He stared across the empty dance floor and couldn't help but wish Janette were still there. But she had left him alone, left for parts unknown. And now it was just him and LaCroix, left to spar.

"Nicholas," LaCroix said calmly, stepping out of the shadows as if he had simply materialized from the darkness. "Not that I do not enjoy your company, but what brings you here at this hour?"

He wasted no time. If he didn't do this now, then he wouldn't have the strength to do it at all, and he would be miserable for the rest of his life. Because I love you... Closing his eyes against the pain, he tried not to think of her last words to him.

"I want you to bring me back across," Nick stated softly, unable to meet his Sire's eyes. And he waited silently for the ridicule to start. The I-told-you-so's. The painful admission that he had been wrong to want mortality.

But LaCroix said nothing of the sort. "Are you certain?" was all he asked. With barely a swish of air, LaCroix was next to him, staring intently into his eyes.

Nick nodded mutely, afraid that if he opened his mouth, too many old wounds would come to the surface. Too many skeletons. Too much pain that had never really gone away. Too much guilt...

"Perhaps you will listen to me in the future?" LaCroix inquired, his voice rising in question.

The silence was tangible. Nick couldn't bring himself to respond.

LaCroix chuckled softly. "I did not think so," he said. "You do realize that you are willingly coming back under my wing. That you are willingly sacrificing all that you have sought to part with me for?"

Again, a mute nod. He clenched his jaw. Mortality is not synonymous with redemption. I wish that you would realize that... Nick thought back to Jacob, still, and cold, and pale, much like Nick himself had been weeks before. People were dying because of his own foolish wishes. He had wanted an ideal that had never existed. He had wanted mortality in the way that he had idealized mortals to be. Innocent and pure and lovely in God's eyes. But he felt just as ugly inside as he had before. The guilt was still there, grating at his soul, even more so now that his own stupidity had felled such a young individual.

Mortality was... a sweet thing, a wonderful thing that, had it come much earlier, he was sure he would not have had the strength to relinquish, but it wasn't for him. At the rate he was going, he would get himself killed because he would forget to duck at an important moment, or because some disease that he hadn't been exposed to yet would wreak havoc, or whatever weakness his eight-hundred years of being virtually dead had brought him.

And then where would his chance to atone be? He would be at death's gate, but unlike the last two times, without a choice other than to be stranded in the wasteland or be judged, condemned, and burning in Hell. And truth be told, that scared him more than he would have liked to admit. He didn't want to call himself a coward, not hardly, but it still rang desperately in his ears as true.

Was it a weakness that he didn't want to face his crimes just yet? The balances were far from being in his favor, and yet, how many times had Natalie told him that forgiveness was how God worked, and that if he had truly wanted it, absolution was his? How many times had she insisted that he was punishing himself for no particular reason other than he felt comfortable with it, felt at home wallowing?

He was not Natalie. He had been raised on a different set of beliefs. Who was right? He didn't know, didn't think he ever would, but the simple fact was that he didn't think he deserved forgiveness. Even if Natalie were right, he wasn't even ready to forgive himself, let alone ask forgiveness from God. Maybe in the far future, but certainly not now. And he knew for certain that he would truly regret it if he were to let mortality take his life away when he wasn't ready--before he had truly gotten to the point where he could say that he was okay with everything, that he felt he had fulfilled everything he had been set on Earth to do, and that he was comfortable with the life he had lead and its outcome.

A hard goal. Some would say impossible, especially for someone like him.

A goal that would most likely take more than the half a lifetime or so that he had left, if he were lucky enough to have even that long--not to mention the fact that his body seemed to be informing him, more and more lately, that he wasn't supposed to be a mortal. At least not now.

Was that so wrong? Too much to ask?

Did that make him a coward?

"You were right, LaCroix. You were right. Please don't punish me any further..." he pleaded softly.

LaCroix sighed. "Ah, Nicholas. I was not intending to punish you, not this time, at least," he stated softly, and Nick could feel something hiding in his words. Pain, perhaps? And then Nick felt his Master's hands on his shoulders, turning him around, tilting his head to grant access to his jugular, kneading the soft skin above his pulsing vein...

A brief snarl emanated from his Sire's lips before he felt the pain of his fangs digging into the junction between his neck and his shoulder. Nick cried out, or at least, he thought he did. His legs threatened to give out beneath him like deadweights, but LaCroix's firm grip refused to let him fall.

Falling... He was stationary and yet he felt as though he were falling into an endless abyss. Weightless... His fingers reflexively curled inwards, his nails viciously cutting his palms to shreds as his body went rigid. Blinking, his vision began to blur into one big mess of color, and salty tears streamed down his face. He bucked in LaCroix's grip as he felt his life draining out of him, being sucked out forcefully from two tiny pinprick wounds.

It HURT.

More than it had the first time. More than he had ever expected it would.

His arms spasmed reflexively, his jaw clamped down, but LaCroix's grip was too strong. He felt as though his shoulders were caught in a vice, and when the images began to buffet him, the soundless cry of agony that fell from his lips rumbled through his head like thunder.

The world screamed around him as the blood of thousands dyed his vision crimson. There was crying, and pain, and destruction, and terrible things. But amidst it all, were two points of light, sitting there like they owned all they surveyed. Brown and gold flowed together in a braid of woven color.

Nick reached out and grabbed one of their hands, felt flesh contact flesh, warmth meeting frigid death, and then everything disappeared in a blinding flash of light.

Silence. Except for the wind, there was silence.

The hostile brilliance of the sun beat down on his brow like a physical blow, and he immediately brought his hand up to shield himself.

"Nicholas. Welcome back," a calm voice echoed through the sandy valley of death.

Nick whipped around and saw the small rectangle of light. Before it, a cloaked being stood gracefully, as if its feet weren't even touching the ground--floating. "LaCroix?" he asked hoarsely. Where had his voice gone?

The being shook its head. "Do you wish to be judged?" it asked. "Is this your final visit to this realm?"

"No, I... I need to go back..." Nick stated forlornly.

The figure did not move. The glowing door did not retreat into nothingness. "You are troubled," it said. "Do not be so..."

Nick resisted the urge to laugh. "If you saw the mess my life is currently, you wouldn't say that..." he replied cynically as he sat down on a dusty rock, waiting for LaCroix to call him back.

"You know what you want, now. That is better than where you were before. That was all we ever sought to do," it said simply, robes flowing gracefully as it bowed.

Nick nodded hesitantly. "I guess there is that..." he said absently, before looking up at the figure, and then it occurred to him that the guide had said something else. He felt his stomach sink in his torso. "You. Did you change me back?" he asked.

The guide was silent for a moment. "No. I am only a guide. I have not the power to do something so monumental..." it replied, but Nick could almost feel the warm smile glowing underneath its hood.

"But..." he began.

"Nicholas... Come back to me..." LaCroix's voice rumbled through the valley, pleading his return, interrupting Nick's slowly forming question.

Nick turned to the guide, pleading for an answer to his unspoken question. "You must choose," it stated softly.

He inhaled deeply, knowing that he was to be left guessing. "I choose to return."

As soon as he said the words, the desert faded to black.

THE END