When She Loved Me
a Forever Knight fanfiction vignetteby Megan Hull
October 2003
I was supposed to be too busy this semester to write, but the voices just won't shut up. So here's a song-fic that popped into my head one evening (no! stop her!).
Standard disclaimers apply -- I don't own FK (but I will soon own a copy!) -- and I don't know who the song belongs to, but it's not mine either. Permission to archive wherever. Much grass to Rose and Chris for beta-reading for me.
Comments, questions, FK DVDs and gorgeous lost-boy vampires can be sent via the "mail-to" links on this page. Oh, and any Halloween candy you don't happen to be using. Flames will be used to light the candles in my brand-new candelabra.
Lying on your back, throwing a ball up into the air and catching it again is supposed to be a good way to kill time. Seems to be working. I don't have anything better to do, just lie here and think about the past. It's not something I do very often. With the exception of a very few people and places, the past is something I would just as soon forget.
Tracy's one of those people.
When somebody loved me,
Everything was beautiful.
Every hour we spent together
Lives within my heart.I've always been pretty good at figuring women out. I knew that what she felt for me was more a friend-type love. But I didn't care. The fact that she felt anything at all for me ... well, let's be honest here. It hurt. Sometimes it hurt so much that I couldn't wait to get away from her. But once she was gone, I wanted her back just as badly.
Confused? Me too.
And when she was sad,
I was there to dry her tears.
And when she was happy
So was I.
When she loved me.Javier Vachon, will you stop moping around! There’s that little voice in my head again, the one that sounds annoyingly like my older sister. She raised the lot of us after Mama died, even though she was the oldest by less than a year. We never questioned her authority, though. It was as though Mama had left a piece of her spirit in that skinny twelve-year-old body, and she knew it. She was the one who made us all go to Mass every Sunday, though she sometimes had to chase me there with a switch. I sometimes wonder where I would be without that little voice. Probably alone and depressed as all hell. It's that voice that goads me into doing things I don't want to but know perfectly well I should. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not immune to guilt. Sophia yelled at me a lot for stupid things I did, and for being lazy, but I never paid much attention to that. It was the few times I did or didn't do something that honestly shamed her, and she'd get this look on her face, like I'd broken her heart in two, that made me feel about an inch tall, and made me hitch up my too-big pants and go try to make amends. She was the only one who could make me feel ashamed of myself.
The same way Tracy can make me feel ashamed of myself.
What is it with women like that? They expect me to be better than I am, then get mad when I'm not. Then they go right back to believing. That's what gets me: no matter how much evidence they've got to the contrary, they keep believing, like they're seeing something I'm not.
Maybe that's why I stayed.
Through the summer and the fall
We had each other, that was all.
Just she and I together,
Like it was meant to be.It wasn't that I decided to stay. I just never left. Even now, I can't say exactly why; I knew Tracy would never be mine. She was too alive, too in love with life, to even consider coming over. She married eventually, though a little late. I have to admit, that was kind of my fault, as she told me rather loudly a number of times. But it was so much fun antagonizing her boyfriends! They weren't right for her anyway-- petty, self-centered creatures that wouldn't have let her be herself, not really. Finally, she met one that refused to be run off.
She thanked me the same day she delivered the invitation.
Yeah, Jeremy's given me a few weird looks over the years. But he's smart enough not to ask questions. Or at least not to ask me.
So the years went by,
I stayed the same.
But she began to drift away.
I was left alone.That's the problem with mortals, though, isn't it? Always restless, always moving, always afraid they're going to miss something if they don't hurry up. Guess that's the price of having a lifespan measured in decades. Immortality kind of gives you a different view on the world -- there's very little that can't be put off until later. And if you miss something the first time around, there's always retro.
But with mortals, you only get the one chance.
There were kids, three of them, and I played babysitter when the happy couple wanted to go out. The rugrats still call me "Uncle Jav" (hey, you try getting a three-year-old to correctly pronounce "Javier"). But they got to be old enough to look after themselves, and there were a lot of demands on Tracey's time: her family and her job, and everything else she was doing. Sometimes I didn't hear from her for months at a time. Not that I blamed her; she had a life to live.
I still didn't leave.
Still I waited for the day,
When she'd say "I will always love you."It still hurts sometimes. It hurts to watch her grow older. It hurts to see her fail sometimes. Or, more often, succeed. It hurts to watch her be so happy. Without me.
Lonely and forgotten,
Never thought she'd look my way.
And she smiled at me and held me
Just like she used to do.Someone pounds on the door. "Vachon! Vachon! Vachon, you had better be ready, or else!" A familiar, welcome voice makes me smile. Subtlety never was her forte.
"Uncle Jav?" Another voice, male, early twenties. Also familiar. Also welcome.
"I'm here," I finally say, rolling off the couch and brushing at my suit, checking for smudges. She'd kill me if I got the stupid thing dirty.
Tracy eyes me critically for a moment after I open the door. Satisfied that I'm presentable, she flashes me one of those bright, bouncy smiles that have always been hers alone.
"You look fantastic," she announces, kissing me on the cheek. Out of habit, I glance at Jeremy, but he stopped tensing when she did that long ago.
"So do you." I'm not joking. Her face is lined and her graying hair is pulled back, but she's still beautiful.
Like she loved me
"Where are the girls?"
Tracy is already shooing us back toward the car. "They're already at the hall, getting Angie dressed. Wedding dresses take a long time to put on, you know."
I pause and look at her in amusement. "And how would I know that?"
Tracy sighs in exasperation and rolls her eyes. "Just get in the car," she orders with a laugh.
I love to hear her laugh.
When she loved me
A wedding. More kids. They'll probably ask me to baby-sit. It just keeps going and going. Someday, Tracy will die, but I'll live to see her great-great-grandchildren. Guess that's the price of being immortal.
But the future isn't something I think about much, either. And right now, I can be with her as she goes to see her daughter married. I can see her smile, and cry, and be happy. And it hurts, but in a good way. And I wouldn't give it up for the world.
When somebody loved me
Everything was beautiful.
Every hour we spent together
Lives within my heart.When she loved me.
End
"Eternal nights too short,
How quickly melt away,
With all the love we shared once,
Forever in a day."