. Heart, mind and body, I belong to you.” “Scully, I...” he began and then trailed off. “Please Mulder, tell me. You can tell me anything.” she said, “You do know that don’t you?” “I believe you Scully. And I love you. Oh, God how I love you. I know it seems like it’s a little late for this, but I need you to know something. Before we go any further.” “What Mulder?” Scully asked, starting to feel a little self-conscious again. Mulder reached out and cupped her cheek with his right hand and said, “You know how I am Scully. How I obsess about things and how I can be stubborn about things.” “Mulder, you are like a terrier with a bone.” Scully chuckled. Mulder ducked his head somewhat sheepishly and said, “Yeah I am like that a bit…” He then raised his head and locked his gaze on her eyes, “…If you stay here with me now, if we do what I really, really *really* want to do next…” His eyes were like bottomless pools of arousal now and Scully couldn’t have torn her gaze away from his even if the room were to suddenly erupt into flames. “…I won’t ever be able to go back. Not ever. You and I will be forever and nothing on earth, or from anywhere else will ever drag me away from you.” Tears were flowing freely now from her eyes as she said, “Mulder, nothing, and I mean it Mulder! Nothing could make me leave you right now- or ever. You own me. Forever.” And with that she attacked his mouth, seeking to sear on his very soul the love she felt for him. The kiss lasted until they were both lightheaded from lack of oxygen and broke apart at the same instant, gasping for breath. Scully was delighted to feel Mulder’s recovered erection pressing into her thigh. She pulled back enough to look down and see it, and then looked back up at Mulder with a coquettish gaze and said, in her best little girl voice, “Is that for me?” Mulder rolled them both over and hovered above her for a moment. He looked at her in all seriousness and said, in a deep gravelly voice, “Every last bit, Scully. It’s all yours, and only yours.” In one steady thrust he sunk into her, in to the hilt, “Forever,” he gasped. He began making long slow strokes, pulling almost all of the way out and then slowly sinking all the way back in so that his balls were nestled in the cradle of her ass. When he was all the way in, she felt like she had never been so filled in her life, and when he withdrew, she felt empty. His slow pace was maddening and his whispered endearments in her ear were only adding to the feeling. “You’re so wet Scully. You’re so warm Scully. Is that for me? Did I make you that wet and warm?” he asked huskily. “Oh God Yes Mulder, You made me wet, you made me hot and you’re making me insane!” she wanted to scream out, but all she could force out was an inarticulate “Ohgomld! Unnhhyah!” She would have been embarrassed except that he seemed to understand, and his eyes softened- the absolute adoration he felt for her expressed clearly. How could she have ever thought he didn’t want her?” It was obvious by the look on his face- she hadn’t ever seen that intensity of focus. It was as if there was nothing and no one else in the universe but she and he, and all the rest didn’t exist. Mulder was driving himself insane, every instinct in his body was screaming to forget pace and slam into her like a jackhammer until the two became one. But he wanted this to last. He never wanted it to end. He wanted to make her scream his name at the top of her lungs until he occupied every last drop of her consciousness and there was nothing left in her but him, just like he already felt about her. Suddenly he changed his angle, sliding up so that her face was level with his neck and shoulders, and his shaft dragged across her clit with each stroke. Almost instantly she was rocked with a powerful orgasm. It surprised her and she screamed at the suddenness of it. Her body started to convulse and the muscles that wrapped around him started to contract violently. It was the last straw for him and he lost any semblance of control and started pounding into her for all he was worth. The waves of her orgasm were not dissipating, but rather they were crashing down on her faster and harder as Mulder picked up the pace, his shaft grinding against her clit as his strokes became faster and shorter. She locked her legs around his hips and her arms around his back and sank her teeth into his trapezius muscle, between his neck and shoulder, biting down so hard in her frenzy that she drew blood. The sudden clutch she put him in and the sharp pain of her bite sent him over the edge. He roared her name incoherently as he pumped his seed into her. His own orgasm seemed to last much longer than normal. He felt like he was draining his entire self into her. He collapsed onto her and when he made to roll off of her, her grip on him tightened even more and she cried “No!” She was still shuddering from the force of her orgasm, and the thought of separation from him was more than she could bear in that moment. “Baby, I don’t want to crush you, that’s all.” Mulder whispered. He then expended his last bit of strength and grabbed her and rolled them both over so she was on top of him and they were still joined. He pulled the sheet over them and promptly fell asleep with his arms wrapped around the love of his life. A sense of peace and contentment unlike any she had ever known overwhelmed Scully. Her last conscious thought was, “I wish I could stay like this forever.” ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Nick’s Loft 3:30am Tuesday Natalie had fed Sidney and petted him for a while. He was less than pleased that his mistress had been gone for so long, but soon forgave her under the gentle attentions of her hands and fingers. She sNickered at the thought of making Nick purr like that with similar stroking. “Soon! Soon!” her mind exulted. She got up and danced her way into the bedroom to pack an overnight bag. “I should call it an over-day bag, really, I guess,” she thought, smiling. She really didn’t think she would miss the day that much- not if she got to spend the eternal night with Nick. She laughed with excitement as she skipped out the door and to her car for the drive over to the Loft. As she rode the elevator up to the loft, Natalie was truly feeling giddy. She felt like she hadn’t seen Nick in days, rather than hours. Nick heard Natalie coming up in the elevator just as he lit the last candle. He had a bottle of Faiveley Cellars 1995 Clos de Vougeot Burgundy , as well as a bottle Raven reserve label and two glasses on the coffee table and had made a pallet of blankets and cushions on the floor in front of the fireplace. He flew to the refrigerator and pulled out another bottle of Raven label, his fifth since he got home, and drained it quickly. Natalie’s eyes lit up as she saw the loft in candlelight, with a fire going strong and the little nest of blankets before it. “Maybe soon is sooner than I thought!” she thought, joyously. “Oh, Nick! It looks beautiful. Absolutely lovely!” she said as her gaze swept back and forth across the room. Finally her eyes rested on the visage of her beloved as he stalked across the room with leonine grace toward her. “All things before mine eyes pale in comparison to thee, beloved. Thou art radiance above the moon and the stars to me. A gleaming brilliance in the darkness, penetrating the cold death of night. You warm my heart.” Nick said in low resonant tones as he crossed the room, taking her in his arms, “You are my life.” Then he dipped his head, meeting her lips with his and drinking from his fountain of life. Natalie dropped her bag and wrapped her arms around him crushing herself against him with all of the strength she possessed, as if she could merge with him into one being. She finally broke the kiss, gasping for air. “NOT FAIR!” she thought. “I’m the only one here who actually needs to breathe!” Nick chuckled when her eyes flashed in annoyance, instantly realizing what she was thinking. “I don’t have your gift for poetry, Nick, but I want you to know- my heart is overfilled with joy and it is pouring out and through my entire body. And, *you* are the cause!” Nick’s own heart leapt in his chest at her declaration. “I love you, Natalie Lambert!” he whispered and once again captured her mouth. This time when she broke the kiss she was panting. “I thought… we had to… wait…” “Do you want to wait anymore?” he asked. “NO!” she shouted. Nick laughed out loud and swept her off her feet, swinging her around and then carrying her over to the pallet he had built up. He gently laid her back on the cushions and knelt beside her. “I still think we should put off bringing you across for a few days, but I think that we can still do this. I spoke with LaCroix, and he…” “You discussed this with LaCroix!?” Natalie was suddenly indignant. “My love, you must understand that there are really no secrets between a vampire master and his or her progeny.” Nick said placatingly. Then he growled, “I didn’t want to wait another moment to have you!” “Oh.” She said, pondering the idea briefly. “Good idea, Nick.” He gave a low chuckle that caused shivers to run down her spine, and moisture to start collecting in the center of her arousal. “Anyway, I have satiated my hunger with as much blood as I could drink, and I believe I can control myself sufficiently to take only a little from you. I have a big bottle of orange juice and some Gatorade in the fridge for afterward.” “What, no cookies?” she asked, “ You are supposed to get cookies when you donate blood!” “I have an entire dinner, catered by Bellini’s, keeping warm in the oven. But that is for after!” and with that he once again bent down to ravish her lips, then making a trail with his lips and tongue to her ear, where he paused for a while, nipping and sucking. His hands slid over her blouse, down from her shoulders, alongside her breasts- cupping them through the material, and down to the waist of her skirt. He un-tucked her blouse and began to unbutton it, his lips moving down to her neck and kissing her gently over her pulse point. Knowing that he would be sinking his teeth into the river of blood he heard flowing just beneath the skin caused his own arousal to soar. The knowledge that tonight would be the night was sufficient to keep the vampire in check. It was well sated and willing to be patient. Natalie was not so patient. His lips were fire on her skin and she yanked his shirt out of his trousers, and began running her hands inside his shirt, over the bare skin of his chest. She moaned with pleasure as he kissed her neck, and shivered with delight as he opened her blouse and retraced the path of his hands, this time over bare flesh. As he slid his hands over her bra-encased breasts toward the front closure, she felt her nipples stiffen against the fabric, as though trying to reach through it to touch the skin of her lover. Nick opened her bra and leaned back long enough to take in the sight of his beloved’s bare flesh. He tried to speak and realized that he had stopped breathing entirely and had no air with which to form the words. Natalie opened her eyes when his touch left her and found him leaning away from her, staring in open awe at her. She smiled and licked her lips, causing Nick to growl softly. He slid her blouse and bra down and off of her, and took the opportunity to capture one of her nipples in his mouth. He rolled his tongue around the edges of it, and stroked the top of it in long licks. He nipped lightly at it and then ran his tongue around it, soothing the bite. He stroked the areola round and round, memorizing each bump and wrinkle. His hand lavished the same sensations on her other nipple, but in a different order. The intensity of the sensation and its contrapuntal effect caused her arousal to become acute, her Vulva overflowed and ran down the junction of her thighs, saturating her panties. Suddenly, the smell of Natalie’s arousal overpowered Nick. As he tried to unzip it the zipper stuck, and he tore the zipper-pull off of the skirt. He held it up between them and looked at it, like a small boy with a broken toy. Natalie would have laughed at the look on his face if she hadn’t been even more desperate than he was to get that skirt the hell out of the way. “Just tear it, Nick!” she growled hungrily. Nick lost what was left of his composure and tore the skirt in two with a quick pull and a little Vampiric strength. As the smell of her- even stronger now- assaulted his senses he ripped her panties from her, dropped to his knees and buried his head between her thighs. Natalie was briefly thankful that she had decided not to wear pantyhose tonight. Then all rational thought left her mind as Nick began to trace her swollen folds with his tongue before latching on to her clit with his lips and tongue. He grasped the hood of her clitoris firmly between his lips, squeezing the clitoris itself out and between his teeth, which exerted the barest pressure on it while his tongue swept back and forth across it in slow steady strokes. She felt the pressure build up and up until she thought she was going to burst. Suddenly Nick stopped the side-to-side motion and began furiously flicking his tongue up and down over it. Natalie felt her consciousness shatter. Nick heard Natalie begin a low, keening wail that got louder and louder. He changed the motion of his tongue over her clitoris and she suddenly arched her back and grabbed his head, grinding it into her crotch. She screamed his name loudly enough that he was glad this area of the city was virtually abandoned at night, otherwise he might be getting a visit from the police investigating a report of a woman being murdered. “Oh! this is *so* much better,” Natalie thought to herself once her consciousness coalesced. “So much better than doing it myself!” she muttered as she dropped to her knees in front of him. Nick was pretty sure she didn’t mean to say that out loud, “Glad to be of service, my Lady!” He said, chuckling. Natalie blushed hotly in embarrassment and averted her eyes from his. “Please don’t be embarrassed, Nat. You were magnificent! I felt like a violinist being given the chance to play a Stradivarius,” he said with awe in his voice. “It was just so wonderful, so extraordinary that I could make you feel that. I don’t think I could ever get tired of seeing you cum.” She returned her eyes to his and saw the sincerity in his voice, the arousal in his eyes. Any sense of shame or embarrassment left her entirely. She wanted him to know everything- her longing, her desire, her absolute need for him. The need for him to know her completely was like a physical weight pressing down on her. “Oh, Nick. You don’t know how many mornings I have spent touching myself, stroking and caressing myself, imagining it was you. Wishing it was your hands on me.” She punctuated her words with her hands, stroking her breasts, teasing her already hard nipples into achingly intense sensitivity. Her eyes closed and her hands drifted south along her torso, stroking, teasing and touching- until her fingers were tracing the outlines of her vulva, imitating the movements that Nick’s tongue and lips were so recently engaged in. “Oh Nick, I want you… I *need* you.” She dipped the fingers on each hand into the moisture that was flowing steadily again. One finger she slid up to the hard nub of her clitoris, where she began stroking agonizingly slow circles around the clitoral hood. The other finger she brought up to her lips, pausing to reach out with her tongue to taste the wetness there before inserting the finger into her mouth and sucking it clean. She opened her eyes and saw him, his mouth glistening with her juices and hanging open as he panted heavily. His fangs were fully descended and his eyes, glowing red, were locked on the finger in her mouth. She could sense that he was holding back out of fear of her reaction to the vampire. She didn’t want him to hold back. She laid back, spreading herself open with the one hand, while pulling her other hand from her mouth and sweeping her hair away from her neck as she arched her head back. “Nick, I need you!” her breath coming in short pants as she began climbing up toward the peak of her arousal. “I need to feel you inside me. *Now* Nick!” She saw Nick blur in motion, and heard the sound of his clothing shredding as he tore it away from himself in Vampiric speed. In between two blinks of her eyes Nick went from kneeling, fully clothed, between her knees to covering her body with his own naked form. He thrust himself deep into her with one powerful movement and she knew that this was going to be over in moments. That was perfectly all right with her, she knew that they had the rest of eternity to savor long, slow lovemaking. This was about raw need, and she needed it as badly as he did. She knew exactly what she was doing when she goaded him into this, and she secretly didn’t care if she remained mortal after this or not. She wanted to be with him, and would joyfully give up any thought of seeing another sunrise to have this for the rest of her existence. Nick pumped madly within his love. His need overwhelmed him and after only seconds he plunged his fangs into the sweet essence of life flowing through the smooth column of flesh before him. The smell of Natalie’s blood had always reminded him of the heavily spiced, mulled wine that he had drunk in the winters before he crossed over. It was one of the physical pleasures he had missed most after LaCroix had changed him. He was sure that it had never been this wonderful, though. Her blood, sweetened by her orgasm, and enriched with the passionate love she felt for him, engulfed his senses. He felt her desire for him, her absolute need to have him in her, and she in him just like this. Any guilt he felt for loosing control so quickly was washed away as he felt her pleasure at having driven him to this state. “You little vixen!” he thought, and felt her laughter and joy. She felt the sting of his fangs entering her neck and the cool wash of his orgasm inside her and the combination pushed her up and over the peak of her own pleasure. She once again screamed his name as she felt the whirlwind of sensation and imagery bombard her consciousness. She laughed with delight when she felt him realize that this had been exactly what she wanted- that she had pushed him to lose control in just this manner. After several mouthfuls of her blood had slid down his throat, Nick found himself able to stop. He felt her willingness to continue- to go all the way, but the knowledge that it would happen soon enough, combined with his pleasure at the thought of drawing out the process, taking pleasure with her in this way for a while longer, was enticing as well. He withdrew his fangs and licked the wounds until the bleeding stopped. She gave a small cry as she felt his fangs withdraw, and the images and sensations died away slowly. She gasped in surprise as Nick used his super-human abilities to rise up off the ground, bringing her with him, and rotate in the air so that she was on top of him, while they remained joined as one. He then came to rest amidst the blankets and cushions with his arms wrapped around her. She had never felt so content in her life. She was physically and emotionally satiated. As Nick lay there with his heart’s desire draped over him like a human blanket, he had a feeling of peace wash over him such as he had never felt in his existence- even before, when he was mortal. “It was never like this with Janette,” he thought. He had loved Janette, and still did, but not like this. This was something he had never even imagined. Natalie noticed that Nick was lost in thought and said, “Penny for your thoughts, Nick?” Nick shook himself from his reverie and smiled. He said, “I was thinking of Janette.” Instantly he berated himself as he felt her stiffen, “I could have found a better way to say that!” He tightened his arms around her before she could pull away and quickly continued, “Nat, I was married to her for 97 years, and in all that time, never once did I feel as happy and content as I do right now.” Natalie felt her heart soften and silently chastised herself for thinking for even a moment that Nick would hurt her like that. “I should know better. I should trust him more than that,” she thought. She had seen herself in his heart while he drank from her, and she knew that there was, and would never again be, anyone but her there. Instead of apologizing with words, she swept up and locked her mouth on his, drinking him into her. She felt him stiffening inside her and marveled at the vampire’s recuperative powers. She felt herself growing increasingly slick at the thought. “This is going to be wonderful,” she said to herself, imagining what it was going to be like being with a multi-orgasmic man, who could keep up with her own insatiable needs. Natalie brought her lips to his ear and whispered to him “Some mornings, Nick, I would cum six or even seven times while thinking about you. Even then, I would only stop because my hands were tired.” Nick instantly became painfully hard inside her. He growled back “Satisfaction guaranteed or your next one’s free.” He reached his hands behind her knees and pulled them forward until she was kneeling astride him, her dripping mound hovering several inches above, and slightly forward of his groin with just the tip of his penis still inside her. He then told her, “put your hands beside my shoulders.” she complied- her luscious breasts hanging above his chin, then he growled at her, “Now. Do Not Move! Understand me?” Her eyes widened at the command in his tone and she was compelled to obey. Wordlessly she nodded her head but that wasn’t good enough for him. “Say it!” he commanded. “Yes, I understand.” she said breathlessly. “Good, don’t forget it,” he said as he began moving inside her. He made long, slow strokes into her, taking as much as three or four seconds to steadily press into her until he was buried entirely within, then holding for a moment and just as slowly sliding out until only the tip of the head of his penis was still inside. He would then pause and begin again. After a few such strokes he changed patterns, stoking only a little of the way in, then back out then a little more in and all the way back out- increasing the depth of each stoke until he was fully inside. He then reversed course coming out in increments until he was almost all the way out again. She felt like she was going to go insane- the desire to thrust back against him almost overwhelming her until she thought she couldn’t hold out any longer. Just as she started to give in he grabbed her hips in his iron grip and held her steady. Not breaking the intricate rhythm of his thrusts, he growled at her again, “I said don’t move! You can scream or shout or cry all you want, but if you move I will stop! Do you understand?” Natalie couldn’t make her voice work. All she could get out was “Yunghhh” and she just nodded her head vigorously, keeping the rest of her body still. Nick was relentless, beginning the long thrusts again as he dropped his voice even lower and rougher and said, “Do you want me to stop Natalie?” She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood and shook her head violently, her hair whipping back and forth. Nick picked that moment to reach his head up and, without touching her breast or areola, drag his tongue slowly across just the tip of her nipple. Natalie felt the first orgasm like a firecracker exploding simultaneously in her left nipple and her vagina. How she managed to keep her body still she would never know. she threw her head back as she gasped, and she felt the walls of her vagina begin to convulse around Nick, who was keeping his maddening pace, changing between the long slow strokes and the incremental penetrations every minute or so. It wasn’t until after the second orgasm- when he had treated her right nipple to the same languorous lick as the left- that she noticed each of the rhythms was getting slightly quicker. After the third and fourth orgasms- he had scraped the tip of one fang along the top of each nipple, drawing a single drop of blood and then licking it off- she wondered to herself, “When did he start doing that rotating thing with his hips?” She had lost count of the firecracker-like orgasms as his pace had increased to the point where the long strokes were pounding into her so hard that only his grip on her hips kept her from being bucked entirely off of him, and the incremental strokes felt like an air-hammer pistoning inside her. She was thrashing her head around and moaning so loudly that she sounded like a pack of wolves howling at the moon. Nick had teased her nipples and areolas in ways that she could never have conceived of and her juices were flowing so heavily that Nick was wet from half-way down his thighs, up almost to his navel. The cheeks of her ass were dripping and the wetness on the insides of her thighs was running down and saturating the blankets below. She hadn’t imagined that the human body was even capable of this level of pleasure. As she reached the point where she thought she would collapse, Nick suddenly slid her up his body slightly, changing the angle of penetration so that the head of his penis stroked against the roof of her vagina, just a couple of inches inside of the opening. Her last articulate thought was that she hadn’t even known that she possessed a G-spot, then her mind shattered into a million shards. She didn’t even feel the sting as Nick slid his fangs into her breast. Several seconds into the longest, most intense orgasm she could have ever imagined she was suddenly thrown into the maelstrom that was the blood-link with Nick. It was finally too much- her consciousness fled and she collapsed against him. Nick felt Natalie’s loss of consciousness through the blood link and withdrew himself from her completely. He licked the wound on her breast until it sealed over, and then held her boneless form against him for a moment. He was so suffused with pure joy and happiness that he felt as giddy as a schoolgirl. He also felt an inordinately profound sense of pride and accomplishment that he had been able to pleasure his Lady into this boneless puddle of spent flesh. He thought he had more than made up for the quickness of his release the first time. He wondered if Natalie would be sharing this event with her assistant, Grace. He felt a ridiculous sense of masculine pride at the thought of her bragging about his prowess to her girlfriend. He stopped that train of thought and gently rolled her off of him onto the blankets next to him. He immediately became aware of the mess they had made. He ruefully chuckled when he saw the state of her clothes, the skirt ripped in two and the panties in shreds. He noticed that his own clothes seemed to have been reduced to tatters in his haste to become naked. Natalie seemed to have gone into a light sleep. Nick carefully wiped her off with one of the blankets and then wrapped her in a clean one and laid her on the couch. He then used his extraordinary speed to quickly clean up the mess. He flew up to the bathroom and took a one- minute shower to get the worst of the mess off, and then ran a bath for Natalie, pouring in a generous portion of lavender-scented oil. He lit a few candles and turned out the lights, then went down to collect his beloved. He decided the food in the oven needed to come out and smiled at the image of him feeding her while in the tub. “Well, why not?” he thought. He checked and saw that she was still sleeping lightly then continued his preparations. A large glass of the juice, followed by a plate festooned with samples of the various items from Bellini’s along with the glass and the bottle of wine from the coffee table. The tub was filled and everything was set, now to collect his beloved. He unwrapped the blanket and lifted her into his arms like a baby Natalie began to wake up in the arms of her beloved as he was carrying her up the stairs. She instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled her head into his chest. “Mmmm… What happened, Nick?” she asked. She could feel of every square millimeter of skin where she was touching him. It felt like she was hyper-aware of each nerve ending in her body. “You passed out Natalie,” Nick said with a broad smile. She became aware of the soreness in her neck where he bit her the first time, the soreness in her left breast where he bit her the second time. She then became aware of the soreness between her legs- not a surface pain like the bites, but the slow burn from the workout she had received on muscles that hadn’t been used like that since before medical school, she thought languorously. “Even then, it had never been like this was!” she thought. “I think I lost count around 10, not including that last one,” she thought. That last one, which had overshadowed all of the previous ones in both intensity and duration, was a marvel. She didn’t even know that she had a G-spot, had never really looked for it, but Nick sure seemed to know about it. As Natalie was musing, they reached the bathroom. He set her on her feet and offered his hand to help her into the tub. Natalie felt a bit unsteady and weak in the knees when Nick set her down. “Whoa! Nick, where did you learn to do that? That was not only the best, most incredibly intense sex of my life, it was better than anything I’ve even heard of or imagined was possible!” She saw his ego swell a little bit at her words, but she didn’t care! He deserved it for that performance! “I read about it in the Ananga-Ranga, an ancient Indian text on sacred sex. Then I just added a little speed,” Nick said as he helped her into the perfumed water. He then handed her the orange juice and said, “Here, you should drink this, it will help restore some of what I took from you.” She drank the juice greedily, only now realizing how thirsty vampire sex could make a body. She chuckled out loud at the humor at that thought. Nick took the glass and said, “Now, just relax Natalie. Lay there and let me pamper you a little.” He took the plate and began feeding her bites of Spinach & Ricotta Gnocchi, Pan Roasted Pheasant Breast, Veal Scaloppini Marsala, and Seared Sea Scallops- alternating each bite with a sip of the burgundy. “Oh God, Nick. You’d better be careful, a girl could definitely get used to this.” Nick chuckled lightly, then dropped his smile and leaned in to softly kiss Natalie on the mouth. When he pulled back a single blood tear trailed down his left cheek. “Natalie, I just wanted to show you a tiny little bit of the overwhelming joy and happiness you have given me by loving me and letting me love you.” She felt her heart break at the thought of how alone Nick must have felt for so long. Wanting to change who he thought he was, feeling alienated from the humanity he so desperately wanted to rejoin, and from The Community that he never really felt a part of. At the same time she felt her heart swell up with love and joy, that she made him feel so good, so happy. She felt an overwhelming need to convey to him just how happy he made her. “Nick, I am so happy right now. The sex was amazing and the bath is so sweet of you. I adore the food and the wine is perfect. But, in the end, it’s nothing compared to the absolute, pure joy that’s in my heart because I know you love me.” Quiet tears of happiness began to overflow Natalie’s eyes and pour down her face. “That’s the best part, Nick. *You* are the best part.” Nick reached out to cup the face of the woman he loved. He slowly drew her face toward his as he leaned forward. They captured each other’s lips in a passionate, loving kiss. A kiss not designed to incite sexual desire, but rather to communicate the love and adoration they each felt for the other. He rested his forehead on hers and breathed out, “I love you, Natalie Lambert.” As much as anything else he had done to or for her that night, that kiss and that simple declaration of love filled her heart to overflowing. “I hope you’re not too full for desert, Nat,” Nick said with a boyish grin stealing over his face. “Hmmm, what did you have in mind, Sir Knight?” she said with a coquettish look on her face. “Port and Chocolate Truffles” “Oh really?” Natalie said, her voice belying her interest, but the look on her face giving her away. Nick smiled and elaborated, “1985 Fonseca Port wine, and Gianduia Truffles from Vosges ” Natalie smiled and said, “Gianduia Truffles?” in a little girl’s voice. Nick’s smile broadened and he elaborated further, “Milk chocolate and crunchy praline, dipped in dark chocolate and sprinkled with more praline pieces.” Natalie gave up all pretense and excitedly said “Ooooh, you *do* love me!” “Very much,” he agreed. “Now, let’s get you dried off and downstairs to where the chocolate is.” “Yes, by all means, let’s,” she said standing up and stepping out of the tub, and into the large bath sheet Nick was holding up for her. He wrapped her up and hugged her tightly for a moment, “I will let you dry yourself off and get dressed. Your bag is…” he let her go and was suddenly gone and back in a heartbeat, “…right here.” he said, handing her the ‘over-day’ bag she had packed. “I’m going to put on something and meet you downstairs.” With that he leaned in for a quick kiss and was gone in a flash. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Nick flew into his bedroom and threw on a pair of black silk pajama bottoms and a black silk robe. He was nervous. Very nervous. Things had not gone as planned tonight, and that was ok- better than OK as it turned out- however; it left him wanting to do what he had planned on holding-off until later in the week- maybe even next week. Now, he didn’t think he could contain himself that long. Part of the reason for waiting was that if felt like it was too soon into this very new relationship. “But, it really isn’t new,” he told himself. Really, their relationship was deep-rooted. They were already mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and socially intimate, and had been for years. Not so long ago, only a few decades, the physical intimacy they had shared tonight would have been reserved for after marriage, not before. That was certainly the way he had been raised in the late twelfth/early thirteenth century. Still, he was nervous. She loved him, but did she want to marry him? She knew vampirism was forever, and she wanted that, so what could she have against marrying him? He was driving himself crazy for no reason, he thought. She would say yes, or she would say no, but either way, he was confident that she would not leave him. He just wanted to marry her and make it official. “Marking my territory, I guess… but, it marks me as her territory as well,” he thought to himself- and that is what he wanted. He set up the table for her, a glass of the port for each of them, his fortified with blood of course, and a plate with 4 truffles and the ring in the center under a small silver dome. Nick felt light-headed and the anticipation was coursing through his veins like fire. “I feel like a character in one of those trashy romance novels,” he thought. “Maybe, but it’s a really, really good trashy romance novel!” He moved to the window to look out at the stars while awaiting his beloved. Sunrise was coming soon. “Was it really only two hours ago that she came in?” It felt like forever. Soon enough they would have to discuss the events of the day, and decide on a course of action. He would speak to her about Mulder and whether or not Scully would be brought in- and he rather thought that Mulder would not leave her out of it. He wondered if those two would ever realize how they felt about each other. He hoped so; he himself knew exactly how they felt, and he wouldn’t wish that kind of suffering upon anyone. He was still lost in thought when he heard Natalie. He turned around and saw his beloved descending the stairs, wearing a blood-red silk nightgown that hugged her lusciously curved body in all the right places. He almost felt a little jealous of that gown, wrapping her sensuously like that. It had spaghetti-straps, a cleavage- enhancing bodice and a long flowing length that was slightly tapered at the waist ended at mid-calf. Nick thought she looked absolutely ravishing, so he told her so. Natalie just smiled and asked, “You like the gown?” “Oh, yeah… the gown is nice too.” Nick said, with a wide smile This time she did blush. Nick walked over and pulled out her chair and helped her get seated before sitting across the corner from her, where he could look at her, and was close enough to reach out and touch her. She looked at the plate and the arrangement of the truffles. She raised one eyebrow at the silver dome in the center and asked, “What’s under that, Nick?” “That, is the piece de resistance, Natalie. It’s for last.” “Oooh, a surprise!” Natalie was almost giddy with excitement at this entire night. What goody did he have for her under there? She would have to restrain herself from wolfing down the truffles in order to more quickly uncover her present. Nick watched the near-rapture on Natalie’s face as she bit into the first truffle. He sipped at his blood-wine while he silently watched her savor the four truffles. He heard the automatic shutters begin to close over the window as sunrise approached. He watched Natalie’s tongue dart out to lick up an errant bit of chocolate from her full lips. He reached over to her and stroked her cheek as she smiled at him, his nervousness returning slightly as he waited for her to lift the dome. Natalie leaned into the gentle caress of Nick’s hand, then catching his hand in hers, she brought it around and laid a gentle kiss in his palm, never loosing eye contact until he closed his eyes at the feel of her kiss. “May I look now?” as she reached out to touch the dome in the center of her plate. “Yes, my love, my heart, you may look” Nick said, the anticipation threatening to choke him. Natalie lifted the dome off of the plate and saw a red velvet jeweler’s box underneath. Her breath caught slightly and she looked at Nick as she lifted the box and just held it for a moment. “No, it couldn’t be that… Could it?” she thought to herself. Nick heard her heart racing and saw the look of shock on her face and he could hardly stand it. “Open it, Natalie,” he said quietly. Unable to form a coherent thought, let alone actually speak, she slowly opened the box and inside she found, nestled in the blood-red satin interior was a ring. It was a flawless one-and-a-half carat brilliant- cut diamond, surrounded by small heart-shaped rubies. It was exquisite. She was trembling. Nick took the box from her and removed the ring. He took her left hand in his and slid the ring onto the third finger. He met her gaze, which had been fixed on his eyes since he took the box from her. Natalie, I think that I began to fall in love with you the night we met, when you refused to believe that I was dead, ‘Just different’ you said.” Nick smiled at the memory, “The truth, Natalie, is that I was dead inside, and even if I had managed to find mortality at that point, it would have been empty and meaningless. In the six years you and I have known each other; we have gone through many trials and tribulations together. Looking back I have only one regret about those times; I regret that I waited six years to tell you that I love you. Natalie, you are my heart, my soul, and my life. Without you my existence would be meaningless and un bear able.” Nick stood out of his chair and dropped to one knee before her, “Natalie Lambert, will you marry me?” There wasn’t room enough in Natalie’s heart to contain the love and joy she felt. Her face lit up in a smile so bright that a lesser vampire would have been reduced to ashes at the sight of it. “Nicolas De Brabant Knight, I love you with all my heart and soul, with all that I am. I would be honored and delighted to be your wife!” whereupon she pulled him up and jumped into his arms, squeezing as tight as she could and peppering his face with little kisses and laughing out loud with delight. She finally let go of him and sat down, a little light- headed. “Careful Nat, you should always remember to take it easy after donating blood.” Nick said with a smirk. “Oh Nick,” she said, “It was worth it though!” “Really?” Nick said, fishing for complements. “Yes! I mean come on, Dinner from Bellini’s and Truffles from Vosges ?” she said smirking herself, “That’s worth a pint of blood or two.” She laughed out loud at the crestfallen look Nick gave her. “Honestly Nick, for an 800 year old vampire, you’re such a little boy,” she said with a delighted smile on her face. “I don’t know if I will be able to walk tomorrow but it was definitely worth it!” Suddenly concerned, Nick asked, “Was it too much, Natalie? I know it’s probably been a while, and maybe I shouldn’t have taken your challenge so seriously, and…” “Nick! It was perfect, it was amazing- I would happily give up ever walking normally again for that kind of ecstasy.” She said, breaking into his self-recrimination. She then dropped her gaze and her voice, looking down at her hands in her lap, “It’s just that it’s been about a decade since I’ve had anything other than my fingers down there.” she continued. “Oh Nat, I’m so sorry. But, how is that possible? You are one of the loveliest creatures to grace the face of the earth for the last millennium! And believe me, I’ve been around for most of it.” Natalie blushed fiercely at Nick’s complement- the more so because she could hear the sincerity in his voice. “I am glad that you think so, Nick. Let’s just say that others do not share your unique viewpoint.” Nick instinctively knew that words were not what Natalie needed at this point, so he bent down and swept her up into his arms. He kissed her hungrily and flew them up to the bedroom. ‘Their bedroom’ as he now thought of it. He didn’t think she should ‘donate’ again so soon, so he resolved that this coupling would be for her alone. And it would be as slow and loving as the last two were fierce and passionate. He laid her on the bed and began at her feet, gently massaging and softly kissing each foot. He slowly worked his way up her legs, massaging and kissing, until he had her gown pushed up to her mid- thigh. “I love your legs, Natalie. Your calves are lovely and your thighs delight me.” He leaned down and softly kissed her mouth, before raising her up to a seated position and sliding her gown up and over her head. He couldn’t help pausing to look at her, lying before him naked and beautiful. “Natalie felt herself blushing under Nick’s intent gaze and said, “what about you?” indicating the pajama bottoms he was still wearing. “Hush now, my love. This one is for you. Let me convince you how much I adore you.” With that he began at her neck, kissing, licking and stroking. He gently kissed the bite-mark on her neck, secretly pleased that it marked her as his and his alone. He covered her shoulders and arms with soft kisses and caresses. He carefully laved each breast with his tongue, paying particular attention to the bite-mark on the left, while ignoring for the moment the taught flesh at the peak of each. He rubbed his smoothly shaved cheeks over her abdomen, pausing to dip his tongue into her navel. Natalie felt Goosebumps form over her entire body when he did that. He was deliberately ignoring the primary erogenous zones, nevertheless, she felt intense heat building up inside her. She felt herself growing slick with anticipation, but she willed herself to be patient and take whatever he would give. Nick could smell the increase in Natalie’s arousal and had to exert iron control to keep the vampire at bay. He finally made his way down to the junction of her thighs and nudged them apart with his chin. He again paused for a moment to appreciate the beauty before him. The tangle of dark curls covering the outer lips, and surrounding the smooth, pink inner folds. The apex of those folds with its swollen member peaking out. He smiled with joy at the sight before him and leaned in to place an open-mouthed kiss upon her lips. He traced the inner folds with his tongue and suckled them for several minutes before moving upward. Natalie felt the slow buildup of pleasure inside her as Nick kissed and suckled, below. He was entirely ignoring her clitoris, and it was all she could do to keep from grabbing his head by the ears and dragging his mouth to where she wanted it. She kept her hands occupied by stroking and squeezing the nipples that he had ignored earlier, and tried to stifle the moans that kept rising out of her throat. When he heard Natalie lose control of her moans and she started to buck her hips into his face, he moved up to her clitoris, slowly tracing the hood, and then sucking the hardened nub into his mouth and squeezing it with his lips. This time her orgasm was not like fireworks or falling off a cliff. It was slow and languid, the waves of pleasure flowing out from her center to the tips of her extremities and then back. It filled her with happiness to have such a careful and attentive, not to mention talented, lover. She felt sleep overtake her and said, “I love you, Nick” as she drifted off. The last thought on her mind was that she would definitely find a way to repay him for this. Nick heard her sleepy whisper and smiled. “I am the happiest man alive,” he thought. “I am also very hungry” he realized. He quietly made his way downstairs and to the refrigerator. It was cold and lacked the richness of his beloved, but it was adequate, “Still, it’s *much* better than Cow!” he thought as he emptied an entire bottle. The lassitude that daylight brought overcame him and he fled upstairs to join his beloved in a day’s sleep. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Incarnations of Immortality By The Bear! Disclaimer: See Prologue Chapter 5 Room 1013, International Plaza Hotel 11:26am Tuesday Scully slowly began to wake up. She was laying on her side with Mulder spooned against her, his right arm wrapped around her ribcage and his hand on her breast, thumb lightly tracing the contours of her areola and nipple. His breath was warm on the top of her head and his erection was nestled in the cleft of her ass. All in all it was a particularly wonderful way to wake up. As soon as he felt her stirring he said “Good morning, beautiful.” and moved his hand down her torso and between her legs. Scully was slightly chagrined to realize that she was already wet. She had woken up wet. She felt wanton, needing him again already, wondering if she could ever get enough of him. “Yep, I’m definitely addicted.” “Oh baby, you are so hot and ready. I need you so badly” Mulder whispered huskily in her ear, reaching his head down to nip at her earlobe. “You are like a drug, Scully, I am hopelessly addicted to you. I can’t get enough of you” he practically moaned in her ear. “Oh God,” she said to herself as his words mirrored her thoughts, “Thank You *so* much!!!” Out loud she said, “Time for your fix, then Mulder. I want you inside me, Now!” her tone demanding instant obedience. Mulder lifted her right leg slightly and she moved her hand down to guide him. He slipped inside her like he was made to fit there, and began steadily thrusting into her. After several minutes he began nibbling on her ear again and whispering to her, “I finally figured it out, Scully.” “Oh… What’s… That… Mulder?” she panted out between thrusts. “The reason I exist. Why I was born.” Mulder crooned to her. “W-w-why-y-y” she stuttered out as he increased his pace. “This, Scully. To be inside you. To make love to you. To be in love with you.” She wanted to say that she loved him too, but he chose that moment to begin grinding his fingers in tight circles over her clit. Her orgasm washed over her in slow lapping waves, “Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ohhh, Yes! Yes, Mulder, Yes!” she shouted. Mulder paused inside her and lightened the pressure of his fingers against her, gently stroking as she rode it out. He was close himself when he suddenly felt Scully tightening around him in a wave, starting at the base of his penis and moving up to the tip. “Oh God! What did you just do, Scully?” She brought his hand up to her mouth and sucked his wet fingers into her mouth. Then she did it again and Mulder felt a warm tingling beginning to build in his groin. She smiled around his fingers as she heard him start to moan. She gripped him again inside her, and again- like she was milking him. “Which, I suppose I am, in a way,” she thought. She heard him hoarsely whisper that he was going to cum, and she gave out her own low throaty moan, encouraging him to do just that. It was too much for him to bear . What she was doing to him inside her was making him nuts, and then when he told her he was going to cum, she made that moan like he was doing *her* a favor. He exploded inside her, the feeling of his orgasm traveled like an electric shock from his balls to his brain and he saw stars as he closed his eyes. It felt like he pumped himself into her for hours, though it was probably only a few seconds. “That’s it, its over,” he rasped. “Hi, my name is Fox Mulder, and I’m a Scullyholic.” Scully laughed in delight. “Yep, I’ve got it bad,” he said. “Crack addicts are going to see me, and say, ‘Damn, junky- you better get your ass to rehab! You’re outta control!” Scully was laughing so hard that tears were running down her face. “Enough, Mulder! I think we need a shower, as in right now,” she said with a wide smile on her face. “We’re sticky.” Mulder grabbed on tight and rolled her over the top of him and into a seated position on the edge of the bed. Then he stood up, looked her in the eye and said, “Never let it be said that Fox Mulder isn’t his lady’s obedient love slave.” Before she could respond to that he suddenly pulled her to her feet while bending down towards her. The next thing she saw was the world invert itself and she found herself slung over Mulder’s shoulder, being carried through to the adjoining door to her room and into the bathroom. He gently set her down and said “Go ahead and start it, I will join you momentarily,” leaving her to take care of her morning needs while he went back next door to do the same. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== While watching him wash his hair she had noticed the wound on his temple and asked him about it. He had said it was a long story and after the shower he would order some room service and tell her all about it. As they sat at her table, drinking coffee, having just finished breakfast, Mulder was uncomfortably silent. Scully looked at her partner, now her lover, and wondered what had him looking so pensive. “Well, Mulder?” He told her about him and Knight seeing the swordsman from the other night and deciding to follow him, “We were just going to see where he went, and then call for backup, Scully” he said when her eyes narrowed at him. He then went on to tell her about being spotted, the alley and the fire escape. He got to the point where the guy was standing over him with the sword, and the cryptic words he said just before Nick popped up across the roof and shot him. Scully was confused at this point “But If Detective Knight was clear across the roof and behind you, why didn’t this guy see him and duck behind the air conditioner? Why just stand there and get shot?” she asked. “And where is the body?” “Well, I have a theory on the first part, but you’re not going to like it.” Mulder sheepishly said. “Oh Mulder, not the vampire thing again?” she sighed. He just nodded. “It gets better m b, Scully” he said. “What, the perp. was a vampire too? And let me guess, he turned to dust and blew away, right?” she said, exasperated. “Uh, good guess, but… no.” He then went on to tell her about the guy coming to, impaling Nick and taking a dive when Mulder shot him. “So he was wearing a vest, Mulder.” Knight should have been more careful. Besides the wound couldn’t have been that bad, I saw him last night and he looked fine.” Scully was still in denial about the vampire thing. “Anyway, what happened to the body?” Mulder responded to the first part again, “Scully, I had to pull the sword out of his chest.” Scully just sat there with her mouth open. She knew Mulder would not lie to her, even when they disagreed on things, she usually just felt that his belief in the supernatural and aliens skewed his interpretation of things. “As in what, Mulder? The tip was caught under the skin…” “As in he was sitting upright with his back against the parapet, the sword sticking straight out from his body.” He shook his head slightly, remembering his excitement at living (as it were) proof of the supernatural, combined with the fear that his ‘proof’ might take that opportunity to ‘get supernaturally medieval on his ass’. “I had to use both hands, Scully. I ended up having to put one foot on his shoulder to keep him from coming forward before I could get it out.” “Mulder, I…” there had to be an explanation, and she would find it. Maybe Knight was wearing a vest and it was stuck in that. Whatever it was she would leave it for now. “What about the body Mulder?” “You mean what happened to the guy Knight shot three times, and I emptied an entire clip into, knocking him off of the top of a 4 story building, where he landed on the concrete in the alley below? That body?” “Yes Mulder, what happened to it?” she asked, getting impatient. “After I pulled the sword out of Nick and gave him his flask of blood to drink, I looked over the edge of the building and watched our perp get up and run away.” She was stunned. “Not possible, Mulder.” “Tell me about it, Scully,” he said. “But how…” “I have a theory about that too. Do you want to hear it? “He’s a vampire too?” “Nick says no. Besides, if he was, why climb the fire escape? Nick didn’t. And why the sword? They aren’t very deadly to vampires, unless you cut off their heads, but a good sharp wooden stake would be better in a fight, more debilitating.” Mulder smiled, “at least the sword didn’t seem to bother Nick much once I pulled it out. He didn’t look like he was in a lot of pain, and once he downed the blood the wound healed almost instantly.” Scully looked like she was about to choke Mulder pressed on, “I don’t know what he is, but based on last night and Saturday night, I would say that whatever he is, there are more of them out there, and appears that the only way of killing them permanently is by decapitation. Nick said that the guy was dead after he shot him. He said that he could hear the heartbeat stop. It was like the guy woke up from death; one moment he is dead, the next he gasped for air and came back to life. That surprised Nick long enough that the guy was able to stab him before he could react. There was also a pause of several seconds between when he hit the ground, and when we saw him run off.” Scully was having a hard time digesting all of this. “Look, Scully. Nick said it was up to me whether or not to tell you about him. He said it would be dangerous if you knew, that there are those in his ‘community’ whose job it is to keep knowledge about vampires out of mortal hands. We would be targeted for death if they found out that we knew. I didn’t want to tell you Scully.” “Mulder,” she began. He lowered his eyes to his lap and interrupted, “I know you don’t want me to ‘protect’ you from danger, Scully… I can’t help wanting to anyway.” He looked once more into her eyes and continued, “But, I knew you were going to find out eventually and if you knew that I kept it from you, you’d kick my ass.” he said with a smile. “Mulder, please don’t take this the wrong way- I believe that you believe these things…” “But you need proof, right Scully?” Mulder interrupted. “It’s OK Scully. I am a believer, but if someone brought this to me, I would want to see proof too.” “I don’t know what to think, Mulder. I trust you, and if you say you saw it happen, then I believe that you did. I just don’t know that there aren’t other explanations that might be applied.” Scully said, almost apologetically. Mulder wondered for a moment at her apologetic tone. She didn’t usually say it like that when she thought his theories were crazy. Then it came to him that she must believe that he would be mad at her for not conforming to his beliefs now that they had advanced their ‘relationship.’ He shook his head ruefully. He was a lucky man to have a woman that would be so solicitous, without taking the easy way out by giving in to the desire to humor her lover. He wanted to reassure her, “It’s ok, Scully. I love you! I love the Dana Scully who clings to scientific explanation as firmly as I believe that some things are beyond science. I love the Dana Scully who makes me come up with evidence to back up my beliefs. The woman that challenges me to look beyond what I want to see, and find out what the truth is. I love the person who is willing to respect the journey, even if she doesn’t always agree on the destination.” He reached across the table and grasped her small hand in his large one, lacing their fingers together. “I don’t want you to change who you are, any more that I am going to change who I am or what I believe. I want *my* Dana Scully, not some pale reflection of me.” Scully didn’t think it was possible for her to love Mulder any more than she already did, but once again his belief in ‘extreme possibilities’ won out. “Sometimes I think you are crazy, Mulder. Other times I know it for a fact,” she said with a teeth-baring grin. “However, you are also, without a doubt, the man I love more than life itself.” Mulder squeezed her hand and placed a sensual kiss on her palm. “Nick said he would call this afternoon and we could discuss it at his place. You can see if he will let you examine him enough to prove it to yourself. If he is running an elaborate hoax on me, you will have a great opportunity to prove how gullible I am.” He smiled and changed the subject, for now, “Why don’t you tell me how your second seminar was?” She recognized the tactic for what it was, but went along anyway and told him about what was going on with her while he was out gallivanting with vampires and unkillable headhunters. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Nick’s Loft 1 p.m. Tuesday. Nick didn’t have nearly the trouble telling Natalie about the events on the apartment roof that Mulder did with Scully. They were lounging at the dining table in their robes. She just listened; gasping appropriately when he told her the perp. had come back to life and stabbed him with a sword, and shaking her head in wonder when he described the fall, and subsequent recovery and escape. She was concerned when he told her about Mulder knowing about vampires, and possibly involving his partner. “Won’t they be in terrible danger, Nick?” “Possibly, but Mulder already knew a little bit about vampires, as he had had encountered them before, and I was unable to remove the memory from him.” Natalie thought she heard him mutter “damn resistors,” but chose to ignore it. “Aren’t you concerned that he will report you to the FBI?” she asked. I don’t think he will report me personally, and his previous reports about vampires have been ignored.” Nick thought for a moment, “I think he’s kind of like the reporters who write for those tabloid magazines, they report about vampire attacks all of the time. I know that some of those reports are accurate, because I was aware of the events before the report was published. However, the Enforcers don’t get involved because no one credible pays attention to tabloids. If every time the National inquirer reported about a vampire attack the reporter turned up dead or missing, well, credible news agencies might actually start sniffing around.” “So they take no action in those cases?” Natalie asked. “The vampire that was careless enough to get caught usually gets ‘disappeared,” but that’s about it,” Nick replied. “Meaning that we would be in danger, right Nick?” Natalie was concerned with Nick’s seemingly careless attitude about this situation. “You won’t tell your own partner, but you’ll bring these FBI Agents in on it?” Nick realized that he had sounded pretty cavalier about the whole situation, but that wasn’t the case at all. He was madly trying to think of ways to keep the lid on this situation. “Nat, I’m glad to see that you appreciate the gravity of this situation. It is serious, and I am concerned.” Nick took his beloved’s hand in his own and said “Mulder already knows. I didn’t tell him, and my denials were meaningless once I had to ask him to pull the sword out. I tried to whammy him, and failed. He is a resistor. My only other options are to kill him, or try to convince him to keep his mouth shut; I presume that you would agree that killing him is not acceptable?” “Of course you can’t kill him, Nick…” He interrupted, “The Code demands it Natalie! We already face death for allowing him to live with the knowledge he has.” His face softened at the resignation on her face. “As for his partner, I advised him not to tell her. I was completely candid about the danger, but I know that he will. I can’t really blame him for doing so, either. It would be difficult to keep something like that from someone you are so close to, and work with so closely. It would be like keeping you in the dark if I had found out that Tracy was a spy for a foreign government, or something. It would be a violation of trust.” “You are right, of course, Nick. I am just concerned about endangering them and ourselves. Besides, I kind of like Dana. I empathize with her.” Natalie sighed. Nick smiled and said, “You mean because she and Mulder remind you of us for the past six years?” Natalie laughed and said, “Do you think that everyone who saw us realized how hopelessly in love we were with each other? In retrospect I feel so blind for missing all of the little clues you were leaving for me.” “No more than I feel, Nat. I’m supposed to be a crack detective, and I couldn’t see the evidence that was right before my eyes.” He ruefully shook his head. “Speaking of our two clueless FBI agents, we’re probably going to need their help to solve this case. We can’t really use our normal contacts on this one, and they have a pretty good reputation for solving ‘paranormal’ cases. We will just have to impress on them both the importance of discretion in this matter.” They sat in silence for a moment. “You know, Natalie, you brought up my keeping this secret from Tracy . I think we may need to consider bringing her in on this.” “Why now Nick? I mean, I think she deserves to know, but why change your mind now?” “There are several reasons, Nat. First, she is already in danger just because she knows about vampires at all, and she is too nosey to keep from looking where she doesn’t belong, and asking questions she shouldn’t ask. Second, I worry about her getting hurt if she tries to ‘cover my back’ when it isn’t necessary. Third, I am getting the impression that she and Vachon are getting very close. She may not be among the ranks of the living for long,” Nick mused. “I think Vachon would be pushing for it himself if it wasn’t for me threatening him.” Nick chuckled. “You threatened him, Nick? Why?” Natalie asked. “When Tracy discovered Vachon after the plane crash, and he couldn’t make her forget, I was concerned that he might hurt her. You have to remember, Natalie; Vachon was not like me at all. He thrived on being a vampire, and casual killing was nothing to him. I let him know that Tracy was his responsibility and that if he hurt her, or allowed her to be hurt, he would have to answer to me.” Natalie laughed, picturing Vachon’s face when Nick told him that. “Yes, he wasn’t pleased, to say the least.” Nick laughed. “Anyway, I’m going to give Mulder a call and I’d like you to pick them up if that is ok, Nat?” “You mean I get to drive the Nick-mobile all by myself? Are you sure the sexual tension hasn’t addled your brain?” “Hmm, you’re diagnoses sounds serious, doctor, what would you prescribe for this terrible, terrible condition?” he asked, kidding around. Natalie blushed lightly, but kept a straight face when she replied, “There is no cure, Nick. However, with rigorous exercise, and intense therapy sessions, there is no reason you couldn’t lead a normal, healthy life.” Nick chuckled and picked up the phone to call the plaza. He told Mulder that Natalie would have the desk call them when she got there to pick them up. As he hung up the phone and turned around to make a comment to Natalie, he froze, his mouth hanging open at the sight before him. Natalie had dropped her robe to the ground and stood before him, naked. She kneeled before him and pulled open his robe, grasping his penis, already half-erect just at the sight of her nude form. “Wha-What are you doing, Nat?” “It’s important that you not miss your therapy sessions Nick,” she said, and then lifted his penis and gave it a long lick from the base to the underside of the head. Nick groaned and said, “Yes, doctor.” Natalie began a relentless assault on Nick’s member. “Never let it be said that I am not goal-oriented,” she thought. She varied between taking him deep into her throat in long strokes, sucking as hard as she could as she slid onto and off of him; and short bobs of the head, vigorously rubbing her tongue side-to-side on the sensitive underside of the head, while stroking the shaft with her hand. Her other hand stroked his balls, focusing on the underside and perineum. When she felt him getting close, she let go of his balls and thrust her wrist up to his face for him to sink his teeth into, while she took his penis deep into her throat and began humming with delight at the incredible gasps and moans she was eliciting. Nick took his beloved’s proffered wrist and tried to pull away before biting, but she was locked to his groin, and not letting go. “I am the luckiest man in the history of the earth,” was his thought as he bit down and felt the warm blood fill his mouth. Natalie concentrated on the joy she felt and repeated, “IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou,” in her mind as he bit down. She wanted him to know the depth of her feelings, and the pleasure she felt from doing this for him. Nick was assaulted with Natalie’s love and was surprised at just how much pleasure she felt, performing this act on him. “If this is your idea of therapy, I may need daily sessions,” he thought to her through the bloodlink. Natalie withdrew from him with a popping sound as he withdrew his fangs from her wrist. She chuckled and said “Daily? I’m afraid your condition may require more frequent treatment than that.” “Once you come across, Natalie, we will be able to share blood a lot more often- and for a much longer time,” Nick said with naked desire in his eyes. “Soon, beloved!” she replied with a thrill running through her. “I’ll call tonight and arrange for vacation as soon as possible. Will you have any trouble getting time off?” “I never use it, so I don’t think it should be a problem. Besides, I have an idea.” Nick answered. “Really? What?” Natalie asked “What would you say to a very short engagement, followed by a long honeymoon?” Nick asked. “Wow. Exquisite looks and devastating intellect- in one package; I’m such a lucky girl!” Natalie said with a smirk on her face. “Why don’t you get dressed and pick up our intrepid Feds? Maybe later I’ll show just what a lucky girl you really are.” Nick said, smirking right back. “What are you going to do while I’m gone?” “I need to call LaCroix. We will probably need to see him before the night is out, and he might even be helpful on this case.” Nick said. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Room 1013, International Plaza Hotel 2:26 p.m. Tuesday “Natalie? Why is Natalie picking us up, Mulder?” Scully asked after he had explained the phone call to her. Mulder tilted his head toward the window and raised his eyebrows with a slight grin on his face. Scully looked out the window for a moment trying to figure out what was out there that would prevent… “Oh” she said, frowning slightly at him and turning toward the window to collect her thoughts. Mulder watched her for several minutes before he walked up behind her. He paused for a moment before he wrapped his arms around her, just below her breasts, pulling her tightly up against his body, chuckling lightly at his own hesitation. “What’s funny, Mulder?” Scully asked somewhat snappishly, thinking he was laughing at her skepticism. “I stood there for a moment, wanting you, wishing I could put my arms around you,” Mulder said, still laughing at himself. “I am so used to pining after you like a love-sick teenager, that I forgot for a moment that it’s OK now.” he said. She smiled at that. “What a sweet adorable man I have,” she thought. She leaned her head back against his chest, molding herself to him. “It’s more than ok, Mulder,” she purred at him. “However…” she began, feeling Mulder start to swell against her lower back, “You’d better put that thing away. We have to go see your ‘vampire cop,’ remember?” she teased. She turned around in his arms and draped her arms around his neck, and saw him try to stifle a grimace when her arm hit the wound she had made on his neck last night. She was instantly solicitous, “Oh, Mulder. I’m so sorry about that…” she said, blushing at the memory of it, of how out of control she had been.” Mulder tightened his grip when Scully began to pull away. “Don’t be, Scully. I love it,” he said sincerely. When he registered the skeptical look on her face he continued, “I think it’s damn sexy, and yes it is sore. However, every time I feel it I remember what led up to it, what I was doing, how you were responding.” He chuckled at his next thought, and decided to say it out loud, “It’s like a merit badge or something- I finally got my ‘Scully Orgasm’ medal. I hope it never heals.” Scully laughed indulgently. “Mulder- you are such a dope!” she said snuggling her head into his chest and hearing his soft, “yeah, but I’m your dope.” “Uh, Mulder?” “Yeah, Scully?” “Have you given any, ah, thought to what we do when we get back to DC?” “You mean how do we handle our new status at work? Or in public?” “Yeah, either… both. I guess?” Scully sighed heavily, “What is our new status, exactly? I mean- I don’t want Skinner to separate us, but I don’t want to hide either, but I’m worried that *they* might use it against us, but…” “Scully, I think they already know. Everyone thinks we have been sleeping together for years, even Skinner thinks we are together.” “What?!” she yelped. “Skinner thinks we have been sleeping together?” Mulder laughed, “I don’t know if he specifically thinks that, but I’m pretty sure that he thinks we are ‘together’.” “What makes you say that?” “Remember the last budget meeting, after we walked out I had to go back in because I forgot my pen?” Mulder asked. “What about it?” Scully asked back. “I overheard the tail end of a discussion between Hoynes and Skinner. Hoynes had said something about you, and Skinner was telling him to keep it to himself. Just before they walked out the door Hoynes asked him why and Skinner said that if I had overheard it I would have torn out his tongue and… lets just say ‘reinserted it, rectally’.” Scully absorbed that for a moment and then asked, “What did Hoynes say, Mulder?” “Nothing,” Mulder said. “That’s when they saw me and they both just shut up. I explained that I had forgotten my pen and when I got back out of Skinner’s office, Hoynes was gone.” “No Mulder, what did he say to Skinner in the first place?” “Oh.” Mulder smiled, “He said your ass looked good enough to lick.” Scully blushed slightly and said, “What a jerk!” “Mulder smiled even wider and said, “Actually Scully, I agree with him, though I certainly would never share it with Skinner.” Scully blushed even harder. Mulder added, “But you’re right, he is a Jerk.” Mulder slid his hands up her back to her shoulders, and down her arms until he was holding both of her hands in his, “I don’t want to hide either. There isn’t really any policy that forbids us from seeing each other. They can only separate us if it becomes an issue, if our performance suffers of if they caught us ‘in flagrante delicto’. What do *you* want to do, Scully?” “We just won’t say anything about it. At work we should behave like we always do. What we do on our own time is none of their business.” She gave Mulder’s hands a squeeze and looked up at his eyes. “Ok?” “So long as you agree that while we are on the road, time in our hotel rooms constitutes ‘our own time’, I think I could abide by that,” Mulder said with a grin. “And lunch! Lunch time is definitely our own time,” Scully growled suddenly, as though someone was going to contradict her. Mulder laughed out loud, wrapped his arms around her waist and picked her up, spinning them both around. He set her down and said, “Agreed, Agent Scully.” Then he kissed her soundly and held her tight to him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled against his chest. They stood like that- swaying slightly, as if dancing to music that only they could hear, until the phone rang. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== Nick’s Loft 2:46 p.m. Tuesday. Nick phoned the Raven right after Natalie left to get Mulder and Scully. He was a little nervous because his newly found happiness was so different from his life for the last several centuries. There was still a small part of him that believed that it was all going to end, suddenly and badly. He put that thought out of his head and focused on his reconciliation with his father, and his overwhelming love for his betrothed. “Nicolas.” LaCroix said. “What is it that could not wait for nightfall, my son?” Nick still wasn’t used to hearing LaCroix call him ‘son’ either. “I wanted… that is, I didn’t want… I want to come by tonight, but I can’t until late.” “Certainly, Nicolas, but you do not need my permission for that. You may visit as late as you wish.” LaCroix said, wondering what had come over his son now. “I would like to bring Natalie with me, father,” Nick said. “Ah, I see. Things went well then, I presume?” He would have thought he would feel it if Nicolas had brought her across, “Is she mortal still, Nicolas?” “For now, Yes. Things went very well, father.” Nicolas said. “By all means, Nicolas. Bring the good doctor along. I would like an opportunity to speak to her.” LaCroix wondered if his son was still hesitant about trying to bring her across. “Do you need my help with her transformation, Nicolas?” “Thank you father, but I am not worried about that. I need your advice on an unrelated matter, however.” Nick said. “I had an unusual encounter Saturday night.” Nick went on to explain the events on the way back from the airport. “The presence of the Agents kept me from using any extraordinary measures to apprehend the individual,” he said at the end. “Most unusual, Nicolas. I cannot say that I have ever seen such an event before." Nick knew that LaCroix would eventually find out about the rest, so he told him up front. “There is more.” He told LaCroix about last night, and the two agents coming over as they spoke. “You realize the danger you place them in by revealing yourself, Nicolas? Not to mention the danger you face yourself if the enforcers ever found out.” LaCroix shook his head at his impetuous progeny. “He already knew about The Community, LaCroix. He has met our kind twice before.” Nick sighed, “Also, he is a resistor. I hardly think that killing him would be in the best interest of The Community. The death of an FBI agent would lead to quite an investigation.” “What will you do then Nicolas?” “I will just have to persuade them to remain silent. Either one would be resistant to such a suggestion; however, there is another factor that will help our case significantly.” Nick said. “And what is that?” LaCroix asked. “They are deeply in love with each other, though each is trying to hide it from the other.” Nick replied. “They will do anything to protect the other from harm. I think I can impress on them exactly how much danger their knowledge places them in. They will keep silent out of fear for the other’s safety, where they would not for their own.” LaCroix laughed. Nick knew why he was laughing and grinned ruefully. “Yes, they remind me of Nat and myself. It is obvious to everyone but them.” LaCroix said, “I often wonder how the human race even manages to continue, in the face of their own folly.” Nicolas returned to the matter at hand, “Would you make some discrete inquiry regarding this man who attacked me last night? Mulder postulated that beheading them would render them permanently dead, but that is based on a single, as yet unexplained, incident. I am concerned at what kind of creature I am facing, and how many of them there might be.” “If I have not heard of their kind in 2000 years of existence, I doubt that any inquiry I could make would be helpful; however, I shall look into the matter.” “Thank you Father. I will be by with Natalie sometime after the Raven closes.” ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== The Caddie Natalie seemed somewhat withdrawn, Mulder thought, as they drove back to Nick’s place. Not unhappy, she was smiling most of the time, but it was as if her focus was inward. He looked at Scully in the seat next to him, “This car is big enough for at least 3 in the front,” he thought while watching her. She was quiet also, stealing glances at Natalie, but not commenting. Mulder thought the tension needed to be broken, so he said, “So, the sunlight part is true, huh? What other myths are true? Which ones aren’t?” Natalie was having pleasant thoughts about her upcoming wedding and especially the honeymoon when Mulder’s question snapped her out of her daydream as though she had been slapped. She floundered for a bit, not really feeling that it was her place to discuss this with them. She said, “I see you chose to disregard Nick’s warning, agent Mulder.” She glanced at him and then Scully for a moment before continuing, “He wasn’t joking you know. This is extremely dangerous for you both- if anyone found out…” she sighed, “you should save your questions for Nick.” Scully finally spoke, “You really believe that Detective Knight is…” “If it is OK with Nick, I would be happy to discuss the symptomology with you Dana, but why don’t we just wait until we get to the loft. I would feel a lot more comfortable talking about it there- if you don’t mind.” Scully shrugged her shoulders and said, “Ok”. Mulder just shrugged and thought, with some amusement, of the look he was sure he was going to see on her face when the question of the existence of vampires was proven to her satisfaction. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== They arrived at the loft approximately 15 minutes later. The rest of the trip had been quiet, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Natalie punched in the code and escorted them into the elevator. As they rode up Mulder asked, “You live in a warehouse?” Natalie said, “Uh, I don’t exactly live… that is, I have an apartment… Um, Nick’s been here for about 6 years.” she finished, blushing. “Oh, sorry. I thought you guys were…” Mulder gestured to her ring. “Um, how long have you known him?” “About 6 years, and we are, uh, together- he’s my fiancé.” “Oh, how long have you been engaged?” Mulder asked, curious about what had to be a very unusual relationship. “If you don’t mind my asking, that is,” he added when she hesitated. “Uh, for about,” Natalie’s eyes dropped down her watch, “eleven hours I guess.” Suddenly Scully burst out laughing. She remembered Natalie’s parting shot at the bar last night. “So that’s what you meant.” Natalie just stared at her. Scully replied to Natalie’s look of confusion, “Last night... at the lounge? Remember what you said to me?” Comprehension slowly dawned on Natalie just as the elevator reached the 3rd floor. As she opened the door she asked, “And did you take my advice?” Just for a moment all thoughts of vampires and unkillable sword- fighters left their minds and they were two women newly, and madly, in love. Scully’s smile lit up the elevator and Natalie said, “I see that you did. Oh, Dana, I am so happy for you!” Mulder was bewildered by this sudden turn of events. He swore he could hear Rod Serling whispering in his mind, “Submitted for your approval…” He looked out of the elevator and noticed Nick approaching. He shrugged at the questioning look in Nick’s eyes at the antics of the ladies who were now laughing at the expression on Mulder’s face. Nick said, “Mulder, Agent Scully, welcome.” He gestured at the couch by the fireplace and said, “Please have a seat. Would you like something to drink? I have orange juice, Gatorade… uh, water,” he trailed off. “I have a very nice port that we didn’t finish this morning if you would prefer a glass of wine.” “Ah, whatever you’re having is fine,” Scully said. Mulder just laughed, as did Natalie. Scully blushed as she realized why. Nick jumped in quickly, “A glass of wine then?” He turned away towards the kitchen at her nod, Natalie joining him. Mulder and Scully went over to the couch, looking over the enormous room that was the loft as they went. The sat down closely together and Scully, who was feeling somewhat chagrined, whispered in Mulder’s ear, “No coffins Mulder.” Nick, of course, heard Scully’s comment and laughed out loud. He repeated it for Natalie’s benefit and she laughed as well. This was certainly going to be an interesting afternoon; much better than a boring conference. Nick and Nat sat down in the chairs facing the couch, after placing two glasses of port on the coffee table for Mulder and Scully. “Agent Scully, we don’t sleep in coffins,” Nick began. Scully blushed furiously. “Nor do we require dirt from our graves,” Nick mused. We don’t turn into bats or vapors. A bite, or three, will not make you a vampire. Crosses, garlic, and holy water do work, to a degree, depending on the individual. Sunlight and stakes will kill us, as will decapitation. Our senses are heightened, strength and speed increased, and, yes we can fly. Any other questions?” Nick said with a smile. Mulder of course was brimming over with questions but deferred to Scully. She was the one who needed proof positive. “Detective Knight, I have to admit that I have seen things, extraordinary things, in my life that many people would find difficult to believe. I hope you won’t take this as an insult, but I don’t believe in vampires.” Scully said. Nick laughed out loud at that. “Agent Scully, I apologize for laughing, but you have to understand that this entire conversation is entirely the opposite of the normal course of events. I would normally be trying to convince you that there are no such things as vampires, and that I certainly am not one myself.” Nick shook his head as his laughter subsided. “What do you need to convince yourself? Short of a full autopsy that is.” Scully was starting to hear the voice of Rod Serling herself. “This is ridiculous,” she thought. Out loud she said, “I don’t know detective, I feel silly even having this conversation.” “The whole package then,” Nick said. He downed his glass of blood in a swallow and set it down on the table. He willed his eyes to change, then bared his teeth and let his fangs drop. He saw Scully’s eyes widen, heard her heart start to race. He slowly stood up out of his chair and then rose slowly into the air. Scully felt her heart pounding in her chest as she saw Detective Knight’s eyes change and his fangs descend. She felt like a sparrow caught in a serpent’s gaze and had to restrain herself from drawing her sidearm and shooting. She tasted the bitterness in her mouth from the adrenaline as the fight or flight response kicked in. When he rose up into the air she began to look for the wires, like she was watching a circus magician and trying to figure out the trick. She began to calm down with that thought. “It’s like a parlor trick,” she told herself- even though it was obvious that this was no trick. She looked over at Mulder and he had a smile of childlike joy on his face- as though he was a kid who caught Santa in the act as he came down the chimney. It was at that point that Nick let go- unleashing the power and sheer presence that a vampire of his age had at his command. Natalie was trying to keep her eyes off of her lover floating about the room. She wanted to keep watch on Dana to make sure she didn’t freak out. She succeeded until she felt the power washing over her. She had never felt that from Nick before. Of course, she had never actually seen him doing ‘the whole package’ as he called it. It was awesome. It was breathtaking. It felt like each cell in her body was being individually filled with the awareness of Nicolas de Brabant, Master Vampire. She actually got one word out, “Wow!” Mulder and Scully were rooted in place. A nuclear explosion could not have moved them while under the onslaught of that presence. Nick smiled and reined it in, releasing them from the spell. Natalie saw Scully’s fright begin to subside and started talking, “I have thought of it as a virus- it acts like a virus, even though it isn’t really that. The vampire factor, as it were, acts like an RNA messenger and makes a small change to the genetic coding. The factor itself is only visible under an electron-tunneling microscope. The effected blood cells are visibly unique under a normal microscope, and their effect can be seen when brought into contact with unaffected blood cells- they attack and consume them.” “How long have you been researching it, Natalie?” Scully asked. “Since I met Nick. He was a patient of mine- first time I ever gained one on the table,” she said lightly. Scully sNickered a little. In response to Mulder’s inquisitive look she said, “Coroner humor.” Nick returned to his seat and changed back to ‘normal’, as Mulder asked, “Why? Why the research, Natalie?” Natalie glanced at Nick, clearly wanting him to field that question. Nick thought for a moment on how best to put it. “I have regrets Mulder. There was a time when I reveled in the role of predator, and I have a lot to make up for. For a time, I was convinced that I would only be able to atone if I were able to regain my mortality. I sought a cure for my condition.” Natalie said, “I thought it was a purely physical condition, and that I could come up with a way to reverse it.” Natalie shook her head at her own state of denial, “It has physical manifestations, but obviously, there is a metaphysical aspect as well that, as a scientist, I had refused to consider.” “What do you mean?” Scully asked. “Nick was convinced that he was infected with evil- that vampirism was inherently equivalent to damnation. I know that that isn’t true, but there are aspects that defy scientific explanation- crosses, holy water, flying, that ‘thing’ he just did, etc…” “You don’t think vampires are evil, then?” Mulder asked. Natalie shook her head, “Nick is not evil, Agent Mulder. He did terrible things in the distant past, but that person is not the same person who is here with us today. I have met many vampires and some are evil- truly horrifying.” She thought of Vachon, Screed, and Urs and said, “I have met several that are very nice people, living relatively normal lives.” Then she thought of LaCroix and said, “Some, I’m not sure about. Vampires run the gamut just as mortals do.” “Detective Knight, I don’t mean to sound prejudiced, but…” Scully began, not sure exactly how to put it delicately. “You drink human blood, don’t you?” Nick actually laughed out loud at that. “First, please call me Nick. I don’t think I can listen to ‘Detective Knight’ all night. Second, yes I drink human blood. I have recently returned to it, in fact. I subsisted on cow for the last 90 years or so, and let me tell you, it wasn’t pleasant.” Scully and Mulder’s eyes widened at that. Nick continued; “Think of it like this, you could live on bread and water, right? However, it would not be a very healthy diet, and you certainly wouldn’t be at your best, right?” Scully remained silent- her mind whirling. “Agent Scully…” Nick began again. Scully’s response was automatic, “Dana’s fine…” she whispered. Nick paused and started again “Dana, Mulder, what I drink is donated. We are able to get blood that has been donated and has expired. It is no longer useful for transfusions, and would otherwise be destroyed.” He looked them both in the eye for a moment before continuing. “I have not killed for food in a century. Even before that I only hunted criminals and killers- not that that is any excuse.” He dropped his gaze and continued, “I won’t lie to you- most in The Community do not share my reverence for human life. However, even those of us who are so inclined rarely hunt these days. It is far too dangerous in this day and age, and not just because of the human authorities. Careless vampires that cause attention to be turned toward The Community face action by the enforcers. Bottled blood is the norm these days.” “Enforcers. They are what you were warning me about last night.” Mulder began, seeking more information. Nick said, “The community has a code, Mulder. Part of it requires that we live in secret, not allowing mortal society to know of our existence. Those mortals who do discover our secret must be dealt with in one of three ways. The knowledge is removed from them, they join The Community permanently, or they die. There are exceptions, but they are rare.” Scully turned to Natalie, “You have survived, Natalie. You said you have known about Nick for six years.” Natalie dropped her eyes and blushed heavily- clearly embarrassed. Nick explained, “Yes, Natalie is an exception. At first we just kept secret the fact that she knew. By the time the enforcers became aware of her knowledge, she had already proven valuable to The Community.” Mulder thought he knew what that entailed, and was somewhat concerned, “You covered up things…” “I left justice in those specific cases to the proper ‘community’ authorities. Nothing would have been served by exposing The Community except to cause more deaths.” Natalie defended her actions, “It was not in anyone’s best interest to initiate a witch-hunt.” “Those cases were rare in any case. Her value was more for her service as a doctor, believe it or not.” Nick added. Scully was intrigued, “What medical services do vampires need? Mulder told me about the sword, and he said you healed automatically.” Natalie chuckled at that. “I could probably make a practice out of just Nick- ‘Natalie Lambert, Foreign Object Removal Specialist; bullets and shrapnel are my specialty.’” Nick laughed at that and Natalie confided, “Nick seems to get shot or blown up inordinately often.” Nick sobered, “Even with all that, it wouldn’t have been long before the enforcers compelled a decision. In another five or ten years I will have to move on; and Natalie would have faced the three options. As she is a resistor, it would have been narrowed down to two options.” Mulder and Scully spoke simultaneously, “A resistor?” said Scully; “Would have?” said Mulder. Nick and Natalie both smiled. “Not everyone is susceptible to a vampire’s mental persuasion,” Nick said, answering Scully’s question. Natalie answered Mulder’s question, “I have made my choice already, Agent Mulder” “Just Mulder, please.” Natalie had a question of her own, “Why does everyone use your last name? Dana even calls you that,” Natalie was clearly bewildered, “and why do you call her Scully?” Scully laughed out loud at that and said, “It’s complicated. Besides, Mulder doesn’t like his first name.” Nick laughed at that, “I guess it would be hard growing up with the name Fox.” Mulder changed the subject, “Nick, if you don’t mind my asking, how long ago were you, ah I don’t know, turned, I guess… When did you ‘join The Community’ as you put it?” Nick laughed lightly at that, “Brought across. That’s how we refer to it. I was brought across in 1228. I was on my way back to my family holdings in what is now Belgium , from the crusades in Palestine .” “That makes you, what 772 years old?” Mulder mused. “I have been a vampire for 772 years, I have been ‘around’ for over 800.” “Nick is one of the eldest vampires in the Toronto community. That’s another reason I survived, I think. Others may not have thought much of his trying for a cure, but none wanted to challenge him over it,” Natalie added. Scully was nearly in shock at the thought of this man sitting before her having been around during the time of the crusades when Natalie’s comment sank in, “One of? There are people older than you?” she choked out. Nick looked at her for a moment, “I am old, certainly, by community standards, but hardly ancient. There are in this world many vampires that are older than I am, Dana. In Toronto , however there were only two, now there is only one.” Mulder asked, “I take it then that the older the vampire, the more powerful they are?” “In many ways that is true. However, age alone is not always the defining factor. Bloodline and training can make a significant difference as well.” Nick answered. Nick suddenly looked back and forth between the two agents and leaned back into his chair. He wasn’t sure why he was in such a sharing mood. Natalie knew most of this, but it had taken her 6 years to find out. She had never really asked about some of it, and he had been reticent to discuss it. “If there are no more pressing questions about me, let us discuss this man Mulder and I encountered last night.” They settled down into discussion and speculation as to what manner of men, or creatures, it was that they had stumbled onto. ===== X-FILES ========== FOREVER KNIGHT ========== HIGHLANDER ===== ...continued in chapter 6