Regrets
By Deanie
May 2000

Disclaimer: Tracy Vetter and Javier Vachon don't belong to me. They belong to James Parriott, Barney Cohen, Sony/TriStar. I'm just borrowing them for a while…and they'll be returned when I'm done putting them through the emotional wringer. I'm not making any money off of this, so don't sue. No copyright infringement is intended.


Wrapped inside a twisted world
I can’t decide what is even real anymore
As though I ever knew
Tangled in these silhouettes
Floating face down in a river of regrets
And thoughts of you
-- Tara McLean, “Holy Tears”


Nothing in life is ever simple. Certainly not relationships. If I’ve learned one thing in my twenty-five years on earth, it’s that. Beginning with my relationship with my parents – which is now unbelievably complicated -- to my college boyfriend… But nothing has ever been like my relationship with Vachon. How could it? No one else could ever be like Javier. And now he’s gone.

I couldn’t go home, didn’t really know where to go. So I came back to his church, wrapped myself in his blanket, and settled myself down in his bed. And by the light of his candles, I cried.

His last memories of me, his last real memories of me, before he was delirious, were of me telling him our relationship could never have worked because of the evil inside him. At the time, it made so much sense, but now I wonder how I could have said such a thing? Vachon isn't evil, not really. He has it inside him, no doubt, but there's evil inside all of us, whether vampire or mortal. Some have it to a greater extent, but evil's there, present inside us all. But I just sat there, with my holier-than-thou attitude, and I hurt him. I knew I was hurting him, and I did it anyway. He’d never do that to me. So which one of us was more evil? He came to the police station to help me, just because I called, because I needed him. He always came when I needed him, no matter what. And I never once told him how much I appreciated it. Being responsible and being there weren't things he had had a lot of experience with in his life, with his running from the Inka and all. But he was good at it...good at being there for me when I needed him.

I took him for granted; got used to running to him every time I had a problem that was outside the norm -- and on this job, that was a lot. Sure, he complained, but I could tell he didn't really mean it. If he had been too inconvenienced, he would have just left. There was nothing I could have done to stop him. But he didn’t go.

At the bus station, the day Vudu tricked me into carrying the detonator for all those bombs. Vachon was supposed to be gone; he was skipping town, trying to keep one step ahead of the Inka in their eternal chase. But he didn't leave. Even though coming back meant he would have to face someone who he tried to kill -- twice. Someone who had every reason to want him dead. He came back, just to save me.

And then he stayed. I hadn't expected that. Then again, with the Inka gone, who did he have to run from? Still, more than four hundred years of habit has got to be hard to break -- and his habit was to run when things got the least bit tough. And our relationship was never easy. I expected him to take off any day...but he didn't. He stayed, and I got used to it. I started to take him for granted. I started to imagine that he would always be there, no matter what I did. Maybe we were only friends, maybe we were more. But I always thought we’d have plenty of time to figure it out. We were supposed to have plenty of time. He was a vampire. Immortal. He wasn't supposed to die.

How could he have asked me to do that? To just kill him. I could see how much pain he was in, how the effect of the...venom... of the murderer was driving him insane. But I couldn't do it. Even seeing him there, kneeling on the ground, arms outstretched begging me to put the stake through his heart, I couldn't do it. Because to stake him was to give up hope. He was a vampire. He was supposed to heal from just about everything. Why should this be any different? He'd get better. He just needed a little to get over what had happened, and he'd be fine again. He'd be back to normal. He'd be... Vachon.

He had to get better. We had too much left unfinished. I never knew how he felt about me, never told him how much I cared. If he died, I’d never get the chance to tell him how much I loved him. Oh God, I never got a chance to tell him how much I love him.

I love him. I’m never going to see him again, and I’m realizing I love him so much I don’t know what to do without him. I’m never going to see that cocky smile, feel his silky hair… never to hear his voice softly singing over the timbre of his guitar. I loved to hear him play. Alone, in the church, with moonlight and candlelight, it felt like we were the only two people in the world. I should have told him then, but I just couldn’t.

I couldn’t see how a relationship between us would work. He was a vampire – a bloodsucking creature of the night. He’d killed people, and didn’t seem to be haunted by regrets. He’d lived places and seen things I could only dream of. I didn’t even want to know how many lovers he’d had, didn’t even want to think of comparing myself to hundreds of years of beautiful women.

What could he have possibly have seen in me? I wasn’t brilliant, or talented, or beautiful. I was just a naïve twentysomething trying to do the best I could to make it in a world I didn’t understand anymore. He changed my view of the entire world. He opened my eyes to so many possibilities. And I never got to thank him. Never bothered to thank him, really, because I didn’t realize what it meant, what he meant to me until he was gone.

I always wanted to live my life without regrets, and up until this point, I’d been doing pretty good. But now I had more regrets than I knew what do to with.

Holy tears, they linger on
Holding you, my love, forever gone