"Black Ice" by Mary Ch., 2000
- Novella (39,673 words)
- PG-13
- Set in second season
Summary:
At New Year's, Nick thinks his biggest problem is being pulled between Natalie and Janette, until a car crash and a murder suspect push his limits.
Recommendation:
Sporting parallels, romance, drama, and a supernatural twist to a homicide case, "Black Ice" is satisfyingly episode-like (lacking only flashbacks). This strong novella begins on Christmas Eve and builds past New Year's. The plot hits the titular frozen water literally, and the themes lurk in the metaphorical slicks of the unseen, uncontrollable dangers throughout Nick's relationships and aspirations. Creepily, the murder suspect emerges as a warped mirror of Nick and Natalie's work for a cure, with a chilling turn on "true love" as an ingredient.
Characters:
Natalie, Nick, Janette, Schanke, Lacroix, Others
"Soaring" by Kristen F., 2005
- Short Story (1,249 words)
- G
- Set after "Only the Lonely" and before "Black Buddha"
Summary:
Natalie surprises Nick with a flight in the sun.
Recommendation:
A canon-observant celebration of Nick and Natalie's friendship, "Soaring" delivers a tidy lesson on the storytelling importance of perspective. Opening from Nick's point of view builds tension and mystery that here cannot come from Natalie. The story winds up both Nick and the reader precisely to the half-way point, before releasing onto a gentle slope to the end as Natalie explains the gift of mutual understanding that she set out to win for them both.
Characters:
Nick, Natalie
"Lest We Forget" by Endaewen, 2004
- Vignette (273 words)
- G
- Set on November 11
Summary:
A poppy raises memories for Nick.
Recommendation:
The constraint of brevity marshals details well in this poetic reflection. As Nick and Natalie attend a Remembrance Day (Veterans' Day in the US, Armistice Day in Europe) observance, Nick's attention slips back through many wars endured, which history may yet recall, but also many people lost, whose only record is Nick's own memory. There's no clue in the text by which to peg a specific year, and that contributes to a telescoped timelessness suited to the memorial and to Nick.
Characters:
Nick, Natalie
"Last Things" by Mary Co., 1999
- Novella (6,045 words)
- PG
- Set in 2050, with flashbacks diverging after second season
Summary:
At the end of a long life with Natalie, Nick has a pledge to keep to Lacroix.
Recommendation:
"Last Things" is an unabashedly sentimental exemplar of the "happily ever after, right into heaven" romantic subgenre. It prudently binds its otherwise overwhelming sweetness with bittersweet compromise and loss, sharing a Natalie and Nick who did everything as well as it could possibly be done. Appropriately for N&N romance, the split from canon comes in openly renegotiating the bargain of "Be My Valentine," while the end subtly merges back toward canon as it invokes the transformation of "The Human Factor" and the promise of "Last Knight."
Characters:
Nick, Natalie, Lacroix, Schanke, Aristotle, Feliks, Sydney, Others
"Nocturnal Pleasure" by April F., 2003
- Vignette (736 words)
- G
- Set after "Black Buddha, Part II"
Summary:
Vachon considers life in Toronto.
Recommendation:
Overtly a character sketch of Vachon at the moment he joins FK's story, "Nocturnal Pleasure" is also an overview of the early third-season situation as perceived without baggage. Vachon is himself the ultimate third-season newbie. Freed by that voice, this vignette exposes the hope and scope of that moment, aspects that often suffocate under earlier and later canon. (Perhaps most interestingly, this Vachon casually slots Lacroix and Nick into familiar social roles; he finds them much less special than they find themselves.)
Characters:
Vachon
"Silent All These Years" by Valerie M.K., 1992
- Novella (10,679 words)
- PG-13 (violence)
- Frame set after "Only the Lonely," mainly flashbacks: 1962, 1228, 84
Summary:
Janette remembers her life and conversion in Roman-ruled Gaul.
Recommendation:
I enjoy "Silent All These Years" even more than what later became canon in "A Fate Worse Than Death." The two independently build many of the same elements into Janette's backstory — including prostitution, disillusion, revenge, a lost pregnancy, nobility and enslavement — which suggests the early cohesion of Janette's character. But unlike the episode, the fanfiction makes Janette's conversion by Lacroix as defining for him as for her. This tale of Janette's origins is powerful and perceptive, sliding from a feather-light identification with Natalie in the present back into the unplumbed wells of Janette's past.
Characters:
Nick, Janette, Lacroix, Others
"Night in Hell" by Lizbetann, 1996
- Short Story (2,014 words)
- PG (threatened violence)
- Set before the tag scene of "The Human Factor"
Summary:
Natalie finds Nick and Janette after the fire.
Recommendation:
The last commercial break in "The Human Factor" is a pivotal lacuna in canon. The question of what happens between Nick's agonized cry and Reese's phone call once spurred mighty contention on fkspoilr. "Night in Hell" fills that gap from Natalie's perspective, exploring how the revelation of Janette's mortality staggers Natalie's sense of self-worth as a scientist and as a woman, and — although written before "Last Knight" aired — sets churning the very thoughts that lead to the tragic finale. Richly of its moment, "Night in Hell" captures all three characters as third-season shaped them.
Characters:
Natalie, Nick, Janette
"Perchance to Dream: Ghost Song" by Roxy E., 2009
- Short Story (1,577 words)
- R (sexual content, adultery)
- Set in the "Curiouser & Curiouser" AU, about a year before the episode
Summary:
Nick's affair with Captain Lambert coincides with the news of his wife Janette's pregnancy.
Recommendation:
Set in FK's one canonical alternate universe, "Perchance to Dream: Ghost Song" is beautifully, wretchedly faithful to that inverted canon. The story builds on the hints strewn through "Curiouser & Curiouser" to gracefully capture the restless, dissatisfied Nick; selfish, indifferent Natalie; warm, anxious Janette; and fussy, overachieving Schanke. Echoes of normal canon presage Nick's coming breakdown, and omitting the Alice references signals that this is no delusion, but a grim and gritty reality with no exit. This life is exactly what Nick's choices have made of it — and that, at least, is like the life we know.
Characters:
Nick, Natalie, Janette, Schanke
"If I Were You" by Perri S., 1998
- Short Story (2,402 words)
- PG
- Set after "Be My Valentine"
Summary:
Nick and Natalie go to New York for a copy of the Abbarratt, but Lacroix beats them there.
Recommendation:
This story runs Nick from hope to despondency and back when Lily Toeffler ("1966") discovers another copy of the Abbarratt, the legendary book of miracles. Positioning Natalie as the sliding balance on Nick's wild emotional scale, "If I Were You" snaps the slack between them into whiplash, and then reels it into a feisty, firm confrontation at the airport that recapitulates Natalie and Nick's entire connection in miniature. (Key lines from "Last Knight" are reappropriated here to serve determination instead of despair.)
Characters:
Natalie, Nick, Others
"Flowers in the Night" by Sharon S., 1993
- Short Story (1,723 words)
- PG
- Set between "False Witness" and "Killer Instinct"
Summary:
Janette drops by the loft with a gift to trigger Nick's memory.
Recommendation:
"Flowers in the Night" expresses first-season Nick and Janette exquisitely. A long-ago interlude without Lacroix parallels their present, now permanently free of him at Nick's hands. They revisit their shared past as they embark on an open future. Of course, we know what the author and characters did not then — that Lacroix will return, as he did in this story's past — but that later-season analogy only underscores the bold and wondering first-season tone. ("Flowers in the Night" was a response to Susan's original fkfic-l Christmas Challenge. It appeared in the Forever Net Before Christmas zine.)
Characters:
Natalie, Nick, Janette
"The Night Was Dark, and She Was the Owner" by Elisabeth H., 2008
- Crossover (1,212 words)
- PG
- Set a few months after "Last Knight"
Summary:
Janette owns a cafe in Paris. Methos stops by with news of Toronto.
Recommendation:
Told from Janette's perspective, this fresh crossover requires no Highlander knowledge. This Janette has hauled herself out of the wreckage of "The Human Factor" and "Last Knight," ready to begin again. Methos's presence reminds us how Janette centers herself in social networks — for something intangible and necessary to herself, as well as for practicality — and rolls the story smoothly into the revelation that Janette is caring for a traumatized Natalie, in the way Janette always does (and always denies). Reaching Natalie through the new puzzle of Methos makes an enticing end.
Characters:
Janette, Methos, Natalie
"Slippery" by Amilyn, 2003
- Novella (18,471 words)
- PG-13
- Set right after "Night in Question"
Summary:
Nick accidentally injures Natalie, raising the question of whether their relationship is abusive.
Recommendation:
"Slippery" poses the penetrating question of what would happen if, one of the times he tells Natalie to get away and she doesn't, a blood-stoked Nick actually slid over the edge of control. The story tallies symptoms and outcomes of abuse with ruthless pragmatism, as Natalie and Nick worry whether Nick's vampirism and quest really make their situation any different than it looks to those, like Tracy, who don't know his secret. Both harsh and vividly characteristic, "Slippery" makes rich use of its setting after "Night in Question," where Lacroix and Natalie both try to use Nick's amnesia to achieve their own goals.
Characters:
Natalie, Nick, Sidney, Grace, Tracy, Lacroix, Others
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Naturally, these fanworks are entirely fictional (there's no such thing as a vampire). Forever Knight was created by Parriot & Cohen and belongs to Sony. Feedback and suggestions are welcome; please let me know what you think. Thank you very much for reading!
