HIDDEN THOUGHTS by Ell Hase Part 01/10 Disclaimer: Forever Knight and its characters belong to their original content owners. I'm not making any profit out of this. My thanks to Patty for beta-reading and helping me out of my plot crunch. Permission to archive at Anita Blake's Fkfanfic2 site. Anybody else who wants to archive it, please just let me know. ********************************************************* He was losing her. The woman was restless. Something would need to be done, and quickly. ************** She had been crying again in her sleep. Nick tenderly brushed away at the telltale streaks that still marred her smooth cheeks as Natalie lay sleeping in the early morning light. It was ironic that he felt so much peace lying with her whilst some inner turmoil ate at her heart. He had struggled to contain his inner demons as a vampire but even then, Natalie had made things bearable. Now that he was as mortal as she, it was wrong that she could not experience some measure of peace with him. He was hard pressed to find out what troubled her. He did not know how to approach the subject best. The last thing he wanted to do was make the situation worse through ineptitude. While he had his relationships with mortal women before, it never lasted long enough with any to matter deeply once the initial attraction cooled. With Janette, the blood link made secret emotions impossible. If anything, his overwhelming desire for continued closeness drove them apart after so many years of living together as lovers, then as husband and wife. But Janette was long gone. The faint link that they had vanished completely once he returned to mortality. Even his strong bond with Lacroix faded once he returned among the living. He knew that at he and Nat would probably arrive at crisis point soon. But they had become adept at living the polite pretense that nothing was wrong. Life carried on. He mentally went through a checklist of possible suspects that could have authored the problem. It couldn't be the job. Natalie now taught Forensic Pathology at the University. He had quit homicide work. One week after the honeymoon, Nick had taken a bullet in the leg in a shootout. The pain was worse than he could imagine. His reborn nerve endings reminded him often of the assault on his flesh. That and the fear in Natalie's eyes had made him trade in his detective badge for a lead instructor's job at the Police Academy. Not as satisfying, but wiser. And paid the bills, now that he no longer had free rein over the Brabant Foundation's funds. The Enforcers had made a simple offer - he was officially dead to The Community, staked by his own sire in a fight. Their violent relationship was legend, after all. He stayed "safely anonymous" by keeping silent about them and by steering clear of anything from his vampiric past. His mortal life was secure as long as he obeyed this boundary. Nick suspected that Lacroix had an active hand in keeping the deal secure. But he had yet to see his former sire since the attempt at "Janette's cure" worked over five years ago. It couldn't be the money. Between them, they had enough for their children too, if they were so blessed. But the children had not come. Nothing appeared wrong with both of them... He wished that Schanke or even Tracy were around to talk to. He never had mortal friends whom he could speak with about his Natalie. None who knew his past and the twists that it brought to his relationship with Natalie. He frowned slightly at the thought. Absently rubbing the aching spot where he had been shot, Nicholas planted a soft kiss on Natalie's forehead.