Dedication: For Cindy, torch, Mic, Teresa and Ari.

Also many thanks to Silvia for checking my Italian. I couldn't have asked for a better beta-reader.

Spoilers: Spoiler for everything up to Memnoch.

Principle characters in order of appearance: Louis, Armand, Lestat, David.

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, amateur speculation and is not intended to infringe upon the copyright of Anne Rice or her publisher.

Archiving: Permission is given to publish this speculation at http://digitalmidnight.simplenet.com/archive/ otherwise it must be requested from auden@siliconhenge.com with the url of the archiving page.

Notes: Thanks to the positive response to my vignette I'm posting Part One of my new series. Entitled 'Time's River,' it is not connected to any of my previous series, and approaches the idea of vampire relationships from a different angle. However, as with my earlier specs, it disregards Memnoch and everything afterwards from the canon of the Vampire Chronicles.

The grave's a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

The streets are silent as I walk. Bathed in moonlight the buildings are silent too. No human minds touch mine in this ultimate memorial to death. No spirits either. The dead sleep quietly in Pompeii.

I can hear the sound of my own footsteps echoing lightly back to me from the smooth stone walls. The path I tread is worn smooth by the passage of past pilgrims, drawn as I am to this silent city. Even beauty is quiet here. No riotous aesthetic assails me. The colours are muted by time and by the darkness in which I walk. I am the only ghost in this place. I walk slowly, studying the buildings, the fractured mosaics, the frescos that stain the walls with colours lost to history. But I am not alone.

Someone is waiting for me here. Another's thoughts brush mine softly, an invitation to be accepted or refused. Unhurriedly I take the rough path that leads me through the tombs, the dead's memorial to the dead, towards the Villa of the Mysteries.

He stands at the doorway, waiting for me. Golden eyes watch as I walk up the road towards him but I do not speak until we are face to face.

"Armand." I acknowledge his presence levelly.

"Louis." He stands close enough for me to feel his breath.

"Am I disturbing you?" A polite enquiry from one whose presence here is so fitting I could believe him one of the statues, frozen in a moment of eternal grace. Even his beauty is quiet in this place. He wears dusty velvet and the light sinks into him to be absorbed.

"No," I answer honestly. "I was merely contemplating."

He inclines his head in acquiescence, requiring no further explanation. This is why I give him one.

"It's so peaceful here. I feel as if I've stepped out of time."

A smile touches his mouth.

"But Louis, you have," he replies. "Out of time and into eternity."

"No." I shake my head. "Time is a river. Once I was flotsam, carried in its current. Now I sail downstream. But the direction is the same, moving ever forwards, towards the sea."

"You sound sorrowful, Louis," he comments.

I study him as he is studying me and realise that after that first brush of my mind he has not been reading me. A courtesy from one who has all the time in the world; he is willing to wait for me to voice my thoughts. He has such control, this vampire. I know him well enough to be certain that this is not the entirety of him. I have observed him in his quest for knowledge, devouring everything in his path with an insatiable hunger that burns in him like a flame. An immortal fire that cannot be quenched. But his control is born of the patience of centuries. There are times when he is able to distance himself from his own longings, to stand speechless and only wonder. I don't answer his thought but speak my own instead.

"I'm sorry I left you so abruptly. It was discourteous."

His eyebrows draw together for a moment. Confusion. Then they lift and his eyes are wondering.

"That was a long time ago," he says seriously. I know that this is simply a statement. Not forgiveness. A rational creature this demon with an angel's face. He is waiting for more, calm in his certainty that I value him enough to provide it.

"How could I be your definition when I was uncertain of my own identity?" I ask. "Could you honestly have loved me only for my broken heart?" I meet those unblinking golden eyes; like coins placed on the eyes of the dead.

"I would have tried," he says softly. "For you, Louis, I would have tried."

I know what this admission means. An eternity buried in the earth, feeding on the dark dreams of mortality, cursed to spend immortality in hell, betrayed to a void of nothingness. Yet he would have cared for me and I, I also was his betrayer.

"Forgive me," I ask, knowing I have no right.

"The past is far away," he replies. "Come, walk with me, amico. You are forgiven."

We walk slowly through the trees and he puts his arm around my waist. His touch is cold and, as I rest my hand lightly on his back, I feel the roughness of the velvet against my fingertips.

"What brings you here Louis?" he asks eventually. "What inspires your contemplation?"

I pause for thought, considering the question. I could answer many things. For some time now I have simply been wandering. An impulse led me to this place. My thoughts are open to him. Allowing him to read this from my mind if he chooses. But the answer I finally give springs from a deeper truth.

"Lestat."

"You might as well have said God," his eyes are gently mirthful as he looks up at me. "Your river of time is a circle, Louis. Its beginning and end are the same."

Mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe

Why do mortals fascinate me so? There is a concept in literature known as the pathetic fallacy; meaning to project your emotions on your surroundings. A vanity. But haven't I always been vain?

They twist my heart, these mortals. I can read their thoughts as they pass me. That one's loneliness. This one's despair. A deadened hopelessness in their eyes catches at me and suddenly I am weeping. The Vampire Lestat in tears. I cry all too easily these days.

David turns to look at me with concern. Ever the polite Englishman he hesitates to intrude but then takes my arm.

"What's the matter, Lestat?"

"There's so much sadness in the world," I tell him. "Why are these mortals all so sad, David?"

He frowns and looks around him.

"They're not all miserable, Lestat," he says tolerantly, striving for a lightness of tone. "Look there."

I turn to see a couple embracing in the shadow of a doorway. The woman's face is tilted up to her lover's as they kiss hungrily, oblivious to our scrutiny, rapt in each other. Their thoughts are sensual and with a sharp agony the blood thirst grips me. I want to fall upon them. To share their ecstasy. The thought of it compels me to draw nearer and I study them greedily. His hand twisted in her hair. Her body lifting to meet his. The dull pulse of heat in their mingled flesh.

"Lestat. No," David speaks sharply and pulls me into a quick walk. "What's got into you this evening?"

I don't speak for a while, still thinking of those lovers. So bound up in each other not to notice death stalking them.

"Lestat?" he is pressing me for an answer and I lick the blood tears from my lips.

"It's been a year, David," I tell him. As if he didn't know. As if he hasn't watched me crossing off the days in my mind, the weeks, the months. "A year, damn it! When is he coming back?"

He sighs. We have been through this so many times, he and I.

"I don't know, Lestat. You know him so much better than I. But Louis said he would return. You know that."

"But WHEN?" I demand. Heads turn in the street and David reproves me.

"Lestat, calm down. People are watching."

"Let them watch." I glare at a passerby and he steps quickly out of our way.

"Lestat, this won't do." He looks at me searchingly and then shakes his head. "Come and talk with me. I'll share my thoughts with you but I warn you, you may not like what I have to say."

Yet come to me in dreams that I may live

My very life again though cold in death.

We are kissing softly. His mouth opens beneath mine and we share breath. I draw life from the kiss of death. My arms are draped around his back. I feel the shape of his shoulder blades. I press in slightly and he tilts his head back exposing his throat. His eyes are open. I could drown in those amber depths. But they are still. Pools of water reflecting. It is my love for him that I see in his eyes. He tastes of smoke and cinnamon and the rusty taint of blood.

I draw back and we look at each other. Finally I ask him.

"Why have you come here?"

"Like you, to contemplate," he replies.

Absently he removes a dead leaf from his hair. The moment has passed and neither of us regrets it. We were not made to be lovers he and I. I burn in a different fire and he quenches himself in another sea.

"You've been here before," I state and he bows his head.

"With Daniel," he says softly. His hair falls about his face and his next words are spoken low. So quietly he speaks that I can barely hear him. "Sono sfinito. I am weary."

"Why so?" I ask, touching his hair gently.

He lifts his head and looks bleakly into my eyes.

"I feel such anger, Louis," he whispers. "Such rage. We fight and separate and come back to each other. It's obsession. Addiction. We torment each other. Tear down barriers. With us there are no secrets anymore. But... "

I wait while a single blood tear escapes and rolls deliberately down his smooth face.

"But it's killing me," he admits finally. "I want... I need... " He breaks off with a soft curse. "Dannazione! I want to know him. To have him completely. To reach the centre. To be at peace." He pauses and looks straight at me. "I am so weary."

"Then you must tell him," I say and unexpectedly he smiles.

"This from you, caro?" He clasps my hands in his. "How can I rest when immortality lies before me? Your river, Louis. I am borne upon it also. Forever is a long time for love to last."

I am silent. He is right and we both know it. We must change with the passage of time or we are doomed. Change and commitment do not seat well together. We live with one another and we love each other and the river of time moves on and takes us with it.

"Amadeo," I say quietly. "What cause have you for grief, beloved of God? You are the survivor who renews himself with the age, redefining your own existence in its mirror."

"And how do I accomplish my redefinition?" His voice was low and harsh, compelling my attention to every work he spoke. "Where do I look for my mirror, Louis. How does the river of time show me my reflection?"

He held my gaze mercilessly, his eyes were centuries old in that perfectly timeless body and my understanding fell into place.

"In your lovers," I said. "Armand, forgive me. I had no intention of..."

"Of speaking the truth?" he asked ironically. "No, Louis, we will be truthful with each other if it kills us. We have no need for secrets, you and I. Imagine, if you will, that we have stepped out of time. This is a place for waiting, for choosing. Deciding which course we will take. Rivers divide, Louis, divide and mingle many times before they flow back into the sea. Here we are trapped in an eddy but sooner than we wish we will be carried onwards. Rest here, with me, and speak to me of the future."

He spoke easily and eloquently although his face was still stained with a faint sheen of sanguine tears. His thoughts revolved around a question he had cause to have considered many times before. As I had cause also. Love is an eternal question for our kind. With no power of God or man to separate us, our forevers are real until we decide otherwise. But I felt an affection for this dark angel so abiding that I couldn't believe there was no way for love to last until the end of time.

"Yes," he said softly, his thoughts whispering against mine. "We love each other, lastingly and well, but how long can souls be joined after the grave. When does choice become habit, familiarity breed contempt? Why do we always decide to leave each other?"

"To decide means to kill," I said, looking away from him into the trees. "We kill each other with those decisions."

"Decidere. Yes. We kill but vampires do not die easily, Louis. We inflict mortal wounds on each other and yet live on to decide and kill again." He paused and then asked quickly. "How often have you left Lestat?"

Oh look, look in the mirror,

Oh look in your distress;

Life remains a blessing

Although you cannot bless.

"How often has Louis left you?"

We are seated in the cavernous darkness of a crypt. It has been converted into a bar in this century and we are almost unseen in our dark corner, disregarded by the mortals who have so banished the specter of death from this place that they don't even see it walking among them. David's question hangs in the air and I try to find a way of answering it without exploding with rage.

"He leaves," I say. "Are you counting in days or in centuries, David? He arrives and he stays but predominantly he leaves. It is our leitmotif, him and I. The same old song. I can't begin to guess how often it's been played."

"Then why does he return and why do you seek him out if all that it brings you is misery, Lestat?"

"Because I love him, obviously," I say angrily. It's incredible how often people seem to think that forcing me to this admission will change the deep truth of my relationship with Louis. Yes, I love him. But was that ever seriously in doubt? It's not the lack of love that tears us apart but a surfeit of it. Too much love for sanity or reason.

"Too easy, Lestat. Love isn't enough."

"Because he belongs with me," I say, calming down since David is being so firm. He is the stronger of us at the moment. The last year has beaten me down and I often find myself leaping from my chair to begin some new adventure only to come to a weary halt before I reach the door. What, after all, is there left to do?

"Lestat, I'm trying hard to be patient with you but what you're saying doesn't inspire me with much desire to help you with your problem with Louis. You seem to be saying you're cursed with each other."

I look at him for a long moment, wondering if he is serious. He appears to be and I frown.

"Alright then, David. Stop this catechism and tell me what you think. What is wrong between Louis and myself. I promise I will not interrupt or take offence. Just tell me. I want to know your thoughts."

He looks doubtful for an instant but then gathers himself together and I can see him deciding to give it a try. He doesn't trust me. But then, I am the Vampire Lestat, known for irrational outbursts and attacks of violent rage against those I love. Can you blame him?

"In that case Lestat, I think you should concentrate on why Louis returns to you as much as why he leaves. I've read your books, I can see why you say he belongs with you. Or is that to you?"

He fixes me with a piercing stare and I wave my hand indicating that he should move on. I won't take issue with his point at the moment. It was a natural response. Yes, Louis belongs to me. Is there anyone who would dare dispute it? Apparently there is.

"But your relationship with Louis is unequal, Lestat," David continues. "You consider him bound to you but don't believe yourself limited by that constraint in his respect. You have other companions, other lovers."

"And Louis does not?" I ask this a bit sharply but quickly modulate my tone as I add: "You have to read our books as a unit, David. Louis and Claudia, Louis and Armand... Those relationships were real and enduring. He loved them as much as he ever did me. And perhaps more truly."

The words don't seem real even as I speak them and David laughs and shakes his head.

"Come on, Lestat. Be honest for once in your life," he says. "Louis loves you, undoubtedly. But he is uncertain with you. Uncertain of how you perceive your relationship to him. And I can see why." He looks at me in a mixture of amusement and concern, emotions playing rapidly over his beautiful strong face. "How you can live in the middle of all this confusion, I don't know."

"But there is no confusion," I tell him patiently. "This is normal for us." This teetering on brink between love and hate. Misery followed by delight, followed by misery once more. To love Louis is to love the sweet sad essence of him.

"Well, consider this, Lestat," David is telling me. "There are two forces operating in your relationship with Louis. Something that draws you together and something that pushes you apart. Don't cast your hands up at me and tell me it's fate. The only answer I can give you is that to solve this you must decide once and for all which force to throw your considerable weight behind. For Louis may well be deciding your future even as we speak. This time he has not returned."

"Yet," I say. It is a mantra for me. Louis will return. But I hear what David has said, perhaps clearly for the first time, and consider my dilemma. For the first time in months I stop asking myself when Louis will return and wonder what will happen if he does. How many times have we played that scene before?

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

But sad mortality oversways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

"Not as often as either of us thinks," I replied. "It's become a pattern for us, an endless cycle of rejection and unity, it's impossible to remember which came first but they follow each other as inevitably as the day follows the night."

"As night follows day," Armand corrected and I lifted my shoulders in a slight shrug.

"Whichever."

"But, Louis, isn't that the point? That the two roles are not interchangeable. That there is always one who demands and another who refuses. One who chases and one who runs. Who should know better than I that there must be a partner who leads and another who follows?"

"And your secret is that you lead while pretending to follow," I told him.

"Or follow where I pretend to lead," he agreed. "Louis, stop playing with semantics. No, our difficulties are not identical but there are similarities. And there is also a matched opposition."

I lay back on the earth and stared up at the night sky. He was correct, of course, and I couldn't argue with him. I heard him move away and settle himself against a tree; a fallen angel in the drifts of leaves.

"I am fearful, Louis," he said eventually. "Fearful of love with its power to destroy me. I build myself on my lovers and inevitably I lose them, drive them away."

"And I am driven away again and again, with lies and with the truth," I say. "Still I return, I am incapable of staying away."

"But you are away now," he pointed out.

"And unlikely to remain that way," I admitted. "It's been over a year since I've seen Lestat and I promised I would return. I've delayed longer than I imagined I could."

"You are also weary."

"No, it's not so conscious an emotion. I simply feel.... disconnected. I exist primarily in absences at the moment. I don't permit myself to feel weary because I don't permit myself to feel anything. It's just too difficult."

"Does the river stop flowing when it's covered with ice?"

"You know it doesn't."

There was a soft sigh and then a movement behind me. I felt a hand touching my hair and saw his hand from the corner of my eye, slender fingers drawing aside a black silk strand and twining it through them. I drew in breath sharply and moved away.

"Don't," I said.

His hand froze for an instant and then drew back.

"I'm sorry," I said quickly, turning to glance at him. "Just... don't do that. Please."

"Capisco."

He put his arms around me and I leant back into his embrace. It was not until I tasted blood that I realised I was weeping. I felt the muscles tense suddenly under his skin and then relax, an impulse stifled, and then he just held me and the tears slid down my face. They welled up from my soul, blinding me to everything except the cool hard body holding me in the lightest of embraces. It seemed there was no end to my tears and I felt then that I had reached the depths of my despair in that moment. I couldn't see any way of moving out of that undemanding embrace to resume my course down the river of time.

Finis