Janette's Return, written by Robert Treat kady@earthlink.net

I do not own these characters myself; I am merely borrowing them

for a while. No copyright infringement is intended. I've uploaded a
slightly different version of this story to www.fanfiction.net ;
permission granted to
archive either version at www.nancykam.com
and FKfanfic2.  Others, please ask.
Spoilers for The Human Factor, Bad
Blood, Ashes to Ashes, and Last
Knight.



After committing Divia's ashes to the wind, LaCroix had paid a visit
to Detective Vetter, and as Nicholas had requested, erased her memory
of Vachon's death. Nick, meanwhile, decided to pay his own respects
to the unfortunate Spaniard. He was standing over Vachon's grave when
his off-and-on immortal lover dropped by--literally.

"Janette," he said. " What brings you here?"

It was Janette's own link with Nick forged only a few weeks earlier
that had alerted her something was wrong, when Divia had attacked him
at the loft and left him for dead. Janette had been brought across by
LaCroix nearly a thousand years earlier, but had recently been
involved with a mortal named Robert McDonagh, and became mortal
herself through an unusual set of circumstances. When she admitted
her vampire nature to Robert, he decided to take a chance by allowing
her to feed when they made love, and his blood somehow neutralized
the vampire elements in hers. Unfortunately she did not discover this
until an arsonist Robert was investigating gunned him down, and he
died in her arms when she was unable to bring him across. The
arsonist's henchmen later shot her as well, but Nick successfully
brought her across. Now she could tell from her link with him
something was wrong, flew back to Toronto, and there found him
standing over the unfortunate Spaniard's grave.

Nick told her about Divia and what happened.

Divia had also attacked Nick, but he had been less badly affected
than Vachon was, in part because he was three hundred years older.
The attack did, however, cloud his vampire senses, and he wasn't able
to sense what Janette did.

"NICOLAS!" Janette shouted. "He's alive! Vachon's alive down there!"

"Janette, he was staked. I found my partner holding his body. He
wasn't old enough to recover from it."

"Maybe it missed the heart, maybe she took it out too soon, I don't
know. I just know he's alive down there!"

The two vampires dug up the grave with no problem, and sure enough,
Vachon was indeed alive. His eyes were glowing, but it was a very
faint red glow, not yellow-green, and not nearly as bright as it
should have been. He was mumbling incoherently, something about
decapitated children. Nick explained that it was the result of
Divia's attack that Vachon was experiencing the memories of Divia's
evil.

Janette immediately realized she'd dealt with this sort of thing
before. She bit her wrists to allow Vachon to feed, just as she fed
LaCroix the night he'd gotten sick from the barber more than a
century earlier, and suggested they take him back to the Raven to
recover. Nick agreed. It was at the Raven that Vachon heard the news
broadcast:

"Detective Tracy Vetter , daughter of Police Commissioner Richard
Vetter,

 remains in critical condition following a shooting..."

Vachon flew to the hospital at once.

While Vachon was at the hospital Janette talked with LaCroix about
all that had happened, and they both agreed it was time to move on.

"When I was involved with Robert I'd come to view Nicolas' quest to
become mortal again as right. I was furious when he turned around and
brought me back," she said. "But what would have happened to Vachon
if he hadn't?"

"I've thought about that too. We do seem to have been fortunate
there. Life is a gift, Janette. For too long I've viewed life as some
sort of enemy we cannot defeat. Life isn't the enemy, Janette. It's a
gift. As sweet as the freshest peach, more precious than the finest
gilded jewel."


Commissioner Vetter retired from the police force shortly after the
shooting, and later he and his wife Barbara flew to Europe, citing
the need to get away following "recent events." Of course it's just a
coincidence that was where the members of "the entourage" decided to
move to ;-)



--- Robert Treat

--- kady@earthlink.net