THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY

Author's Notes: This story was originally posted in 2001, but was taken down for NC-17 content. I am editing it to fit content restrictions now in effect on and will add parts as I get them corrected. I hope you enjoy!

His breath caught viciously in his throat, burning as his oxygen-deprived blood pleaded for relief. Chest heaving, he began to feel numbness set into his limbs, almost effectively deadening them, and then a bone-crushing pain swept through his system like an explosion. He clutched desperately at his sides as he bit back a scream of agony. Something was terribly wrong...

Something was crushing his chest. He felt like he was being smashed in a trash compactor.

Nick stopped jerkily, stumbling slightly on the pavement as the momentum of his body carried him forward even after he had decided to halt. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, the crisp, cool night air cleansing his burning lungs. Surprisingly, with that small measure, the suffocating feeling began to recede like an outgoing tide, almost as quickly as it had arrived. He shook his head, his mop of thick blond hair tossing about. Odd...

"Are you going to drink that protein shake, or not?"

He spun around on his feet and looked around, but was unable to find the source of the voice... The voice he knew so well... Natalie... What?

"Well, come on! You look ill already and you haven't even tasted a drop... At least try my cooking before you reject it..." the disembodied voice said with an echoic laugh.

No. NO! He clutched at his temples, trying to stop the flashback as a spear of white, sizzling light crackled through his head. Not now, this was not the time... And yet, despite the dire situation, the sounds and smells and sights flooded the air around him, and he was unable to escape the memories as they descended upon him like an angry whirlwind.

EARLIER THAT DAY

"Well?"

He stared into her eyes, peered at her as she silently prodded him to do what he knew was certain to make him terribly sick. But as he watched her watching him with her big, bright eyes, he couldn't help but tip back the glass and take a hearty swallow.

He regretted doing so almost instantly. The noxious brown gook slipped down his throat way too slowly for his taste, and he couldn't help but gag. "Jeez, Nat! What the Hell is in this?" he cried with a disgusted curl of his lips, trying desperately not to choke on the stuff. He could feel it, oozing all the way down to his stomach, he could feel it.

Natalie smiled. "You don't want to know..." she replied mysteriously, the quirky grin never leaving her face.

Nick groaned theatrically as he set the glass down on the countertop, the foul substance sitting like a cinder block in his stomach. "That's what I was afraid of," he stated grimly, turning to give her a look of disapproval. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to kill me with these things..." he added warily.

"What?" she began, placing a hand on her chest in the perfect 'who me?' expression. "You didn't know?" she asked with a laugh and a bat of her eyes, dodging behind the morgue table with a certain quickness that he found quite hard to believe that a mortal could ever possibly possess.

Nick grinned. This was the type of thing he'd missed, this playful interaction. It was probably the first time since Natalie's goddaughter had been viciously murdered that she'd readily cracked a smile and been so openly playful. Taking advantage of her cheerfulness, he lunged after her like a big cat, skillfully avoiding the many breakable things that sat between them.

"Nick!" she said, backing away from him with a cautious tone in her voice, but to no avail. He felt his hands snake out to grab her almost as if they had minds of their own. "Eeep!" she screeched, half giggling as he took her into a platonic embrace, but not first without a little tickle to her sensitive abdomen. She shrieked, kicking outward and sending a pile of papers and case reports flying.

"That's what you get for torturing my stomach!" he cried with a hearty laugh as the previously well-organized files fluttered down around them and softly landed on the floor.

She laughed, leaning back into his comfortable embrace. She gripped him tightly and rested her head back on his chest with a sigh. "I've missed this, Nick," she said, softly.

He inhaled the soft scent of her hair, leaning his chin on top of her head lightly. "Missed what, Nat?" he asked, happily feeling her snuggle even more into his arms. Subconsciously, he tightened his grip.

"This. Just... being. I don't know," she replied, relaxed. "Does that sound stupid?"

"No, I don't think so, Nat," he replied, a tinge of regret suddenly haunting his tone as he looked ahead blearily. "I don't think so at all..."

They stood there silently for a few moments, relishing each other's touch, neither wanting to say something for fear of the peaceful moment ending. But fate, unfortunately, simply didn't to give them a moment to themselves.

"Nick! C'mon, let's hop in the green boat and get a move on!" Schanke exclaimed as he entered the morgue, clapping his hands loudly.

Reluctantly, Nick unwrapped himself from around Natalie. "Sure, Schank. The lead panned out, I take it?" he asked grimly, hoping that the answer would be an affirmative. They'd been on the trail of this bastard for a long time, with nothing but an ever lengthening trail of raped and mutilated bodies to go on. It sickened him, and the murder scenes had always been just barely tolerable for him. Luckily, Natalie had usually been there to cover for him when his beast came out to play.

He wanted to bring this guy down. Soon.

"Yup!" Schanke replied with a dopey grin. "We have ourselves a genuine, grade-A perp, tagged as Thomas Greenborough. All we gotta do is bag 'im," he drawled.

Nick smiled. Finally, a case that was amounting to something other than death. Lately, he had begun to feel as though that was all there was.

"All right, let's go. I'll see you at the loft later, Nat, okay?" he asked, turning to Natalie, who had been listening to the conversation intently.

"Definitely," she replied with a grin.

Nick leaned in and gave her a platonic peck on the cheek in his usual fashion, despite Schanke's questioning and relentlessly prying eyes.

"Be careful, guys," Natalie cautioned them as they shuffled out of the room.

With a quick nod, Nick smiled as he reached the door and turned back to look at her, his hand gripping the doorknob as though it were a lifeline. "As always, Nat. As always..." he replied softly, glancing sidelong at the ever-oblivious Schanke before mouthing 'later' with a lopsided grin. And then he was gone.

THE PRESENT

"Nick! He's getting away!"

The frantic cry of his heavyset partner shocked him back to reality, and he forgot all about the obviously somewhat effective protein shake and Natalie's earlier warnings.

He took off at a run, for once slightly behind Schanke rather than out ahead in the lead. Strangely, he could feel his muscles burning as he attempted to at least keep an even speed. The moments stretched into an eternity as he felt each and every pained tendon and muscle screaming for mercy, every sinew pleading for him to stop. Flex, burn, flex...

"Schanke..." he cried breathlessly, becoming distressed, but Schanke kept going and he felt himself forcing his protesting legs to follow. The pain was wicked, biting into him with cruel stabs of burning, clawing agony. He felt like he was going to die, and he quickly grew dizzy and so desperate for breath that stars were appearing before his eyes.

Suddenly, Schanke flung himself to the side, ducking behind a trashcan in the alley. Nick instinctively followed, but his duck and roll hurt quite a bit more than he'd remembered them to hurt in the past... He landed on the pavement with a resounding thud, and he felt, oddly, as he thought a bug hitting the windshield would feel. Barely able to convince his body to utilize his momentum and tumble to the side, he groaned and flung himself to the right. Only inertia saved his weak attempt.

Schanke was panting hard, back pressed up against the wall. "We've got him cornered... Nick. There's... no way back out..." he said between labored breaths as he cautiously peered over the barrel, only to have a bullet zing by his head. "He apparently realizes... this also," Schanke muttered, sarcasm dripping from his tone as he sat there catching his long-lost breath.

His eyes closed, Nick nodded mutely as he felt the air around him seem to crush him, not wanting to admit that he was glad they'd stopped simply because that meant he didn't have to run anymore. He was panting so hard that his chest felt like it was going to explode from the building pressure, and sheets of blackness were cascading before his eyes like waterfalls. "Schanke..." he whispered between pants, but Schanke didn't seem to notice. Something was wrong. Very wrong...

"Greenborough! There's no way out!" Schanke cried, obviously trying to get out of this situation peacefully.

Several hollow plinks followed as their perp took potshots at the barrel, and Schanke visibly flinched for each one. "Nick, cover me, I'm going to roll to the other side of the alley," Schanke hissed, not noticing that, for once, he was actually in charge of the chase, rather than following clipped orders from Nick.

Schanke didn't wait for an answer as he flung himself to the other side of the alley. More shots followed. Nick, despite the sweat wildly streaming down his face that was practically blinding him, managed to provide adequate cover. Thankfully, Schanke made it across safely, and Nick collapsed back behind the relative safety of the barrel, overcome with exhaustion.

Couldn't catch his breath... He closed his eyes and prayed that Schanke would be able to carry them through this mess, because he could tell, grimly, that he was already down for the count... What the Hell was wrong with him?

"Come on, Greenborough! You don't want to end it like this..." Schanke screamed into the darkened alley, tension gripping his face in a chokehold.

The rest was almost a surreal blur. As Nick tensely hunched up against the wall, fighting both his wildly cramping muscles and the nausea that was suddenly welling up in his stomach like a burbling geyser, he could hear Schanke screaming at Greenborough to give it up, only to receive numerous potshots in response, each hitting the barrel that separated Nick from the perp with a little metallic plink.

But for one shout, there was no plinking sound of a bullet hitting unyielding metal, only a rip-roaring pain in his left side. Nick cried out, jamming himself hard back into the brick wall with such force that he grew dizzy for several moments. He hadn't thought he had been in the line of fire...

But something was wrong.

Terribly wrong.

It wasn't supposed to hurt this much...