(Standard disclaimers apply--not my characters, no money being made, etc.) Permission to archive to www.fkfanfic.com, all others please ask. Comments and caviar (but no charcoal, please <g>) to [EMAIL PROTECTED] End of the Knight -- Knightfall by Molly Schneider copyright 1998 Even hospitals were different after nightfall, he reflected. Quieter, less strident, somehow. Almost peaceful. He permitted himself a wry smile: the only reason he knew what they were like during the day was because he'd found himself stuck in one occasionally, during this life as a cop. His gaze turned again to the bed, to the auburn hair streaming over the flat little pillow. Eau de formaldehyde...he remembered her joking about that... And yet, she'd been his model of feminine grace; his Queen of Heaven, his unattainable ideal. Until he'd nearly killed her. Lost in the madness of despair, he'd begged LaCroix to kill him in turn. It was truly madness, there was no reason in the refrain that had run through his mind over and over that night: I soil everything I touch, I kill everything I love. Madness, too, to believe that his ancient master would drive the stake through his heart in tacit agreement. No, LaCroix had clubbed him with it in a fit of temper, than brought Natalie here, where she lay like a lost Madonna. He hadn't gone back to work, of course--he was the prime suspect in Natalie's attack. He supposed they were looking for him even now. He'd seen them staking out his apartment, but they were easy to avoid and he could retrieve his possessions--or not--after they'd closed the case. And close it they would, with a bang, once they sorted through some of his memorabilia. He'd been a fool to keep the letters, the photos from all those other lives in a place where the mortal world could find them. He'd been a fool in many ways. An idealistic fool, but still a fool. He got up and moved to the window. A familiar and comforting sight, the lights of a city laid out under an indigo sky. The daylight he hadn't seen in 800 years had been his goal for so long that he'd almost forgotten how breathtakingly beautiful the night could be. What was it in him, he wondered, to always want something more, to go chasing after a dream like Galahad after the Grail? Well, that was part of it, wasn't it? Two millennia, and LaCroix was still very much the Roman patrician. Eight centuries, and he was still very much the Knight, the warrior of Christ. He thought he heard a sound, and turned toward the bed, but she slept on. He sat down on the chair by her bed. She wouldn't die, he knew that, but he kept the watch anyway. For a time, at least. Oh, Natalie, how I wronged you. I made you the Keeper of my Grail, my Madonna. I put you on a pedestal and kept you there, no matter how you protested. I never let you be just a human woman. Even now, I cannot bear to leave without hearing that you forgive me, as the Perfect Woman would forgive. "Nicholas." The cool, elegant figure stood in the doorway. "It's time to go, Nicholas." A knee-jerk reaction, this need to protest, to beg for a few minutes more, hoping that she'd wake, and smile at him--and forgive. But that was over. Knighthood's flower had withered and died and gone to earth when its time was past. The Grail was no fantasy of gold and jewels, but a simple cup of clay. And the woman lying white and still on the hospital bed with her throat swathed in bandages and a tube dripping medicine and nourishment in her arms was proof that he was no Galahad. Strangely, he found he could live with that, now. FIN
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