The next evening farewells were made with hugs and kisses and promises to stay in touch. This time it was Maura that carried the bags, with James' assistance. When they'd finished piling the things in the trunk and Maura had connected the cooler inside the car, she noticed James looking steadily at her as if he had something to say.

"What is it?" she asked, "you look like you're on the verge of saying something. Spit it out."

"Chris loved you, you know."

She smiled. "I suppose I loved him too. Our friendship moved that fast, and we never questioned it."

He shook his head. "No, Maura, I mean he loved you. Like Nick does. Well, not exactly like Nick, they weren't the same person were they?"

Maura was taken aback. "What are you saying? That Chris," in her surprise she used the informal name, "was in love with me?"

"Or as close as he could get. He said nobody had ever connected with him like you did, or he did with you. He said if it weren't for Nick he'd have taken a shot."

Maura was shaking her head. "Oh my god, oh I never suspected." She looked at James in alarm. "Oh no, I never wanted that, you have to believe me. I'd never have hurt your brother for anything, not for my life."

James gripped her arm and shook it gently. "Calm down, will you? He wasn't hurt, he wasn't disappointed. He wasn't spending all his time wishing things were different. I'm only telling you because he would have, he was going to. Because he said to me he knew it wouldn't screw things up with you guys, he knew you were wise enough to take it as he meant it and not let it weird you out. He said that you were so happy with Nick, that made it fine with him." He couldn't suppress a sly smile of his own. "But he told me if you guys ever broke up, he'd make his move in a New York minute."

"He was really gonna tell me, he trusted me that much."

"Totally. Shouldn't he have?"

She squeezed his hand. "No question. Thanks, James, it must have taken a lot to tell me." The young man shrugged dismissively.

"Nah. He said if he didn't get the chance, that I should let you know."

At first it didn't register, but she stopped on the way to the front door. "What did he mean, 'if he didn't get the chance'? When did he say that?"

"Couple weeks ago. We were talking on the phone, getting all deep and shit like we did sometimes, and he told me that. He was in kind of a mood, you know how he got sometimes. Not grim or depressed, just... thoughtful. I think someone from work was in his face about something. If it was really important he would have told me."

"Yeah," she agreed vaguely.

She looked back to wave when she buckled into the front seat and they pulled away.

"Those are very special people," Nick observed as he gave her hand a squeeze. "I'm glad you decided to come."

"Me too." She looked over at him as he concentrated on the road. "I'm glad you came with me. I know it was tough just hanging around, but it really did help." He pressed her hand to his lips, offering no other reply.

It was at the state line that it hit her. The sign "Leaving New Hampshire". Leaving. For good. For always. Maura had no particular connection with the state, but felt something tear away inside as they sped past. She took a convulsive breath.

"You okay?" Nick asked. When she didn't answer he cut a look away from the road to see her clamp a hand over her mouth, eyes wide.

"What's wrong? You want me to pull over?"

She nodded, unable to speak, and Nick cut into the breakdown lane and hit the flashers as he turned to her. He saw in an instant what he'd been waiting for and worrying about for days.

"He's gone, isn't he," she gasped, to Nick, to herself, to nobody, "the only person like me, the only one who got in, the only one who let me in, and he's never coming back is he?"

Nick pulled her tight into his arms, "No, Sweet, he's not, I'm so sorry, he's not coming back." This seemed to turn the last lock in her, and she dissolved in a heartbreakingly quiet weeping, a confused look on her face, as if someone else were controlling it and Maura merely its vehicle.

Maura had never felt such pain in her life, as if her tears weren't relieving her trauma but increasing it, microscopic razor blades cutting their way out. She wouldn't have been surprised to find blood on Nick's shirt, on her hands and face, because it felt exactly like she was injured internally. And she was gripped in a terror she couldn't begin to understand, a certainty she'd never feel other than abandoned and alone even as Nick hugged her tighter and tighter. It wasn't the same, wasn't the same, over and over the words echoed in her head. He loved her, he held and helped and understood her, but he wasn't like her, not really, not like Christopher had been, he'd been the first to get in, the first and now the only one who would. Overcome with nausea, she broke free of Nick, unlocked her belt and pushed the car door open, half-falling out to vomit painfully on the asphalt. Nick shot out of the driver's side and flew over the Caddy's roof, for once not caring who saw. As it happened, the few speeding drivers who noticed at all registered some guy jumping over his car, maybe even climbing, because that's what their brains could process at seventy miles per hour. Nick lifted Maura's head, caught her as she slumped out of her seat.

"Maura, look at me," he climbed in the car seat beside her, trying to get her to focus on him. "I'm gonna find a place to stop." He locked her seat belt around her, and wiped her face and mouth with Kleenex he kept in the glove box. "Baby, it's gonna be okay," he whispered and hastily kissed her before running around the car and getting back behind the wheel. He kept one hand behind her head, buried in her hair, massaging her neck and the back of her head, as she doubled over as far as she could, hands clamped tight over her face as if to shut out some unspeakable horror. He looked for somewhere, anywhere to go where he could keep her safe until this storm passed. In a blessedly few minutes he saw a sign that indicated a Hilton hotel off the next exit, and moments later he was registering with an elegantly dressed concierge at the polished marble desk while Maura, whom he'd been afraid to leave in the car, sat nearby in a richly upholstered armchair, trembling and crying breathlessly. The clerk observed her over Nick's shoulder, his studied casualness making it obvious he was checking for trouble, perhaps for signs of abuse.

"Is your wife ill?" he asked.

"No, Peter," Nick told him, noting his brass nameplate. He decided the direct approach would be best. Why bother with a lie, anyway? "Her best friend was murdered last Friday. We're returning to Toronto from the funeral in New Hampshire. It's been very hard, long trip and all."

Immediately the concierge's manner changed. "I'm terribly sorry, let me know if there's anything we can do to make things easier,"

"Why don't we just get a room for now, okay?" Nick tossed a platinum card on the desk and tried to keep the impatience out of his voice as he kept one eye on the distraught Maura. "One with a sofa would be ideal. I don't care about the view, really."

Peter scanned his computer screen. "I have a suite on the top floor with a king bed and fully furnished living room area. Will that do?"

"Perfect thanks."

"Your luggage?"

Shit. He hadn't even thought of it.

"Detective Knight," the clerk had taken his badge number as i.d., "If you'll trust me with your keys, I'll have the valet park your car and bring up your luggage."

"Great, thanks. Oh, there's a cooler," he told him, uncertain how else to explain it, "it's inside, plugged into cigarette lighter. It contains medication I need, very fragile, bring that up as well please, and make sure to keep it level." It really wasn't necessary to do that, but Nick figured it would underline a sense of urgency and perhaps privacy to request special handling. The cooler was securely locked, in any case, and there was no indication which of his keys would open it.

"Very good sir," he handed Nick a pair of key cards. Nick dropped one on the desk. "I'll just take this. Thanks again," and he went to where Maura was now folded in "crash" position. He knelt by her and spoke close to her ear.

"Maura, Sweet, we're going upstairs. We'll stay here tonight, they're gonna bring our bags up to us. Come on," and she rose with him as he took her hands, then wrapped an arm around her waist. She hung onto his other hand with both of hers, not speaking, still trembling in silent tears as he led them to the elevator.

Maura experienced all of it from a strange distance even as she felt Nick lift her into his arms when the elevator doors slid closed. "Hold on, Sweet, it's all right, I'm here." She did hold on around his neck, head on his shoulder, body clenched tight and shuddering as if she were cold, but she wasn't cold, she felt... lost. Somehow they were in a room, one she didn't recognize, not at Margaret and Doug's anymore, and she was lying in Nick's lap on an unfamiliar sofa, he was talking softly to her, in French, "tout sont bien, ma doucette, je t'aime, tout sont bien," she burrowed into him, curled around him, wanting to be surrounded, absorbed, hidden.

"I'm scared," she whined, "I'm so scared," and she didn't know exactly why. Nick held her even closer then, whispering now in English, "I love you, Maura, I love you, I'm here, don't be afraid, I'm right here with you, I won't leave you, not ever," she sounded childlike to him, her tears helpless rather than hysterical. "Just let it go, love," and she whispered "I don't know how, I want to but I don't know how," so he rocked her slowly and kissed her, and when the steward came in with their things and plugged in the cooler he saw a man comforting his grieving wife, not a vampire trying desperately to soothe his mortal lover who had lost her only mortal friend.

"Make it stop, please just make it stop," in her head she knew she was talking crazy, like she had that first night in the interrogation room when she'd begged Nick to let her deny her i.d. of Christopher's body. But she also knew he could take it from her, this terror that was swallowing her, he could take it away and leave her whole and safe.

"I wish I could," he turned her face up to his and kissed her eyes and cheeks and forehead, wanting to wash away the pain that was pouring out of her. Janette was right, Natalie and everyone who knew him so well were all right, he wanted to reach inside and pull this hurt out of her in one piece, throw it away and destroy it so it couldn't reach her. He couldn't, and it was driving him crazy. A thought occurred to him then as her panicked eyes locked on his again, because he knew he could make it stop, could reach in and take every painful thing from her mind and heart, he could do it right now as he held her because she wanted him to, she didn't need to say the words, the wanting was enough. She was asking him, she was begging him, make it stop, make it go away, as Natalie had begged him to bring her across that time when they all feared the world would end. It was so easy, she needed it so badly, he was so frantic to comfort her. He pressed a hand to the side of her face, his forehead against hers. Suddenly she gripped his wrist, fingers warm and terribly strong, she wanted this, as she'd wanted him when he'd first taken her, when she'd first taken him. There was no question in his mind it was what she was asking, pleading. And even as she begged him with her eyes, with her vise grip on his wrist, there was no question in his mind that it was wrong.

This was mortal grief, a loss that she needed to experience as part of her life, hard and sharp and brutal as it was, not watered down by eight hundred years of rehearsal and cheapening by self-induced repetition. To take it from her was to take the deepest part of her bond with Christopher, the link between them that made her pain necessary and unavoidable. In that instant he realized for the first time he was jealous of that link, it burned in him like a secret rage. The connection she'd shared with this mortal, this boy, he'd never share with her. Love, blood, sex, all of their bonds reached across a gap that would never be narrowed. That last complete understanding of her, that even her blood wouldn't give him, who she was and how she lived, and she'd found that from someone she'd known for barely three months. The length of their separation when he'd gone off with LaCroix to secure their future. The length of time it had taken her to create a new life for herself, replace her learned weaknesses with new strength. She hadn't gone to pieces when she thought he'd gone for good, and though it shamed him to realize it the knowledge angered him. She'd pulled herself together and walked away. It flared within him unexpectedly, a desire to wipe this new connection from her memory. Why leave a thing she could only compare to him and be disappointed? He gripped her a little tighter, fingers bringing her face closer to his. She was making it so easy, he could leave the memory of a good friend and remove what he could never be equal to.

No. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Christopher didn't leave her, he was taken from her, and this torment of hers that would calm in time to become a loving memory wasn't his to take away. His brow furrowed, face drawn in a frown as they stared into one another's eyes. He hadn't expected to be caught in his own struggle. His grip on her face turned gentle and he ran his fingers along the tearstained skin. "No, love, I can't make it stop, I won't take him from you again by taking this pain away, it's yours to keep, it won't always feel like this, trust me, I know it won't," and he remembered that Janette had said she'd get through this because she must. Natalie was right, too, that mortals had far fewer chances to find another such bond, that her pain must be so much more intense because of the circumstances of her life, still more words echoed in his head. How about instead of being sorry you think about it before you fuck up, Nick? How many times had Maura said that to him in jest, in frustration, in tears? She was gazing up at him as if listening to a bedtime story, more settled now, breathing more evenly. He knew she was paying attention, waiting, and told her, "I'll help you with the pain, but 's wrong to take it away. It's part of your life, you have to live it the way you find it. Remember telling me that? 'Life doesn't ask your permission', you said. More than once. You need to hold onto that, hold onto me, and know it couldn't hurt so bad to lose your friend if he hadn't given you so much." There they were, the words he'd been searching for, he said them without even thinking very hard. Maura pulled him down to her for a deeper kiss, pressed her cheek against his and reached around his neck.

"Nothing can hurt me too bad if you're here," she told him. "I'm just a little lost, I think." She felt as if she were returning to familiar territory again, very slowly, though the sharp edges inside hadn't diminished. As long as Nick was with her she felt she had some sort of anchor to reality. He might find that amusing if she told him, but she didn't. She lay in his arms, catching her breath, feeling her terrors drain away a little more with each stroke of his fingers through her hair.

"Don't worry, I won't let you wander too far. I couldn't survive without you."

"You've survived 800 years without me," she corrected a little vaguely, prompting the gently affectionate smile she knew so well.

"Contradicting me. You must be feeling a little better." He tapped the tip of her nose with a finger, then followed it with a kiss on the same spot. "I do love you, Maura Logue. "

"How could you think this isn't as good, doesn't fill my life as well, as what I had with Christopher? Different, Just Nick, is not the same as better." His eyes narrowed.

"You're reading my mind again. Are you sure you're not one of us?"

"If I were, I'd find the asshole that killed Christopher and kill him a swallow at a time, so he'd feel every drop drain out as he died." She delivered this bit of information with such icy calm it shook Nick.

"Whoa." He peered closely at her. "Come on, now."

Her expression didn't change. "Don't wait for me to take it back. I meant every word."

He considered commenting, something about her grief talking, but thought better of it. Let it go, he thought, let her vent. There's a lot more than pain inside of her right now. So he gathered her a little closer instead and kissed her, and she yawned.

"I'll try not to take that personally."

"I haven't slept right since… well you know since when."

"Yeah, I know. You want me to help?" If she let him he could send her into a deep, long sleep that only he could break. She looked as if she were arguing with herself for a moment. "Your call," he added. She nodded then.

"Yeah, please. I feel all fuzzy and gross, inside my head."

"Come on then," they got up and Maura lay on the big bed with Nick stretched out beside her, one hand on her stomach, his face resting near hers on the pillow, talking quietly.

"Let's leave the gross and fuzzy behind, just relax now and listen to me." He knew it didn't much matter what he said to her, that his voice alone and his hand on her would send her to sleep. "We'll be home soon, Sweet, back in front of the fire, with soft music and candles, I'll play some Mendelssohn, maybe you can hear it in your head right now…or Debussy, la Mer…" he continued conjuring familiar images and feelings and in just a few minutes she was deeply asleep. "Sweet dreams for once," he whispered to her, kissing her temple, "only sweet dreams." Then he took a bottle from the cooler, tipped a drop of elixir, and settled on the sofa to read.

"We got the bastard." Schanke's voice on the answering machine stopped Maura in her tracks as she carried some of their stuff to the stairs. They'd taken their time getting home, Nick having paid extra to keep the room until after dark, and it was after 11pm when they got back to the loft. Nick hadn't wakened Maura until late morning, and she was in much better shape than she'd been for days, focused and alert if still not terribly talkative.

"Call him," she told Nick. "Call him now, find out who it was. Find out what happened."

"Sweet, come on, we just got back…" he'd hoped to continue her calm mood for at least another night, enough to get her a little more settled before continuing with the case.

"Don't 'sweet' me, Bats, we both want to know, don't we?"

So Nick called Schanke at the precinct and got filled in.