Title: Valley of Death

Author: Honeybat

Summary: Separated from Nick, thrown into the cold, dark void of death, Natalie finds a new appreciation for the 'gift' of life.

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Natalie opened the elevator door leading into Nick's loft with a decisive pull. He had not answered his calls, or been to work for a week. His partner was starting to worry. Nick was virtually never home sick, he couldn't get sick, and now suddenly he had been out over a week. She was getting worried too; he had not called her either.

The room was dark, the only source of light coming from the windows and the full moon outside. "Nick?" she called squinting to see, "are you in here?"

"Up here, Nat," she heard him answer, a few moments later, from high under the roof.

Her eyes started to adjust to the gloom, and she made her way to the lamp by the couch. "Nick, are you all right?"

He didn't turn around, nor did he make any move toward her from his position on the windowsill high up under the ceiling. "The Vampire, Nat. It's reasserting itself in my mind." His voice was low and filled with a dread like she had never heard before.

"Nick?"

"I'm losing it. I can't control it anymore…" he paused briefly, before he continued with a barely audible whisper. "I find that I don't want to anymore."

"Nick? You can't be serious, what happened?"

Still not looking at her, he shook his head. "It doesn't matter what happened, it is too late now."

"It's never too late Nick. We can turn this around," she walked closer, looking intently up at his turned head. "Please Nick, don't give up."

He sighed, an utterly defeated sigh. "I have tried, Nat. Believe me I've tried. I fought the thrills in my nightmares, I fought the stirrings of love that coursed through me every time I saw you, I fought the urge to do more than catch a killer, and I fought the feelings of friendship with LaCroix."

"But Nick, you didn't kill anyone, and there's nothing wrong with feeling love and friendship. Nightmares are just that, dreams that scare you."

"That is just it, Nat. That is what this is all about. If I accept all those things about myself, there's nothing left to fight for."

"What about redemption, saving your eternal soul?"

"When your life is a living hell, you dream of a better place, somewhere you are rid off all the guilt and all the doubts. When you achieve happiness, all that disappears like darkness at dawn."

Nat was getting desperate. He couldn't just give up on everything now. Not now, when they were getting so close to a cure. "Look at me, Nick, please. Tell me you haven't surrendered completely."

"No," he replied. "I haven't surrendered. I have accepted what I am, that I don't have to kill to be a vampire, that I can not change what I did in the past, that I am capable of love. I have accepted that all that matters is what I do with my life from now on."

She gasped. She had not thought him capable of such a dramatic change. His conclusions were perhaps not what she had wanted, or expected, but it was certainly refreshing to hear him talk with such conviction, without being manic. She could still hear conflict in his words, but basically, it seemed he had made up his mind. He was returning to his vampiric life.

"Oh Nick, don't give up on what we've tried to do yet. There's still time." It was selfish of her to ask; she knew that. What else could she do? She didn't want to lose him, as she knew she would if he abandoned his search.

He didn't turn to look at her. He disappeared from the window ledge to suddenly stand behind her, hugging her. "I'll try some more, Nat. I promise," he mumbled into her hair, and she squeezed his hands in comfort. She knew this discussion wasn't over. If he had thought it through enough to even explain it to her, then he knew where he was heading.

Together they sat down on the couch. He wrapped his arm around her, and for a short while, they sat there in silence. Natalie didn't know what to say now that he seemed to have reclaimed control. She wondered when all this had started; he had seemed distant for weeks. He had barely spoken to her when he had been to the morgue for an update on a case. They had both been busy, swamped with cases. There had not been time for much else, or so she had thought. Apparently in the middle of it all, he suffered major doubts. Maybe he was just overworked? He had taken a week off; she refused to believe it could be more serious than that.

She smiled when he yawned and curled up beside her on the couch, using her lap as a pillow. She rested her left hand on his strong shoulder, as she stroked his soft curls like she would have done Sidney's fur, with her right. The sun was rising. She hoped he would feel better after some sleep, he did look rather worn out. Not before long, his cool breath stopped and she knew he was sleeping. Not afraid to disturb him, he did sleep like the dead, she kicked off her shoes and made herself even more comfortable. Would this be the last time they shared such a comfortable moment together? Would she even want to be there again if he gave in to the vampire? She didn't think she could sleep with all the questions haunting her, but eventually she did fall asleep beside Nick.

----

She opened her eyes to a smiling face in her lap. He had turned to lie on his back, looking up at her, and he was giving her that irresistible boyish smile that always seemed to melt her heart. It was so extremely rare. She couldn't remember when she had last seen him smile that brightly, and unconditionally at her. His eyes were blue and sparkling, and his features relaxed. No signs of the battle he had fought only that morning.

"Good evening, my love," he said, his voice soft and gentle as he reached up and caressed her face. "Do you know you look beautiful when you sleep?"

"Good evening to you too," she replied, her heart quickly melting under his steady gaze. "Are you all right now?"

"Yes," he whispered, and without breaking eye contact, he reached up to place a soft kiss on her lips.

The kiss quickly deepened when she didn't resist. She had dreamed of kissing him like that for so long. She willingly invited him closer, drawing his tongue into her mouth as she pressed her chest against his. The passion she had always kept well hidden flared, and she answered his advances with equal ferocity.

Not before long, her tongue circled around fangs; long, sharp, deadly fangs. "No!" she moaned inside, "not yet!" she wanted the moment to last forever.

To her surprise, he didn't withdraw from her. He didn't fly off to the other end of the room to keep her away from him, and the beast's desires. He deepened the kiss instead.

With a gasp for air, she momentarily released his mouth. Already half way to her own heaven of bliss, she let out a moan and tilted her head back in pure pleasure when he unbuttoned her blouse, and expertly kneaded her left breast. "Oh Nick!"

He didn't reply. He was using lips and tongue to make a trail down her cheek towards her neck. His tongue was making sensations like she could have never imagined. For a brief moment, a thrill of fear hit her when she felt his fangs scrape across her neck, and she realized just what was about to happen. Nick had not won the battle over the beast, but that terrifying knowledge came too late. He didn't hesitate when he buried his fangs deep into her neck, to find that pulsing vein inside her.

"NICK!" she screamed and tried to push him away, pain washed over her in waves from her neck. "NO!"

His only response was pressing her closer, sucking harder. This was the end; he wouldn't stop himself this time. He had warned her countless times.

"I don't want to kill you, but I might anyway." Wasn't that what he had said, that first night, when he had come to life on her slab? Her body was already giving up on her; she stopped struggling. What was the use now? She closed her eyes against the pain, and let him freely take what he wanted.

Images… images of other women, in other places and eras started to invade her thoughts when she relaxed and gave in to the darkness that beckoned her. Women held close in her arms…no 'his' arms…giving their lives to him. The images came faster, flashing through her; soon she could no longer distinguish what was him, and what was her. She felt her lips press against their necks…blood flowing into her, giving her the most exquisite pleasure…blood dulling, and sating the hunger.

Then the images slowed again, faded into a single image of herself, lying cold and silent on Nick's couch.

----

She was cold. The ground beneath her body radiated cold. The wind that whipped through her clothes chilled her to the bone. She sat up. "Where am I?" she wondered. The world around her was covered in a layer of soft white snow, and the light of the full moon felt just as cold as the wind that prickled her skin with dusts of drifting snow. Teeth already chattering, she stood and looked around the barren land. The only landmark she could see was a magnificently carved gate in black stone that rose out of the field of ice and snow not too far from where she was.

She started walking across the open field; she had to get away from the cold. Her only hope was that the gate would lead to someplace warmer. Anything would be better than this. Every step was a struggle, and yet the gate didn't seem to get any closer. She wished for a coat, a blanket, anything to warm her frozen limbs. It seemed like forever when she numbly, stumbled forward over the rugged surface under the deceivingly soft cover of snow.

She screamed out her pain and frustration when her foot connected with something big and hard below the snow surface. She fell forward, caught off balance by the unexpected object. And yet, she barely felt the impact; the chilling wind had already numbed her senses as well as her reflexes. Almost unable to get back up again, she ran her hands over the object to try and find out what it was, maybe it was something that could shelter her from the wind?

Her hand touched the rounded shape of a human body. With increased effort, she wiped off the snow from the curled up figure. She cleared a pale cold face. It was a young girl. Natalie saw herself in this still woman. If she didn't find her way out of here very soon, the cold would claim her too.

Nat screamed and jumped back when the woman opened her eyes with a soft plea. "Help me," came a hoarse whisper from the frozen lips. She could hear the crackles when a stiff arm reached for her.

"No!" Nat crawled back in pure terror. She was not dead. The girl frozen to the ground wasn't dead. The eyes that had met hers had been aware; aware of the cold and the pain it caused. With renewed strength, she stumbled on, towards the only thing that could offer a way out. The black stone gate.

She tried, again and again, to keep her head high, and her eyes on her destination. It was nearly impossible; the frozen men and women were everywhere, hidden under the snow until she walked right into them. They tried to grab her, or slow her down with their horribly pleading eyes. What was this place? It was like nothing she had ever heard of before. Wasn't hell supposed to be hot?

Her whole body was numb and her mind filled with the terror of the infinite number of frozen, beaten, men and women she had encountered, when she finally reached the gate.

"Open up! Please, let me in!" she pleaded, but the wind took her words, and her feeble, weak, banging didn't get any response from inside the gate.

Sobbing, she let her body sag against the door. This couldn't be. She had made it all the way to the gate, and nobody opened. She pounded with her fists. "Please! Anybody!" The carved stone felt just as hard and unyieldingly cold under her hands as the ice all around her.

Then, when she had almost given up hope, when the tears had frozen to ice, one half of the enormous gate slowly creaked open, and a pool of warm light flooded out. She jumped for it, desperately; only to be rudely pushed back by a hooded man dressed all in black. "You don't belong here anymore," he growled at her. "Be gone!"

She struggled against him, tried to sneak past him into the bright warm light. She could see her own apartment beyond it, Sidney sleeping in a patch of sunlight by the windows. She wanted to go home. "What are you talking about? I gotta get home!" she yelled.

He pushed her further away from the gate, and then she saw…He was the gatekeeper, and she was dead! She was trapped on the other side. "No! I'm not dead…I can't be!"

This wasn't what was supposed to happen when you died. Where was that beautiful light? Where were her parents, her brother, and all those who had gone before her? She swiped her hair off her face, and looked along the ragged trail she had made in the snow; saw again with renewed terror the frozen bodies she had left behind in her walk towards the gate. Souls, frozen until the end of time?

The black door slammed shut, and she was again alone in the cold. She threw herself at the gate. "No, you can't do this! It's not my time! I don't want to die!" She especially didn't want to be left out in the cold. Why did it have to be so cold?

She didn't know how long she had huddled against the door, time didn't exist anymore, only the pain and the cold, when she registered a faint voice calling her name. She looked up, concentrating. Then she heard it again, stronger this time. "Natalie…Nat…come back to me…"

Could it be? She blinked away the snow that threatened to freeze her eyes shut. Nick? Could it really be? Hope flared!

A faint glimmer in the corner of her eye made her turn around. It was an opening in the dark, another gate, this one was open and spreading a nice warm light. She was immediately drawn toward it, anything to get out of the cold. She started running. She didn't care to where the door lead, all she knew was that it was a way out of the cold.

A shadow stepped into the doorway when she was half way there. "Nat," she heard, "come to me… come back… I love you!"

It was Nick! It was really him! She was almost laughing by the time she reached him and could throw her shivering numb body into his arms. "I'm here, Nick. Please, take me away from this place, forever. I don't ever want to go back here."

In her eagerness to get out of the cold, she didn't care that his eyes sparkled red. She didn't care how utterly comfortable he looked with the evil he had tried so hard to lose. Anything was better than the cold world of the dead.

He smiled down at her and drew her into the light. He gave her a glass filled to the brim with ruby red liquid. "Drink my love. Drink and live!"

She accepted the glass, and his offer of life, with trembling fingers. Without hesitation she brought it to her lips and drank…and drank…and drank…

----

She opened her eyes with a start. Hesitantly she looked around, half expecting to be back in the cold again. She sighed with relief when she realized she was in Nick's loft, comfortably snuggled up in his couch. "It had all been a dream, a strange, terrible dream."

Or was it? She felt so strange. She turned towards Nick. He was comfortably leaning on the other corner of the couch. With a smug look on his face, he sipped blood from a wine glass as he watched her. "Welcome back, Nat," he said with a warm smile.

That was when she caught wind of the blood in his glass, and instantly knew exactly what had happened. Her fangs had just shot out of her gums, and her world had turned crimson.

She was back on the other side of the gate. She had cheated death. She had found another way. Whatever happened now, she knew she didn't have to go back there; at least not for a very very long time. "Thank you, Nick, my love."

Fin

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