To say Maura Logue was stunned when Nick Knight arrived to pick her up at the stylist would be a grotesque understatement. She very nearly didn't believe it was him. After three years living with a vampire she had become used to a lot of things a mortal didn't normally have to consider. One of the first basics was "no walks in the sun". So the thought that her true love had come to meet her at the salon was not only surprising, it was flat-out frightening.

"Maura, your 'gentleman friend' is out here waiting when you're through," Sharon called into the salon area, where Stacy was finishing Maura's touch up. "And sister," she added in a stage whisper, "he's hot. No wonder you hide him away." Maura had intended to cab it home, she knew Nick had left before sunrise to meet Natalie at her lab, yet another set of tests or theories or something which he'd planned would keep him there until work..

"What are you talking about? Find out who that poser is and throw his ass out, my man never ventures outside before dark!" The "sun allergy" was well known to her stylist and the staff.

"He does now," came the familiar voice as Nick's smiling, slightly flushed countenance peeked around the corner. "Natalie gave me some medicine to fight the sun... look who's wearing shades!" He popped on a pair of round black glasses. "I like the look, myself." Maura was speechless, and simply stared in disbelief. "That's okay, Sweet, I'm a little knocked back by it too. I'll wait out here with these pretty ladies until you're done."

"What did he call you? 'Sweet'? That's so romantic," gushed Colleen the shampoo girl.

"Uh-huh," Maura acknowledged vaguely. Stacy finished with the curling iron and undraped her.

"Well don't leave him waiting, girl. I know I wouldn't."

She found Nick slouched back in a chair in the waiting lounge, long legs stretched out, glasses slipped down his nose, looking like a proper stud as he charmed the staff and customers to pieces. Hastily Maura paid up and left the cash tip for Stacy then stood over Nick, her eyes wide.

"What the fu..."

"Ah-ah, keep it clean," he chided as he rose and slipped an arm around her, "at least until we get out of here," he added in her ear. She was still too flabbergasted to respond, but flinched dramatically as they stepped out onto the brightly sunlit sidewalk.

"Shit, Nick, what's going on!"

"I told you, Nat came up with some genetic medicine that has cured me."

"Cured you," she echoed. She never liked that word and always protested his use of it. It was a bad habit of self-criticism reinforced by Natalie Lambert. "You're not sick, goddammit. What do you mean 'cured'?"

"Okay, changed me, if you have to be politically correct."

He was hustling her, dragging her almost, to the car. She wrestled free and stood still. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what is happening here!" Quite apart from what she might consider "normal" goofiness at finding himself in the sunshine for the first time in 800 years, she thought she noticed something a little "switched on" about him. It was all a little too much to take casually.

"Well I can't exactly tell you all about it here," he gestured around him, "unless you'd like me to." He looked in just a devilish enough mood to do it, too.

"No! Christ, no, okay? Where are you parked?"

"Here," the Caddy, top down, was in a metered space with a "police business" placard in the window. Not Nick's usual style, she thought, but then nothing about this seemed usual. He drove them to the beach and parked at the far end of the lot near a stand of trees, then turned to her and stretched his arms out expansively and dropped his head back to bask in the sunlight. His skin was turning pink already.

"Here I am, baby, a real live boy at last!"

Maura sat still as a stone, waiting. This seemed to disappoint him. "You look as if you just lost the lotto. I'm telling you I'm cured and you can't even smile?"

"Well come one, you show up in badass shades in the middle of the day, and I'm supposed to just say 'gee, isn't this swell' without asking a single question?" He was practically pouting now. She wasn't sure how to deal with this sudden adolescence, or whatever it was, regardless of what good things might have triggered it. "Start talking, detective. And it better not include anyone named Geppetto."

So he told her about the drug whose name she could never hope to remember, let alone pronounce, how for the first time he was real, was human, had been stuffing himself with junk food all day as he worked a department corruption investigation with Schanke.

"Nick, junk food? You eat for the first time in 800 years and you want junk food?" He shrugged, grinning sheepishly. Maura had to admit to herself, there was a certain appeal in this boyish enthusiasm. The contrast to his usual wry wit was, for now anyway, kind of attractive. But she was sensing something else driving it, a sort of buzz going on that had to be something besides just enjoying an experience long-denied. She'd known enough mortal druggies to recognize it. Focusing on him once more, Maura saw his dopey smile had been replaced by a more intense expression.

"God, you look fantastic in the daylight. That hair," he reached out and ran his fingers through it. Now he gripped the back of her head and pulled her to him, "I never imagined what you could look lit up like with the sun," and he swallowed her up in a tight embrace and a kiss that went from zero to sixty in half a heartbeat.

"Nick," she struggled to pull back, "come on, take it easy will you?" One of his hands was burrowing under her t shirt, the other pinning her to him as he covered her neck in passionate kisses.

"That depends on how easy you make it," he growled.

They were occasionally given to spontaneous bursts of passion, impulsive kisses and playful displays of horniness, sometimes at unlikely times and places. But this seemed so over the top, so bordering on bizarre (and so PUBLIC) it set off alarm bells in Maura's head.

"Nick, cut it out, really," but he wasn't paying attention, now pulling at the button on her jeans.

"We've never done it al fresco, you losing your sense of adventure?"

No, she wasn't liking this a bit, she felt like she was wrestling the football captain on a first date. "Nick, stop," she insisted and shoved at him hard. There was something very human about the strength he demonstrated, but she was outmatched nonetheless. He gripped her shoulder tighter, and it hurt where his fingers dug in.

"Let me GO," her voice rose some in volume and pitch, "ow, shit, that hurts, stop it!" She managed to free a hand and pushed against the side of his face, finally convincing him to loosen his grip. He did so abruptly, put out by her lack of interest.

"Well I've never gotten that response before."

"Yeah, well, you never mauled me like you paid for it before." Maura was breathless, confused and pissed off, and gave his chest a fierce shove. "Get off of me, will you?" She noticed something in the breast pocket of his shirt, and in a flash had dipped in and yanked it out. Several sealed hypo packs, and an injection bottle.

"What the fuck? You self medicating? No wonder you're all coked up."

He snatched them back from her and explained edgily, "We're not certain of the duration, and Nat has to do more tests. She gave me this in case I started to smoulder in the middle of Bay Street. Not much chance of that with the Ice Queen around, though." His petulance was really starting to annoy her, like her ex, Jerry, Mr. "Anytime, Anyplace".

"Nick, how many doses have you had? You said you only started it today. Is it supposed to work this fast? You seem, I dunno, a little,"

"'Coked up'?" Sarcastic. "I guess I'm a little psyched up because very suddenly I have what I've wanted for a hundred years. But the person I most want to have it with isn't exactly sharing the joy."

Maura tried to placate Nick, brushing back the hair from his eyes, and noticed with a shock the sweat on his forehead was clear, not pink. "It's just that your mood, I mean of course you're gonna be a little wired because of all this, but it seems not very, uh,stable."

"What, now I'm crazy because I'm happy I'm finally cured?" He sat back heavily in his seat.

"I wish you wouldn't use that word." Shit, she thought to herself, I sound like his mother or something.

"'Cured'?" he repeated. He leaned closer, "Healed? Made well? Normal? Why does that bother you so much? I've wanted it for a century."

"You're not sick, it bothers me that you've been convinced that you're diseased or something when you're just, you know,different."

"Different, huh, like a foreign national or a rare plant."

"Stop it. You know what I mean." She shifted in her seat, felt safe enough now to move closer. "You're nothing you shouldn't be," and she could see him roll his eyes when she said it. "You used to like it when I said that."

"Why wouldn't I when I didn't have a choice? But now I do , and I have, and I can be just like you, with an expiration date." Was he mocking her? He seemed sincere but it bothered Maura that she couldn't really tell, something seemed to be getting in the way of that connection. No need to be paranoid, though, she figured. Really, how would she react if she suddenly found her entire reality changed?

Maura sat back and touched Nick's face gently. "Oh Nicolas, I want you any way you are, you've always known that. And if this is what you want and what you need, then go for it. But excuse me if I want you to be careful, not do a Dr. Jekyll and drain the flask all at one go. You said yourself this thing is uncertain, you need more tests, so just go easy, okay? And if this were making younormal I wouldn't be noticing, would I?" His anger seemed replaced now by something of a sulk. She began to feel like maybe she was being a little unreasonable. "Whatever this is it seems to have brought out the kid in you. I've gotten used to being the May in this totally May/December relationship," she teased him. She leaned over and kissed him. "I've gotten used to gentle, Bats, you scared me a little with the Rhett Butler routine." His mood seemed to lighten as he ran a finger down her cheek.

"Frankly my dear," he began then smiled and continued "just getting carried away, I guess. Sorry," he leaned over and returned her kiss, feeling to her just like himself again. Abruptly he suppressed a shudder, and squinted behind his shades. "Must be time for another dose." She frowned as he rolled up his sleeve.

"Right here in the parking lot?" she asked in surprise, scanning the area for witnesses.

"It's 'prescribed', like insulin. Quit worrying." But she couldn't quit it or hide it. And when he made her go with him so he could show off his new self to Janette, she couldn't hide it from her either.

"Your Dr. Lambert did this for you?" Janette asked coolly. "We've been through this before," she told Maura, "and I'm sure he hasn't told you of the danger... not all of our kind would be pleased to know our secrets are held in an... unrestrained vessel."

"You're jealous," Nick suggested, and that childish tone had returned to his voice, "I have what I've wanted for centuries, what you and LaCroix said I'd never have, and you can't stand that it makes me different from you. You can have it too, if you want." He sounded exactly like a little brother gloating over an unshared victory.

"You have always been different from me, Nicolas. And no, I don't want you to share your 'gift' with me. I have never been ashamed of what I am. Your 'disease' is that shame, not your ancient, transformed nature. You have overcome that, in every way you have always lamented. You no longer kill, you mix with mortals, you have found unconditional love," she cast a look at the nervous Maura who thought if there were anything for Janette to be jealous of, that would be it. "And how has she responded to your re-transformation, Nicolas? With joy? Or with fear at its uncertainty?"

Both of them looked at Maura, who shifted uneasily. "The jury's still out, Janette, on all of it."

"At least she is being honest with herself, and you," Janette observed. "You would be wise to be inspired by that, Nicolas."

"You won't tell the others," Nick ventured, not seeming to notice how hurtful it was even to suggest it. Maura shook her head, but Janette responded calmly.

"You know I don't have to. Nobody has to. They will know already. I don't know if we can save you this time, Nicolas. Do keep your wits about you, while you still have them."

When they were outside again Maura rebuked Nick, "Did you have to rub her face in it like that? Whether she agrees or not, or approves or not, the 'nyeah, nyeah' shit is a little juvenile."

Nick deliberately lengthened his stride, forcing Maura to trot to keep up. "You can't possibly know what this means to me," he dismissed her concerns with an annoyed wave and kept walking.

Maura had to jog backwards in front of Nick to get his attention. "But Janette does, doesn't she? Why doesn't she 'share the joy'? Is it about what happened before? Don't worry, I don't need to know the story. Some bits of your history tend to repeat themselves."

As they got in the car Nick turned on her. "Why do you have to be such a bitch about this?" he demanded.

It shocked Maura into abandoning the debate, still she had to add, "If you were really in control of this you wouldn't be asking." He was going to have to figure this one out on his own, if he was still capable.

Seeming to want to defuse the argument, Nick smiled in a conciliatory fashion. "Okay, okay, I'll try to curb my enthusiasm. Look I have stuff to do at the precinct, where do you want me to drop you?"

"Take me home, I guess. I have the night off, maybe I'll just hang for awhile." It was obvious to Maura that Nick believed he was behaving normally, but to Maura it seemed he was feverishly changing masks to convince her everything was all right.

"Natalie, would you mind telling me what the fuck you have given Nick?" After Nick dropped Maura off at the loft and left to go over some things with Schanke, she'd gotten a cab to the coroner's building and stormed into the lab. Natalie's worried face spoke volumes.

"Oh no, what's happening with him? How is he acting?"

"You mean aside from trying to ravish me in the parking lot at the beach, and shooting up in public, and acting like a spoiled ten year old with Janette? Oh yeah, and he called me a bitch. Other than all that he's perfectly normal thanks." She dropped the sarcasm and continued desperately, "Natalie, he's positively manic, impulsive, mood swings, everything. And after he shoots up, it gets worse. First he's sick as a dog, and when it passes he's all cocky and godlike."

"Oh god we've made a terrible mistake."

"''We? You mean you've been working on this together, and he never mentioned it?" Add one to the list, Maura thought, but Natalie told her, "No, not at all. I've been working on this one on my own, and only told him about it this morning."

"You mean he'd never have thought of shooting up this thing if you didn't offer?"

"I offered him the choice, and I told him the risks," Natalie protested.

"He told me you don't know the risks!"

Natalie was disturbed, pacing. " No, I didn't have a specific list of possible side effects but I told him only to use the stuff I gave him in case of an emergency, and to come back here in a few hours for LOTS of tests. We thought we had a cure."

"A cure." Maura's voice curdled on the word. "If I hear that one more time I'll scream. How many times has he fucked himself up because he's convinced he needs to be cured? Garlic pills, veggie shakes, near-death machines, and now some kind of instantly addictive Jekyll and Hyde thing that makes him sick and psycho and who knows what else. You have to deal with the aftermath, Natalie, but you don't have to live with it. Just exactly how much shit do you intend to put him through until you decide you can't cure what he is? And who the hell are you to keep telling him he needs to be 'cured' anyway? "

Not exactly wanting to fight, Natalie didn't agree either. "You can't really be asking that? You know how Nick has struggled with his past, his demons, who he wants to be versus what he's been."

"Well who the hell hasn't? Pasts and demons and dichotomy are not the exclusive realm of the undead, for christsake. What you're describing is practically the essence of mortality. So he drinks blood instead of martinis... it's cow's blood, no more evil than eating a burger. He hasn't taken a mortal victim in almost a hundred years, in fact he's become the kind of person that most mortals can't come close to being. Even the job he's chosen, the one he's totally committed to, he works overtime to stop the kind of evil he's run from. Why isn't it enough?"

"Maybe it isn't enough for him. Is it really that big a mystery to you? He's a big boy, Maura, and you talk like I control him."

"Don't you? Call it 'influence' if you want to split hairs. In almost a century there's never been a thing he's done to 'cure' himself that didn't come from you. Including believing he has something to cure, that he's some kind of walking disease, he sees his past as a flaw of substance instead of behavior. Has he ever once insisted that you continue this research, has he demanded to be made a guinea pig in this wild goose chase for your definition of 'humanity'? There are nights I sit with him, and talk to him, and hold him and love him and swear to him that he's good enough, better than most even, mortal or otherwise. That when he fails it's not because he's evil, it doesn't mean he's let anyone down because of what he is. I tell him over and over he is nothing he shouldn't be, and when he's right on the edge of believing it, in comes a call from the venerable Natalie Lambert, doctor to the dead, who's so desperate to overcome the fact that it's too late for her to cure her usual patients she has to glom onto the one that made it off the slab. Lemme tell you something, doctor, Nick can't redeem his existential losses by becoming mortal, and youcan't redeem yours by raising the dead."

Natalie's voice was tight and cold. "Is there a point to this lecture? Because I really would like to try to find Nick and see what I can do."

"You can leave him the fuck alone, is what you can do. Revivify lab rats, why don't you. But leave Nicolas alone. Goddammit, haven't you done enough?"

"Would you mind if I found some way to get him out of this addiction first?"

"Would have been nice if you thought of that before you stuck the needle in his arm." She was intending to leave, but couldn't stop herself from continuing, knowing she was spinning as much out of control as Nick was and caring about as much as he did. "You still can't accept we're together, can you? Just like who Nick is isn't good enough for you, the friendship you have between you and the love he has for you isn't good enough either. It's the wrong kind of genuine emotion, like he's the wrong kind of good man. To set yourself up as offering something I can't, you have to convince him first that he needs it. You're a genuine pusher, you know that? Well you finally got your wish. He's a junkie, and you're the supplier, and there's not fuck-all he can get from me that will make the slightest bit of difference to him." She swept an exaggerated bow. "I salute you." She left Natalie still struggling to reply, knowing she had been way out of line and that Natalie would never in a million years hurt Nick, or anyone for that matter, intentionally. She was thinking with her mouth again, letting her frustration run her. And though she wasn't proud of it, and certainly would apologize later (wouldn't Nick love to hear that one), right now she wasn't up to being mature and civilized. Shit, as long as Nick thought evil was in his present biology and not his past behavior, he'd keep right on hurting himself and everyone around him. The rage for controlling the uncontrollable was a core compulsion she'd never admit she shared with Nick, and Maura could be driven just as far by it as he was.

Nicolas: Not a misspelling, it is the French version of "Nicholas", pronounced "NICK-oh-lah".