Future Mortality
(Immortal Past II)
By Christine Hantzopulos
{{The
following is the sequel to Immortal Past, the Forever Knight novel I wrote way
back in 1997. Why am I revisiting this now? Twelve years later? Well, for lots
of reasons. Immortal Past was always my favorite of all my FK fics. It was
popular at the time, and even won Best Adult Novel for 1997 in the FK fanfic
awards. People as far away as
For anyone
who hasn’t read Immortal Past, it can be found on my website, www.geocities.com/erika1228
I strongly
recommend reading it first, even re-reading it if you haven’t read it in years.
I did so myself, before I began writing the sequel. I will really need feedback
on this one. Good or bad. I want to know if there is really still an audience
out there. And it is a work in progress. I need a push to keep me going. If
anyone wants to beta, I would love that too. I haven’t had anyone around to
bounce ideas off of in years, and it really helps. Well, here goes. Hope you
like it. And I hope, for all of you who asked for it, that it will have been
worth the wait.}}
Future
Mortality (Part 1/?)
By
Christine Hantzopulos
Erika1228@yahoo.com, arnavassara@aol.com
Whoever had called these
“painkillers” had obviously never used them.
She sighed deeply as the contraction
eased, and the drugs served their only real purpose—to numb her consciousness,
if only for a few minutes, allowing her to fall back into that dreamlike state
that preceded the sleep which would prove elusive each time as the next round
of searing pain seemed to rip her apart from the inside. During that brief
respite she would dream—or was it only a fantasy?—that she would open her eyes
to see Nick bending over her, his blue eyes drowning her in this gaze as he
held her hand, gently coaxing her through the most beautiful and painful
experience of her life.
“Nick…” Her whisper would be cut off
with her own gasp of pain as the next contraction would begin its upward crest.
Her eyes would snap open to the reality she’d tried so desperately to escape
over and over…
She was all alone. Occasionally the
doctor would come in to see her, telling her she had not dilated enough, that
she would have to be patient, breathe deeply, ride it out…
In the hallway of the maternity ward
she would see them, the other women who would soon be mothers, who shared the
same myriad of emotions as she—relief, anticipation of the moment when this
would all come to a blissful end with the beginning of a new life.
But as she watched the expectant
fathes who accompanied these women, fear, excitement and love on their faces,
her own desolation would hit her with greater force than any physical anguish
ever could.
Nick wasn’t here, and he neve would
be.
Panic would set in, as if had so
often in the last few weeks, laced with the same anger and despair that had become
her only companions. How she wanted to die, right here and now, to escape the
anguish that her existence had become! But the child struggling now to be born, the only part of Nick that
was still hers, that she could keep with her always, needed her. This child,
Nick’s child, was all that mattered in her life now. The baby was her life.
This time, as the pain reached its
crescendo, she called his name again. But the whisper became a scream that
choked through her tears.
“Nick!”
“Natalie!
Nat! What is it?!”
Her eyes
snapped open even as her own strangled scream awoke her. Her heart was pounding
wildly with a fear that had carried over from her nightmare. But as his worried
eyes met hers, reality flooded back, and she threw her arms around his neck in
wild relief.
“Oh, Nick,
thank God you’re here!” she breathed, falling into his embrace.
“Where else
would I be?” He asked, gently stroking her hair and nuzzling his face against hers.
“I don’t
know,” she murmured, still dazed. “It’s just that I went into labor, and—“
He pulled
away from her, his eyes wide. “You’re in labor?! But you’ve got four weeks
left! I’ve got to get you to the hospi—“
“No, no,”
she assured him, realizing that he’d had no idea she’d been recounting her
dream. “I was remembering—when I was giving birth to Nikki.”
Nick’s face
paled, looking much as it had when the vampire had controlled him. At once the
familiar guilt washed over him. “You called out for me—but I wasn’t there,” he
sighed in barely a whisper.
“It’s all
in the past,” she told him, though the slight tremor in her voice spoke louder
than her words.
“But it
still haunts us both,” he replied grimly. And it wasn’t far from the truth. No
matter how wonderful it had been thus far to go through this pregnancy with
Nick constantly at her side, a part of her would always think back to that
dark, desolate time of fourteen years ago. And try as she might, she could not
obscure the bitterness she still felt over having gone through it all alone.
Perhaps at the time, their separation had been the only safe course. But after
all they had been through since, she could not help but feel that they could
have found a way to be together.
How different
their lives might have been! Nicolette would have known her father from the
start. And Steven, poor Steven, who had married a mysterious young woman with a
two-year old daughter and loved them both without ever asking about their past,
would never have died a tragic death at the hands of that vengeful vampire,
Spark.
On the
other hand, she would never have had her son, Richie, named for the late
brother that this world of vampires had been unable to save from an untimely
death. The five year old had been made to forget his father’s murder, and had
taken to Nick at once. And Natalie knew that Nick loved him as if he were his
own son. If Nick regretted his decisions of the past, he had done everything in
his power to make it up to both her and the children.
Even as
these familiar thoughts sped through her mind at light speed, she realized that
Nick was studying her sullenly, reading them on her face. She breathed deeply
and lay back against the pillow.
“Penny for
your thoughts?” he asked tentatively, though he surely knew what they were,
just as surely as he dreaded to hear them.
“Don’t be
cheap. You’re a millionaire, and my thoughts are worth a hell of a lot more
than a penny,” she teased him, wanting to push the darkness away from both of
them.
“Good
point,” he said with a slight smile, easing back down to lie beside her. He
turned to face her, caressing her lightly on the cheek. “Okay. I’ll give you
$100,000 just for one thought.”
Nick had
always been one to torture himself with guilt. But she wouldn’t indulge him
now. “Okay, just one, but this is for free. I love you.”
There was
so much in his eyes—relief to not have to speak of the past, and remorse over
the pain she would keep to herself. “I love you too, Nat. More than…more than…”
He couldn’t even find the words, and she spared him by reaching to kiss him on
the lips. He was only too glad to show her with his kiss the intense love and
pain that filled his heart, something too deep to even express in words. For a
long while he held her wordlessly, and she almost drifted to sleep in his arms,
when he finally whispered, “I promise you, Nat. This time, I will be there. For
her birth, for every moment of her life…”
She knew he
would. She snuggled closer to him. “Nick,” she asked quietly, raising something
she never had before, “are you disappointed…that we’re having another girl?”
“Don’t be
ridiculous, Nat,” he said without the slightest hesitation. “Why would you even
think that?” he asked in real surprise.
“I dunno…I
suppose…I just thought…at my age, this will probably be our last baby…and I
thought you might have wanted to have a son.” Her age was a delicate matter. At
almost forty-six, this would most likely be her last pregnancy. Although Nick
had begun to age ever since the cure that LaCroix himself had revealed to them,
she still felt insecure about the fact that he still appeared to be no older
than in his thirties.
”We already
have a son,” he told her resolutely. It was more than a gesture. He said it as
if to imply otherwise were an insult.
“I love
you,” she said again as she buried her face into his bare chest, closing her
eyes to fall back asleep.
“I love you
too,” he said softly, sheltering her in his embrace.