From: Sss44@aol.com
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 12:47 AM
To: akblake@lock-net.com
Cc: Sss44@aol.com
Subject: Forgiveness

Summary: Nick and Janette have a talk about his bringing her back across 
after she'd regained mortality, about hate and blame and forgiveness.  
Originally posted 08-09-2000.

Forgiveness
by Sharon S. Scott
August 2000

Setting: After "Human Factor"


"And why should I not hate you? I was mortal, and you brought me
back over. For this I should thank you?" Janette's voice was bitter
as she glared at Nicolas in the light of a solitary candle.

"Janette, I couldn't let you die ... I couldn't. The thought of you ... 
consumed by fire, our worst nightmare ... I couldn't. Why won't
you understand?"

"Perhaps I don't wish to?" She turned to stare out the open shutters
into the night. "I loved Robert. I wanted to die when he was killed, but
became mortal instead. Without him, my existence has no meaning,
dead ... or undead."

He moved to touch her shoulder, but brought his hand back to his side
at the last moment, as if afraid to touch her. "You have meaning for me."

"Ah, yes. The brave Crusader, a hero once again. Saving the fair and 
virtuous maiden." She turned, put a hand on her breast, curtseyed, and
rose to face him. "Merci beaucoup. Only this ... maiden ... is not so fair.
Or virtuous."

"Virtue is and was not part of the equation. You know that. And you are
quite beautiful. You know that as well."

"Ah, but you save your admiration for the fair of heart, not of face, Nicolas.
You and your never-ending search for good."

His face hardened. "You, of all people, know what I have been and done.
You were there."

"Yes, and you still blame for it all, do you not? For seducing the Crusader.
For taking the light away and bringing the dark? You, who fought for God
and King, in lands of fable and song? How could you not?"

"I don't blame you. I wanted you. I blame myself."

"Yes, I know. You always do blame yourself. But do you have any idea
how much I desired you?"

"It was mutual. I think I know."

She brushed past him to sit on the sofa, and motioned for him to
follow. Ensconsed at one end, he at the other, she turned to look into
his icy eyes. "You cannot, Nicolas." And before he could protest, she
said, "No, you cannot imagine what my life was like before you, when I
was alone with Lacroix."

"From what you've told me, he saved you from a life as a prostitute. Made
you immortal and powerful, so that you had fear of no man."

"No *mortal* man. Nicolas, in all the time since he brought you across, did
you ever see him treat me as if he loved me? No, whatever enchantment he
had with me was quite short-lived, I assure you. And then he used me--no,
not as a lover, a woman, unless he could not find anyone else. I was his
temptress, his lure, to bring mortals to him. Women, children, priests ...
whoever aroused his interest. I was sent to bring them to him. I was, in
effect, still a prostitute. An ugly word for an ugly occupation, n'est-ce 
pas? 
Quite a turn of affairs from what he promised me in the beginning."

Nicolas' eyes weren't so icy anymore. But she didn't want his sympathy,
or his pity.

"Why did I do this, you ask? I can see you were about to. The same
reason you could not leave him. He would not allow it. Why should he?
I saved him a great deal of effort. I was allowed the leftovers, if there 
*were*
any leftovers after his gluttony." She sighed before she continued, "So I
became what I was before he promised me immortality and power. A whore,
only this time, the payment was in blood, rather than in food and a roof
over my head. I no longer had to fear an unwanted pregnancy which would
render me useless for Daviau's purposes. Instead, I feared the sun, 
crosses, garlic, a stake through my heart, and Lacroix."

He moved nearer her. "Janette ... "

"No, shhh, Nicolas. That is past. I do not wish to relive it. But then ... I
saw you, dirty and fatigued unto death, drinking as if you wished to
drown yourself, and ... it was as if your blood called to me. It was not
escape I felt in you, nor hope, but despair. A darkness equal to my own.
A wish for death. I've always wondered, was it? Did you wish to die?"

He withdrew his gaze from her face, and stared into the darkened space of
the loft. "At the time, I thought it was a wish for death. The Crusade had
changed me into something quite different than I had always thought I
was. I realized that I had been so naive, so innocent, about God, and 
about men, and about the things they can do in the name of their God.
I had killed, Janette, killed people ... children ... I had never even met. 
Burned their homes, their belongings, changed them forever. I knew
nothing of their lives, their beliefs ... yet, I slaughtered them because I
thought it was my duty and that God wanted it. And when I was wounded,
thought I would die, I felt that was what *should* have happened to me. It
would have been just and right for me to die."

"But you didn't."

"I didn't die. I wanted to, but I was not so lucky. And on
that long trek back to the "civilized" world, that feeling that I should have
died stayed with me. The disillusionment as well, with my world, with the
men around me, with myself. So maybe you did see death in me that night.
It was a part of me by then." He sighed deeply and turned his eyes back
to her.  "I do know that I felt lust when I saw you, when you spoke to me.
You said, "How badly do you want me?" and I wanted you. Badly. Oh, yes, 
Janette, very badly indeed."

She reached for him, touched his face, then drew back. "But you have
wanted to ask a question of me for nearly 800 years, have you not? Ask
it. I will answer honestly."

He moved nearer, took her hands in his, and looked directly into her eyes,
seeking the truth in them. "I'll ask it--was it *you* who wanted me that
night? Or was it Lacroix? Did you want me for yourself, or for him?"

"For myself, Nicolas. Myself. More than I'd ever wanted anyone before,
in either life. When your blood called to me, I had no thought of Lacroix.
I did not call him purposely. It was while we were making love that the
link between master and child, between he and I, brought him to us. He
was not used to the depth of feeling he sensed from me. I am sorry for
that, truly sorry. Not for the feeling, but that he sensed it and flew to us.
Never did I want you for him."

He kissed her hands and whispered, "Thank you for that."

"But he came, whatever I wished. I felt him waiting, and I knew he would
have you, not I. I knew the punishment that would await me if I took you
for myself, and I did not want to live through such pain again. You have
endured his rather inventive and quite unpleasant punishments before.
So I gave him to you. I regret it, but there was only one other choice for
me, and I did not choose it. I only wish that you not hate me for it."

"I don't hate you, Janette. I hate him."

"Hate him if you will, but he gave you a second life."

He withdrew his hands from hers and faced the darkness again. "He took
the only life I had--my mortal life--and gave me *this* life. Without telling
me all the consequences. Without teaching me everything I needed to know
to survive without him."

"He would have, had you acted as he wished."

He spat, "Had I made myself in his image. I wouldn't do it then, and I won't
do it now. I will not become another Lacroix."

"No, you're quite a different kind of vampire than Lacroix, even though the 
hunger and the hate and the power are within you,  just waiting for you to
follow through on them, to allow them to happen. No, his mistake was in
attempting to force you to use them. But he will not see it."

"You speak as though you've seen him recently."

"I have not. Not since you turned me back into what you are."

He looked at her again. "Do you truly hate me for that? Truly? In your
soul?"

She got up from the sofa and went to the cabinet that housed her portrait
once again. Opening the doors and gazing at Leonardo's likeness of
herself, she answered, "After Robert was gone, I wanted to be a part of
Patrick's life. To take care of him, in the name of his murdered father. But
instead, I became immortal again, and Patrick is out of my life completely.
Because of what *you* wanted. And yet you can ask if I hate you, if I
blame you?"

"Hate and blame are different things, Janette. I'm responsible for bringing
you back across. I did it because I didn't want you to cease to exist. 
Whatever it took was worth it to me. But hate? Do you *hate* me? I
considered us man and wife for almost a hundred years."

"And I left you."

"Oh, yeah, I was boring you, wasn't I? I remember."

"You were smothering me, Nicolas, smothering me with feelings, with
caring, with ... emotion. No one had ever felt about me like that before,
treated me like that. Not Daviau, not Lacroix. I didn't know what to do
with all that emotion. I didn't understand it. I still don't. How could you?
Me, a prostitute, a whore, the woman who seduced you and led Lacroix
to you?"

"I've told you I don't blame you for that. I loved you."

She slammed shut the doors of the cabinet and turned on him. "HOW?" 
she screamed. "Abuse, lust, hate, envy, greed, power, revenge--these
things I understand! But love? How could you *love* me? Tell me!"

"I loved you, Janette. With all my soul. You were what kept me from
walking into the sun when I learned what my life would be like as a
vampire."

"That is a lie."

"It is not. I would have. Believe me, I would have. I have never lied to you.
Never. To everyone else, but not to you."

She considered a moment before she answered, "C'est vrai. Even to 
Lacroix you lied, although he always knew, but never to me. You were
honest with me from the beginning." She gave him a tentative smile.
"Even when I called you an imbecile and ridiculed you for your attempts
to regain your mortality." The smile faded. "Even when I revealed your
secrets to Lacroix and he came after you again. How could you love me
when you could not trust me?

"I trusted you to reveal only what Lacroix forced you to reveal, through
pain, or the fear of it."

"And you loved me through all of this? How could you?"

He took her hands again. "There is no reason, no logic to love. It just is."

She shook her hands loose from his and turned her back to him. "But
you're no longer my lover. You're now my master."

"Call me master if you choose to, but I'll never treat you as Lacroix did.
You're free to do as you wish. Something I've never been allowed to be."

"You'll always sense me. That's not freedom."

"Then block it. Lacroix taught you how, taught you things he'd never teach
me. Block me out, and I'll never know where you are or what you're
feeling. Put me out of your life completely. Never think of me again."

"Very unselfish, I'm sure, Nicolas, but it cannot happen."

"It can if you wish it. Just as mortality came to you because you wished
it."

"However fleeting it was ... " The smile came again and then fled. "But you
envy me that, do you not? I was what you have tried so hard to become."

"Yes, I envy you. For however short a time, at least you experienced it.
You could eat, drink, feel the sun, make love ... "

"And visit supermarkets, and clean house, and listen to a boy complain
about his homework ... "

His melancholy smile made her add, "... and yes, make love. It was ...
pleasant ... while it lasted."

"I'm sorry, Janette, to have turned you back into what we are. I shouldn't
have, but I did, and now I have to live with the consequences--your hate."

"WE have to live with the consequences."

"We. Do you hate me? Will you forgive me?"

"Hate is a strong word, as is love. As to forgiveness, maybe. In time.
But for now, I have to go and start life anew. A life which you will know
nothing about, will you?"

"No. Not unless you wish me to."

"That is another maybe, Nicolas."

And with a smile and a whoosh, she was gone, and he was left to ponder
centuries past and centuries to come.

Scottie
sss44@aol.com
"Oh, I want him." -- Janette, Near Death