Heaven Help My Heart

by L'Phantom

*If it were love I would give that love every second I had
*And I do
*Did I know where he'd lead me to?
*Did I plan
*Doing all of this for the love of a man?

Natalie Lambert was dying. Somewhere inside her, she was aware of that fact. Right now, the only things keeping her alive were the machine that was breathing for her, and her love for Nick. The second was really what kept her alive. She was fighting to live so she could be with Nick. She was dimly aware that if she fought hard enough, she would survive. But doubt had begun to creep in, and Nat wasn't sure she wanted to fight anymore. Not sure what would be waiting for her when she awoke.

Oh, if she was sure Nick truly loved her as much as she loved him, she could almost have come to that very moment, but she wasn't. True love bred control, didn't it? Isn't that what Janette found out? And yet, Nick couldn't stop. She felt him pulling her life away from her, but didn't have the awareness to stop him or cry out. All she wanted was to prove to him that they could be together. 'The best laid plans of mice and men,' she thought.

*Well I let it happen anyhow
*And what I'm feeling now
*Has no easy explanation
*Reason plays no part
*Heaven help my heart
*I love him too much

Too late to second-guess herself now, wasn't it, though? She had asked, he had responded, and now here she was lying in a hospital bed just this side of life. The M.E. in her had already mentally begun her own autopsy. 'But I'm not dead!' she wanted to scream, but couldn't. 'Maybe,' she realized in that moment, 'maybe I *am* dead, and this is what death is; being trapped inside your body, aware, but unable to respond. Oh, God, what if I'm in hell? What if this is my punishment for loving a vampire?'

'Natalie, calm down,' replied her voice of reason. 'You are a doctor; surely you know the difference between a person who is dead or alive. You are not dead.' Unfortunately, the sage advice went unheard as a chorus of other voices rose up, emotions of every sort, blocking out all rational thought.

'I just wanted to be with him, God,' Natalie prayed, as she had been for the past two weeks she'd spent in this room. 'I just wanted him to love me. Was that so wrong? Is this a punishment for loving him? Please, God, I need to know.'

But Heaven remained silent, as it always had.

*What if he saw my whole existence
*Turning around a word, a smile, a touch?

She thought of Nick then. She thought of how he and LaCroix had doubtless dumped her in a hospital and moved on. She wondered what he was doing now, where he was, and what he would think if he knew she was fighting for life, ready to live or die depending on his feelings for her. Her life changed the day she met him. She told him that. What she couldn't tell him was that if he'd come back and say 'I love you,' that her life would change again. And again every time he said it.

*One of these days, and it won't be long, he'll know more about me
*Than he should
*All my dreams will be understood
*No surprise
*Nothing more to learn from the look in my eyes

She would be dead soon if she gave up the fight; she knew that. Her final will had been drawn up, everything was prepared. She had willed most of her estate to the de Brabant Foundation to be used however they saw fit. Included in that was her diary, which had special instruction to be held for Nicholas de Brabant, should he ever return.

Nick needed to know, she decided. Needed to know how she felt, and why. He deserved the whole story. She knew that he kept tabs on the foundation he had set up. He would know when her estate transferred and would come back looking for answers. And he would find them, written in ink between the pages a worn diary with her name on the inside cover.

And he would understand. She hoped he would understand. He had to understand.

*Don't you know that time is not my friend
*I'll fight it to the end
*Hoping to keep that best of moments
*When the passions start

She could feel her mind start to go. Certain memories began to leave her. Most, she did not mourn the passing of; awful thoughts of pain and loss. A lone tear drifted down her face as she forgot about Richard. And others, Laura, Schanke, Cohen, Tracy; people she had already lost, and now she lost her memories of them, too.

She could feel the tug at her memories of Nick, though, and her mind fought a silent, invisible war to keep those. She had to remember Valentine's Day; she had to. And his voice saying "I won't leave you." And his eyes; she couldn't forget his eyes! She pleaded with a nonexistent force to let her keep at least the memories of those deep blue pools she'd stared into countless times.

*Heaven help my heart
*The day that I find
*Suddenly I've run out of secrets
*Suddenly I'm not always on his mind

It was a hopeless battle, but Natalie refused to admit it. If she ever lost her memories of him... she didn't know what she'd do. She hoped, at least, that he would remember her... too few others would. Grace, certainly, and maybe Reese, but they'd never remember her the way Nick would.

'They're not gone as long as you remember them,' she had been told whenever anyone close to her died. Now it was her turn, and she hoped she would be remembered, too.

*Maybe it's best to love a stranger
*That's what I've done - heaven help my heart
*Heaven help my heart

Slowly, the realization dawned on Nat that, for all her memories of Nick, he had told her next to nothing about himself, despite all she had told him of her. She had never known him, and he was content to leave it that way. He might as well have been a stranger to her.

And Nat understood that she had spent the last 6 years of her too-short life searching for something that probably was never there to begin with, no matter how hard she tried to find it. With that understanding came a sort of peace, and she finally let go. Of her memories of Nick, of her hopes for life, of her need to be remembered.