From: Sss44@aol.com
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 11:43 PM
To: akblake@lock-net.com
Subject: Again and Again

Summary:  Nick and Nat have that same discussion again--the one about why he 
won't make love to her.  :-)

Subj: Again and Again 01/01
Date: 7/27/00 8:12:12 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: Sss44@AOL.COM
Sender: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU (Forever Knight TV show stories)
Reply-to: Sss44@AOL.COM
To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU

Time frame is mid-second season, before everything fell apart. I started
this in 1998, and just got around to finishing it. My first post in years!

************************************
Again and Again
by Sharon S. Scott

"Why do I even try? Why? You avert your eyes, barely answer. What's wrong
with me?" She wouldn't cry, she wouldn't. "Am I boring you?"

"Of course not." He didn't raise his eyes as he answered.

"There you go again. You won't even look at me when you lie to me. And you
*are* lying to me. You don't love me. You've never loved me. You can't love."
She grabbed her handbag and started for the door.

Before she reached it, Nick had hold of her arm and turned her to face him.
"Of course I can. You know why we can't, Nat."

"Tell me why again."

His expression darkened as he spat out, "Do you want to die?"

"Not that excuse again." She removed his hand from her arm and reached out
for the elevator door.

"Again and again and again, Because it's true. It's happened before. But not
with you. You mean too much to me to allow it to happen again."

She turned to face him again, arms crossed over her chest, fingers in tight
knots. "So it's your choice, not mine. You won't allow me to choose. Even
though I'm a full-grown woman, in possession of all my faculties. You won't
allow me to make this decision."

"Not this one. Not ever."

"I'm willing to risk it, but you're not. Is that right?"

"That's the way it has to be. You know it."

"Then we're done, Nick. Oh, you'll still want to be friends, won't you, and
you'll stop by the morgue to chat, and you'll want to tell me about your
problems. You'll want me to tell you mine, and make jokes about how our
shifts went. And then you'll go home to your lonely bed, and I'll go home to
mine, and each of us will be alone. Never together. Never. Isn't that right?
That's the way you want it to be?"

She watched him as he turned away from her, moved to the table, picked up the
remote, and closed the shutters. There was a breathless silence before he
turned toward her again, placing the remote carefully back on the table.

"That's not the way I want it to be. But it's how it'll have to be. I'd
rather have you alive as a friend than dead as a lover."

"Very noble of you. Thanks for nothing." She slid the elevator door open and
stepped inside. And then he was in front of her, inches from her face, his
eyes flaring yellow, his face taut with anger.

He spoke very softly. "Do you want to become one of the living dead? Do you
want to follow the weak and unwary into a dark, filthy alley and suck the
life from them? Because that's what you'll have to do in the beginning.
You'll start on the old, the sick, and the young. And you'll either leave
them bleeding to death in that alley or leave them dead, because there's
nothing else you *can* do. You won't have any choice. The hunger won't let
you do anything else. And it'll be forever. Forever. Do you understand me? Do
you want to live by causing death? Do you, of all people, want to be a
killer?"

She answered just as softly, "No."

He searched her face before he spoke. "Then this discussion is at an end.
Your answer is no, and mine is no. You already have my friendship. Don't
continue to ask for more."

"I can hope."

"No, you can't. Accept or reject what I've offered. That's all there can be.
There is no cure."

"There might be. Someday."

Suddenly he was back by the table. "Someday may be a very long time away.
Friendship is what I can give you now. And that's all."

"I don't give up easily, Nick. You know that."

"Do it. Give up. Find a nice man who deserves you and fall in love with him.
Have children. Have a life."

She smiled, and whispered to herself, as the door closed, "You wish."

Scottie
sss44@aol.com