"I Still Believe"
by Dianne T. DeSha
(a.k.a. Dianne la Mercenaire)
("I Still Believe" from the musical _Miss Saigon_)
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-Last night I watched him sleeping,-
-My body pressed to him.-
-And then he started speaking,-
-The name I heard him speak was...-
"Janette!"
She turned from her memories and towards the
voice that called from the other end of the bar. For a
moment the memories carried over and she was in the
Raven again, responding to a call from Miklos to attend a
difficult customer....
But that faded almost immediately as the vaguely
familiar surroundings of a nameless dive on the back
streets of Paris closed in around her.
-Yes, I know that this was years ago,-
-But when moonlight fills my room-
-You are here still.-
An old acquaintance ...as they _all_ were, really.
They'd renewed that acquaintance in the little room
she had taken overlooking the Seine, then he had left to
hunt. She didn't know if he would be back, and frankly,
she didn't care.
The moon's light followed the breeze in through the
open window, and as she watched its focus slowly shift
down the length of her pale white body, her mind again
drifted back
-I still, I still believe-
-You will return, I know you will.-
-My heart, forever more, holds still...-
Janette reached for the locket that hung at her pale throat.
She had taken it, snatched it from an Enforcer's very hands
as they had systematically eradicated all traces of Nichola's
former existences. The Enforcer had snarled briefly, but she
stood her ground and he had let it go.
She opened the clasp and smiled involuntarily. It
was a "momento mori," a little reminder of mortality and
the inevitability of death. They had been quite the rage in
Victorian times, when coffin rings and jewels strung on the
hair of a dead lover were to be found everywhere. It was
simply too delicious a joke to pass up.
-Yes, still, I still believe.-
-As long as I can keep believing, I live.-
The miniature was of Nichola, pale, and still--fashioned as
he lay in a coffin, making a mockery of the very trend they
aped. The obliging artist had even clipped a lock of hair for
her to keep pressed under glass on the other side. It was
still there, tied with a bit of black silk thread, darker
probably than the locks that were now bleached daily with
the sun's harsh rays.
-I live. Love cannot die.-
-You will return. You will return.-
-And I alone know why...-
Nichola had found it so hard to lie still for so much
of the night, not to laugh at their little joke. Not to move
towards the pulse of the unsuspecting painter who sat
beside him, struggling to preserve his fine features for all
eternity--never knowing his feeble efforts had been bested
by a master, centuries before....
She shuddered when she thought of that last night--
the shock of LaCroix's destruction, the wrenching pain as
she lost all consciousness of Nichola as anything but
another mortal among millions...
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=Last night I watched you sleeping,=
=Once more the nightmare came.=
=I heard you call out something,=
=A word that sounded like a name.=
The moonlight streaming through the window must have
awakened her.
Natalie sat up in bed trying to rid herself of the last
wisps of forgotten dreams--images of blood, of death, of
fear.
Then Nick moaned and rolled restlessly away from
her. The nightmare--he was having it _again_.
=And it hurts me more than I can bear,=
=Knowing part of you I'll never share,=
=Never know.=
It had been the same nightmare over and over, ever since
the accident.
Schanke had responded to a message from Nick to meet them
on the pier and had arrived to find them both floating
unconscious in the lake. The doctors had had little hope for
either of them at the time. Considering how close they had
each come to death, the losses they had suffered seemed
almost petty.
=But still, I still believe=
=The time will come when nothing keeps us apart.=
=My heart, forever more, holds still...=
Neither of them had any clear memory of the last few years,
certainly not of the night of the accident--why they had been
there, who had done this to them, what even had happened.
Schanke, detective to the core that he was, had done
everything possible to discover the trail of their last night,
but to no avail.
She had lost only a few years, but Nick, who had been in far
worse shape, could remember nothing of his life at all.
Schanke had done his best there too, but had had no more
success. Embarrassed by not knowing more, by the realization
of just how little he had actually known about the man he
worked side-by-side with for three years, he had found little
more than a few scattered dates in a personnel file.
To all intents and purposes, Nick had simply had to start his
whole life anew.
=It's all over. I'm here. There is nothing to fear!=
=[Nick], what's haunting you?=
=Won't you let me inside what you so want to hide?=
=I need you too...=
She wanted to wake him, to reassure him--to hold him in
her arms and chase away the demons that haunted his soul.
But she knew from experience that would only leave him
pale--so pale--and trembling with inexplicable fear until the
first light of morning. Better to let it run its haunting
course...
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-For still...-
-I still believe.-
She had left Toronto that night, closed up the Raven and
left it abandoned. Sent the fledglings to find haven
elsewhere.
=I will hold you all night,=
=I will make it all right.=
=You are safe with me.=
She watched helplessly as his restlessness became a
thrashing, twisting terror....
And when he sat bolt upright, eyes shining--almost
glowing--in the moonlight, she was there to pull him close
and murmur words of love in his ear until the tension eased
from his body.
-As long as I can keep believing, I live.-
Everyone assumed she had given up on Nichola, released him
back to the mortal world from which he'd come.
That is what the Enforcers had decreed. That was what
everyone else who had known him down the centuries had
done....
=And I wish you could tell=
=What you don't want to tell...=
=What your hell must be.=
It frightened her--how could it not?--but there was
nothing to be done. Medical experts could not explain his
torment. Psychiatrists trying to root out the source of his
terror ran quickly into a wall of time, beyond which there
was simply nothing. There was just so much unknown
about the human brain, about memory--about the very things
that made a person who and what they were.
There was little chance they would ever discover what had
happened...or why nameless, faceless ghosts from the past
continued to haunt him so.
-I live, you will return,-
-And I know why-
But after so many centuries, so much between them, she could
not simply walk away...
=You can sleep now, you can cry now.=
=I'm your wife now--=
=For life...=
She held him until the shaking stopped, and then until he fell
asleep again, his head resting peacefully on her breast.
She sat there, just holding him, until the first light of dawn
chased the moonbeams from the windowsill.
-I'm yours...-
He would be back. Nicholah was "human" now, knowing nothing
save his circumscribed mortal existence. But one day he
would look death in the face again and, as he had so long
ago, fight to turn away from it....
=Until we die.=
The past was irrelevant; it could harm him now only
in his dreams. What mattered was the future--a future
bright with promise. A future they would find together--
forever...
-Until we die.-
And when that time came, she would be there to reclaim
him. To take him in her arms again and once more open his
eyes to the beauty of the night. And once more they would
lie in each other's arms throughout eternity...
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Dianne
Dianne la Mercenaire... -*- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-*-"We must be powerful, beautiful, and without regret."-*-
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