When Day Breaks, Part 5
Adam went to talk to Natalie again later that day. Decisions had to be made, before other Immortals found them. Something to be avoided at all costs, for both their sakes. "Well, Natalie, the way I see it, you have two choices. You can either train to fight, or we can find somewhere for you to be safe." Safe was such an easy word to use. It was simple to forget how close safety was at hand, sometimes. It wasn't something one felt all that often, in their life. But he didn't want to scare her. She would learn all the rest too soon, anyway. This would have to be spread out as long as possible, if he had anything to do with it. He'd seen a few go mad, simply from too much, too soon. She seemed fairly strong, but it was when you started pushing that accidents happened.
Adam fiddled with his sword, pretending to clean it. Might as well at least get her used to the sight of them, even if she did decide not to use one. He laid it on the ground. "Teaching you how to use a sword shouldn't take more than a few years, if you put the effort into it. Finding a safe place will be even easier." He made sure to catch her eye, before he continued. "The only thing is, if you do decide to stay on holy ground for safety, you have to be careful never to leave it. If you ever decide you want to go back into the world, you'll need to get in touch with me, so you can learn fighting then."
Natalie frowned, and chewed her nail. At Adam's inquiring look, she tried to explain, "I don't like this at all. It feels like I'm being... crowded into a corner, or something. Like I don't have any choices of my own anymore. I hate being so... trapped."
"It all depends on your perspective." Adam reclined back in his chair. "It may seem all cut and dry at first, but once you make a few initial decisions, you're home free. You have the rest of eternity to figure out what you want to do, and you can change your mind as many times as you like." He shrugged, and looked amused. "I can't even remember how many professions I've tried." His face suddenly lit into a smile. "You know, I was even a doctor once."
Natalie smiled back, intrigued. "Really?"
"Yeah. I wasn't even half bad at it, as I recall." He caught himself staring into nothing, and his expression turned mock-sorrowful. "But I made a *horrible* blacksmith." Natalie laughed. "I'm serious! I can't tell you how many times I got kicked in the head by those damned high-strung fillies..." he shook his head to forestall the memory, "but, that's a story for another time." He clapped his hands together in conviction. "Now, it's time to eat!"
Natalie was astounded. "You're hungry?"
"Starved! I haven't eaten a thing since this morning." Adam was already on his way to the phone. "Do you like Chinese?"
Natalie was still getting over the small hurdle of an eating immortal. "Uh... yeah. Sure." He's not a vampire, Nat. Neither are you. And never the twain shall meet. Remember that.
The food came in no time, and Natalie realized how long it had been since she'd eaten, as well. As they both scarfed their food hungrily, Natalie got back on the original track of their conversation.
"So I can't leave holy ground unless I'm ready to kill other Immortals?"
Adam was sympathetic, but resolute. "Yes."
She snorted. "A simple answer."
Adam shrugged nonchalantly. "A simple question." He leaned forward, and laid his hand on hers reassuringly. "And a choice we all had to make sometime."
Adam's sword lay next to the sofa in a spot where it could be conveniently kicked out of sight if unexpected company came. Natalie took a long, hard look at it, thinking. Finally she approached it, and tried to pick it up, without much success. She peered at it, as if she might find instructions written on the side. "How do you hold this thing again?"
"Here." He stood next to her and gripped the sword. "With these monsters it's not so much a matter of holding as of lifting." He let it go and took a step back. "Go on. Try it."
Adam looked confident, but Natalie was far from reassured. She tried lifting her arms, but the point remained firmly on the ground. And no amount of struggling with it was going to bring it up. Her wrists just weren't strong enough. Adam looked just a little too bemused; it was starting to get on her nerves. She tried one last jerk with her wrist, and was rewarded with the tip of the blade sailing up...
... And sailing back down directly for her face. She swerved out of the way with a squeak, just in the nick of time, and the sword whistled by her nose to embed itself in the carpet with a loud thunk.
Natalie looked back to Adam, her look half-despairing, half-amused. "This is not working."
"I've seen worse." Ugh. Was he *still* cheerful? "You held onto the hilt, so at least it didn't go crashing into your furniture. That's a good sign." He smiled. "You'll do fine."
She looked at him accusingly. "You're a morning person, aren't you?"
"Hmm?"
Natalie sighed. "Never mind." She spared a glance at her watch, and groaned. "Oh, I've got to go to work! If I'm late again, Grace is going to kill me!"
"Work?" Adam rechecked his watch. "But it's nearly eight!"
Natalie smiled wearily. "Night shift."
Adam gave her a mock disapproving look as he picked up his coat, the sword magically disappearing in its folds. "You shouldn't let vampires run your life, Natalie. Give them an inch, and they'll walk all over you."
She laughed as they walked out the door. "Tell me something I don't know!"
****
"Hey, Nick." Without looking up from her microscope, Natalie waved the file in her hand. "The results on the Mendelssohn case." She looked up at him, and handed it over. "Definitely a suicide. Nothing you guys have to worry about."
He smiled. "Good." He reached out to put an arm around her waist. "And how are you?"
Her smile was just a little hard. "I'm fine." Exactly how many times was she going to have to say that? "I'm just a little tired." She tried the smile again, and was a bit more forgiving this time. "I had a lot to think about last night."
"Oh? And what were you thinking about?"
"Ohh, I don't know. Lots of things." She looked back in the microscope, and fiddled with the knobs for no apparent reason. "For instance... I can't help thinking..." She looked back up and turned to face him. "I just wish I could have been able to give this to someone else." Her face was terribly remorseful. "I mean, if Schanke, or Cohen, had been immortal, instead of me..."
Nick put his hands on her shoulders reassuringly. "They died human, Nat. They're better off than the pair of us together."
Yes, they didn't have to watch us die, like we did them. They were saved, at least, from that. But from the look on Nick's face, that wasn't what he meant. Not at all. "Wait. What is that supposed to mean?"
He seemed to think the answer was obvious. "Natalie, you're going to be out there by yourself in only a matter of years. Haven't you thought about what that's going to mean?" He almost laughed at her naiveté. "You're not going to have Adam to protect you. You're going to have to fight, to kill, to stay alive. Unless you've decided to stay on holy ground." She shook her head numbly, staring at him as if she'd never seen him before. He looked profoundly disappointed. "You're going to be killing people for a living, just like the rest of them."
She felt her jaw fall open in surprise. Funny. She'd always thought that just happened in stories. "I am going to do what I have to to survive, and I will not apologize for it!" she replied hotly.
Nick shook his head wisely down at her, from atop his moral high ground. "So what makes us different, hmm?"
Natalie glared at him. She knew where he was going with this. And there was no way she was going to let him get away with it. "Oh no, you don't! Don't you throw your guilt complexes on *my* shoulders! I didn't choose to be this way!"
Wrong point to stress. Wrong wrong. "Yes, you did. The moment you decided to fight instead of choosing the safety of the church."
Nick, don't do this. Don't do this to me. "I am *not* going to spend the rest of eternity behind closed doors so you can feel better about yourself!"
"This isn't about me, Nat. This is about you and your eternal soul."
The straw that broke the camel's back. Such a tiny thing, it was. Natalie's face reddened with fury. "Don't even try to feed me that crap, Nick! This is entirely about you, and you know it! Personally, I don't think my soul is going to be damned for trying to survive. If it were a sin to want to live, humanity wouldn't have gotten this far! You can feel sorry for yourself until the sun falls out of the sky if you like, but don't you *dare* pull me down with you!"
"Natalie," he soothed, as if to a rebellious child.
She was far too angry to care. "Out."
He stood there a moment longer, and looked stubborn.
"OUT!"
It was only when a keyboard flew at his head that he actually left. And it was only when he left that she realized how hard she was shaking.
No matter how bad things got, in the years that they had known each other, he had never lost faith in her. Sure, he'd thought she was wrong about this or that, and he didn't always follow her advice, but he had always, always had faith in her. She had thought that it was her, and not her humanity, he had put his faith in.
She even fooled herself into believing that it was really her that he had loved.
Her fingers found the phone far too easily. Punching the number was even easier. It almost made even her a believer in the tide of destiny. She took a deep breath, and cleared her throat so her voice wouldn't shake.
"Adam?" She halfheartedly smiled. "Nothing. How soon do you think we can leave?" Pause. "I told you, nothing." Pause. "I can tender my resignation tonight." Pause, and another deep breath. "Yes, I'm sure." Pause. "Fine. I'll see you at my apartment. We can catch a taxi to the airport together."
She hung up.
***
Nick hesitantly knocked on the door. "Natalie? Natalie!" He sighed. He had really put his foot in it this time. He knew he shouldn't have been quite so hard on her, it was just that she didn't realize what it was she was getting into. How the choices she was making now would affect her whole life. If he could just talk to her, without any screaming this time, he was sure he could make her understand what the obvious choice, the only choice, could be. But he couldn't let her stay like this. She was strong, far stronger than he was, she could stay clean of evil if she tried. All he had to do was make her understand.
He heard Adam through the door. "Natalie, why don't you at least try to talk to him?"
Natalie's response made him wince. "We have nothing to say to each other."
He tried to peek through her window, and saw that she was busily stuffing random things into bags. Adam was helping her, under mild protest. He looked Nick's way, and shook his head slightly. But whether it was in warning, or an admission of defeat, he couldn't tell. Then he returned to his efforts, trying to cheer Natalie up.
"Natalie, you aren't going to need all these... things. This isn't the Girl Guides, you know. You don't need to 'be prepared.'"
She smiled wanly. "I know. I just want to take a few more things..."
Adam sighed, and checked his watch. "We'll take whatever you can pack into those bags in the next five minutes. Then we have to leave, or we'll miss our flight."
"You shouldn't have said that." Natalie returned with another armful of clothes, wearing a real smile for once, if only briefly. "You're looking at a champion packer."
He pointed a finger at her. "You're carrying your own bags, missy. Just remember that."
She pointed back at him, a fierce look in her eye. "And I always will."
It was then, unfortunately, that Nick decided to step through the window. "Where are you going, Nat?" She whipped around and her face darkened even more noticeably.
"It's none of your concern anymore," she spat.
"Natalie, don't say that." But she had already turned her back to him, and was violently shoving things into yet another bag. "Please, Nat, I just want to talk to you."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Adam edging for the door. Apparently she did too, because her hand whipped out to point at him. "Don't you go anywhere. We've only got five minutes."
"I'll be back in ten. Bye!" The door slammed shut behind him before Natalie could say a word.
She glared at the door a moment, then turned to continue her packing without looking at Nick. "I really don't know what we have to talk about, but if you feel like talking, knock yourself out."
Nick frowned thoughtfully. This was not going to be easy. "Natalie, I'm sorry I yelled at you. It was out of line." He was rewarded by her turning to face him and crossing her arms in front of her chest. She didn't look anywhere near convinced, but at least she was listening. "I was worried about you. I just don't want you to get hurt."
Natalie looked very, very tired as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Nick, I'm sorry if you haven't noticed, but I really can take care of myself. I know you think this is important, but what we have here is a difference of opinion, nothing more."
"But, Nat, you don't understand..."
Her patience slipped. "I understand completely! It's you who doesn't understand!" She took a deep breath, and continued in more normal tones, "I am not going to try to live by your rules, just so you can have another scapegoat to hate when I fail, Nick. I won't, for your own good, as well as mine."
He looked at her with complete and utter faith, a look that made her want to tear her own heart out. "You won't fail. You'd never fail."
She could feel the tears streaming down her face, to fall heavily to the floor. "Oh, Nick. Don't you see? I already have." She picked up her bags quickly, then paused a moment at the door to look back at him, so lost and alone. "I already have."
Adam went to talk to Natalie again later that day. Decisions had to be made, before other Immortals found them. Something to be avoided at all costs, for both their sakes. "Well, Natalie, the way I see it, you have two choices. You can either train to fight, or we can find somewhere for you to be safe." Safe was such an easy word to use. It was simple to forget how close safety was at hand, sometimes. It wasn't something one felt all that often, in their life. But he didn't want to scare her. She would learn all the rest too soon, anyway. This would have to be spread out as long as possible, if he had anything to do with it. He'd seen a few go mad, simply from too much, too soon. She seemed fairly strong, but it was when you started pushing that accidents happened.
Adam fiddled with his sword, pretending to clean it. Might as well at least get her used to the sight of them, even if she did decide not to use one. He laid it on the ground. "Teaching you how to use a sword shouldn't take more than a few years, if you put the effort into it. Finding a safe place will be even easier." He made sure to catch her eye, before he continued. "The only thing is, if you do decide to stay on holy ground for safety, you have to be careful never to leave it. If you ever decide you want to go back into the world, you'll need to get in touch with me, so you can learn fighting then."
Natalie frowned, and chewed her nail. At Adam's inquiring look, she tried to explain, "I don't like this at all. It feels like I'm being... crowded into a corner, or something. Like I don't have any choices of my own anymore. I hate being so... trapped."
"It all depends on your perspective." Adam reclined back in his chair. "It may seem all cut and dry at first, but once you make a few initial decisions, you're home free. You have the rest of eternity to figure out what you want to do, and you can change your mind as many times as you like." He shrugged, and looked amused. "I can't even remember how many professions I've tried." His face suddenly lit into a smile. "You know, I was even a doctor once."
Natalie smiled back, intrigued. "Really?"
"Yeah. I wasn't even half bad at it, as I recall." He caught himself staring into nothing, and his expression turned mock-sorrowful. "But I made a *horrible* blacksmith." Natalie laughed. "I'm serious! I can't tell you how many times I got kicked in the head by those damned high-strung fillies..." he shook his head to forestall the memory, "but, that's a story for another time." He clapped his hands together in conviction. "Now, it's time to eat!"
Natalie was astounded. "You're hungry?"
"Starved! I haven't eaten a thing since this morning." Adam was already on his way to the phone. "Do you like Chinese?"
Natalie was still getting over the small hurdle of an eating immortal. "Uh... yeah. Sure." He's not a vampire, Nat. Neither are you. And never the twain shall meet. Remember that.
The food came in no time, and Natalie realized how long it had been since she'd eaten, as well. As they both scarfed their food hungrily, Natalie got back on the original track of their conversation.
"So I can't leave holy ground unless I'm ready to kill other Immortals?"
Adam was sympathetic, but resolute. "Yes."
She snorted. "A simple answer."
Adam shrugged nonchalantly. "A simple question." He leaned forward, and laid his hand on hers reassuringly. "And a choice we all had to make sometime."
Adam's sword lay next to the sofa in a spot where it could be conveniently kicked out of sight if unexpected company came. Natalie took a long, hard look at it, thinking. Finally she approached it, and tried to pick it up, without much success. She peered at it, as if she might find instructions written on the side. "How do you hold this thing again?"
"Here." He stood next to her and gripped the sword. "With these monsters it's not so much a matter of holding as of lifting." He let it go and took a step back. "Go on. Try it."
Adam looked confident, but Natalie was far from reassured. She tried lifting her arms, but the point remained firmly on the ground. And no amount of struggling with it was going to bring it up. Her wrists just weren't strong enough. Adam looked just a little too bemused; it was starting to get on her nerves. She tried one last jerk with her wrist, and was rewarded with the tip of the blade sailing up...
... And sailing back down directly for her face. She swerved out of the way with a squeak, just in the nick of time, and the sword whistled by her nose to embed itself in the carpet with a loud thunk.
Natalie looked back to Adam, her look half-despairing, half-amused. "This is not working."
"I've seen worse." Ugh. Was he *still* cheerful? "You held onto the hilt, so at least it didn't go crashing into your furniture. That's a good sign." He smiled. "You'll do fine."
She looked at him accusingly. "You're a morning person, aren't you?"
"Hmm?"
Natalie sighed. "Never mind." She spared a glance at her watch, and groaned. "Oh, I've got to go to work! If I'm late again, Grace is going to kill me!"
"Work?" Adam rechecked his watch. "But it's nearly eight!"
Natalie smiled wearily. "Night shift."
Adam gave her a mock disapproving look as he picked up his coat, the sword magically disappearing in its folds. "You shouldn't let vampires run your life, Natalie. Give them an inch, and they'll walk all over you."
She laughed as they walked out the door. "Tell me something I don't know!"
****
"Hey, Nick." Without looking up from her microscope, Natalie waved the file in her hand. "The results on the Mendelssohn case." She looked up at him, and handed it over. "Definitely a suicide. Nothing you guys have to worry about."
He smiled. "Good." He reached out to put an arm around her waist. "And how are you?"
Her smile was just a little hard. "I'm fine." Exactly how many times was she going to have to say that? "I'm just a little tired." She tried the smile again, and was a bit more forgiving this time. "I had a lot to think about last night."
"Oh? And what were you thinking about?"
"Ohh, I don't know. Lots of things." She looked back in the microscope, and fiddled with the knobs for no apparent reason. "For instance... I can't help thinking..." She looked back up and turned to face him. "I just wish I could have been able to give this to someone else." Her face was terribly remorseful. "I mean, if Schanke, or Cohen, had been immortal, instead of me..."
Nick put his hands on her shoulders reassuringly. "They died human, Nat. They're better off than the pair of us together."
Yes, they didn't have to watch us die, like we did them. They were saved, at least, from that. But from the look on Nick's face, that wasn't what he meant. Not at all. "Wait. What is that supposed to mean?"
He seemed to think the answer was obvious. "Natalie, you're going to be out there by yourself in only a matter of years. Haven't you thought about what that's going to mean?" He almost laughed at her naiveté. "You're not going to have Adam to protect you. You're going to have to fight, to kill, to stay alive. Unless you've decided to stay on holy ground." She shook her head numbly, staring at him as if she'd never seen him before. He looked profoundly disappointed. "You're going to be killing people for a living, just like the rest of them."
She felt her jaw fall open in surprise. Funny. She'd always thought that just happened in stories. "I am going to do what I have to to survive, and I will not apologize for it!" she replied hotly.
Nick shook his head wisely down at her, from atop his moral high ground. "So what makes us different, hmm?"
Natalie glared at him. She knew where he was going with this. And there was no way she was going to let him get away with it. "Oh no, you don't! Don't you throw your guilt complexes on *my* shoulders! I didn't choose to be this way!"
Wrong point to stress. Wrong wrong. "Yes, you did. The moment you decided to fight instead of choosing the safety of the church."
Nick, don't do this. Don't do this to me. "I am *not* going to spend the rest of eternity behind closed doors so you can feel better about yourself!"
"This isn't about me, Nat. This is about you and your eternal soul."
The straw that broke the camel's back. Such a tiny thing, it was. Natalie's face reddened with fury. "Don't even try to feed me that crap, Nick! This is entirely about you, and you know it! Personally, I don't think my soul is going to be damned for trying to survive. If it were a sin to want to live, humanity wouldn't have gotten this far! You can feel sorry for yourself until the sun falls out of the sky if you like, but don't you *dare* pull me down with you!"
"Natalie," he soothed, as if to a rebellious child.
She was far too angry to care. "Out."
He stood there a moment longer, and looked stubborn.
"OUT!"
It was only when a keyboard flew at his head that he actually left. And it was only when he left that she realized how hard she was shaking.
No matter how bad things got, in the years that they had known each other, he had never lost faith in her. Sure, he'd thought she was wrong about this or that, and he didn't always follow her advice, but he had always, always had faith in her. She had thought that it was her, and not her humanity, he had put his faith in.
She even fooled herself into believing that it was really her that he had loved.
Her fingers found the phone far too easily. Punching the number was even easier. It almost made even her a believer in the tide of destiny. She took a deep breath, and cleared her throat so her voice wouldn't shake.
"Adam?" She halfheartedly smiled. "Nothing. How soon do you think we can leave?" Pause. "I told you, nothing." Pause. "I can tender my resignation tonight." Pause, and another deep breath. "Yes, I'm sure." Pause. "Fine. I'll see you at my apartment. We can catch a taxi to the airport together."
She hung up.
***
Nick hesitantly knocked on the door. "Natalie? Natalie!" He sighed. He had really put his foot in it this time. He knew he shouldn't have been quite so hard on her, it was just that she didn't realize what it was she was getting into. How the choices she was making now would affect her whole life. If he could just talk to her, without any screaming this time, he was sure he could make her understand what the obvious choice, the only choice, could be. But he couldn't let her stay like this. She was strong, far stronger than he was, she could stay clean of evil if she tried. All he had to do was make her understand.
He heard Adam through the door. "Natalie, why don't you at least try to talk to him?"
Natalie's response made him wince. "We have nothing to say to each other."
He tried to peek through her window, and saw that she was busily stuffing random things into bags. Adam was helping her, under mild protest. He looked Nick's way, and shook his head slightly. But whether it was in warning, or an admission of defeat, he couldn't tell. Then he returned to his efforts, trying to cheer Natalie up.
"Natalie, you aren't going to need all these... things. This isn't the Girl Guides, you know. You don't need to 'be prepared.'"
She smiled wanly. "I know. I just want to take a few more things..."
Adam sighed, and checked his watch. "We'll take whatever you can pack into those bags in the next five minutes. Then we have to leave, or we'll miss our flight."
"You shouldn't have said that." Natalie returned with another armful of clothes, wearing a real smile for once, if only briefly. "You're looking at a champion packer."
He pointed a finger at her. "You're carrying your own bags, missy. Just remember that."
She pointed back at him, a fierce look in her eye. "And I always will."
It was then, unfortunately, that Nick decided to step through the window. "Where are you going, Nat?" She whipped around and her face darkened even more noticeably.
"It's none of your concern anymore," she spat.
"Natalie, don't say that." But she had already turned her back to him, and was violently shoving things into yet another bag. "Please, Nat, I just want to talk to you."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Adam edging for the door. Apparently she did too, because her hand whipped out to point at him. "Don't you go anywhere. We've only got five minutes."
"I'll be back in ten. Bye!" The door slammed shut behind him before Natalie could say a word.
She glared at the door a moment, then turned to continue her packing without looking at Nick. "I really don't know what we have to talk about, but if you feel like talking, knock yourself out."
Nick frowned thoughtfully. This was not going to be easy. "Natalie, I'm sorry I yelled at you. It was out of line." He was rewarded by her turning to face him and crossing her arms in front of her chest. She didn't look anywhere near convinced, but at least she was listening. "I was worried about you. I just don't want you to get hurt."
Natalie looked very, very tired as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Nick, I'm sorry if you haven't noticed, but I really can take care of myself. I know you think this is important, but what we have here is a difference of opinion, nothing more."
"But, Nat, you don't understand..."
Her patience slipped. "I understand completely! It's you who doesn't understand!" She took a deep breath, and continued in more normal tones, "I am not going to try to live by your rules, just so you can have another scapegoat to hate when I fail, Nick. I won't, for your own good, as well as mine."
He looked at her with complete and utter faith, a look that made her want to tear her own heart out. "You won't fail. You'd never fail."
She could feel the tears streaming down her face, to fall heavily to the floor. "Oh, Nick. Don't you see? I already have." She picked up her bags quickly, then paused a moment at the door to look back at him, so lost and alone. "I already have."