"Why are we here?" Vachon asked, again. It felt like they'd been wandering these same wide aisles for days and yet, somehow, they never seemed to get any closer to an exit.

"You know why we're here," Urs answered. She was quite a distance down the aisle because she hadn't stopped to wonder where they were - not even once. "I need to buy a gift," she reminded him as she waited for him to catch up to her. "And you need to help me pick it out."

"Honestly, I don't see why you're bothering," he replied. "No one ever gets us anything on our Conversion Day anniversaries."

"That's because you won't tell anyone when yours is," she countered.

"And because you still don't like to be reminded of yours?" he asked.

Urs gave a shrug, and then turned and started walking again.

They walked side by side in silence for a few minutes before something caught Vachon's eye and he called Urs over to take a look. "Hey, what about this for the old geezer?"

"Don't call him that, Javier."

Vachon's answering smile was all irreverence, right up to the crinkles beside his eyes. But then he said, "So, what about this for the dear, old, musty gentleman?" Urs rolled her eyes at the modified - though no more respectful - description, before looking at what Vachon was holding. It was a DVD of the recently aired, television mini-series 'Cosmos.' But Urs shook her head, no. "Then how about this one?" he suggested, holding up another DVD box.

"'Godzilla'? Do you honestly think LaCroix would prefer that over..." Urs looked over the racks of tv shows and films for a few moments before selecting one and holding it up for Vachon to see. "Over this?"

Vachon nodded. "I would."

"Well, that settles it then, because if I know anything about LaCroix it's that you and he do not share the same taste in anything."

Except for wine-spiked blood and blond dancers, he thought, but instead said, "Well, you know him far better than I do."

"I don't know him that  well," she protested.

Vachon held up his hands in surrender. "I wasn't implying anything," he said. "Other than the fact that you do spend a lot more time at the Raven with him than I do."

"Well, I do work there."

"My point exactly."

Urs opened her mouth as if to reply, but then shut it again. Vachon gave her a smug smile, happy that their argument, such as it was, was over. And that he'd clearly won the round.

"Can we get out of here now?" he asked. "These fluorescent lights are giving me a headache." Who even needs this much light, he added to himself. These were one modern invention he could do without.

Urs had taken his arm and was leading him further down the aisle, deeper into the store.

"I thought we were leaving," he said.

Urs made a left turn, following the wide, main aisle, and said, "We are."

Vachon looked over his shoulder to where they had been, then looked forward at where they were going and suddenly felt like a rat in a maze - a scientifically, diabolically designed maze.

"This is actually a short cut," she added.

"If you say so," he said as his will to live was slowly ebbing away.

Urs glared at him as she gave him a playful shove off to the side. "Stop being so melodramatic," she said lightly. "Oh, look!" she suddenly exclaimed, stopping in her tracks. "Cards! And gift bags! Javier, go pick out a card for LaCroix while I pick out a bag and some tissue paper. Please," she added sweetly and he couldn't help but give in to her command.

But when he saw the hundreds and hundreds of cards in the very large rack that extended the entire length of the side aisle and was taller than he was, he regretted having given in so easily.

He quickly scanned over all of the labeled categories until he found 'Birthday', then he looked a bit more carefully at all of the subdivisions: Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, Grandmother, Aunt, cat.... He was disappointed - though not surprised - when he failed to find the 'Condescending Old Man' section. He settled for the section labeled 'Humor' instead and was immediately drawn to one card in particular.

He pulled it from the rack to look at it more closely. The front showed a large cake, completely engulfed in flames from all of the candles, and one scantily clad fireman, with an impressively large hose, standing by to douse the flames.

"I'm not giving him that one!" Urs said, unexpectedly by his side.

"But, you have to admit, the number of candles on the cake is pretty accurate."

"Put it back," she told him as she turned her attention to the rack of cards. After just a few moments, she reached out and selected a card. She opened it, gave a quick nod, and then said, "Okay, let's go."

Vachon fell into step beside her, then took the card from her hand and looked it over. On the front was a picture of a scenic pond with water lilies and a single mallard duck floating on the calm water. Inside was written, 'Congratulations on your special day.'

"This is the card you've giving him?" he asked.

"Sure. Why not? It's pretty," Urs told him. "And it was in the section labeled 'General.'"

LaCroix sat in his big leather chair behind his big wooden desk and tried not to sulk like a little boy.

So far, it had been a rather disappointing anniversary of his Conversion Day. He was actually thinking it was even more disappointing than last year - and last year no one had even remembered.

He picked up the card Urs had given him and stared at the front; he couldn't figure out what the generic-looking landscape had to do with his 'special day'. Still, it was a pretty picture, even if it was thoroughly unremarkable.

Except for the duck.

The duck looked a bit lonely.

"Did you receive fois gras on the anniversary of your Hatching Day?" he asked the mallard.

Just then, an unexpected tap, tap, tap  sounded on his office door, interrupting his conversation with the duck. He propped the card upright beside his desk lamp before running his hands down each jacket sleeve, smoothing the unwrinkled, black fabric. Then he cleared his throat before saying, "Enter."

The door opened and a blond head appeared. "Hello, LaCroix."

"Ah, Nicholas. Do come in. What a pleasant surprise," he said, not feeling it necessary to rise from his chair.

Nick entered the sparsely decorated office, closing the door behind him.

LaCroix, much like Nicholas, preferred quality over quantity - a few items of value or sentimental worth over impersonal things that merely filled the space. LaCroix gestured toward the only other chair in the room - a handsome leather chair across the desk from his own. Then he asked, "May I offer you something to drink?" He lifted his own glass - less than half full of thick, red liquid - and used it to gesture toward the decanter on the table near the door.

Nick looked over at the cut-crystal decanter. He took a step toward the table. He reached out his hand. His fingers trembled ever so slightly. He hesitated. Then he closed his eyes and took a long, slow breath in. He let it out even more slowly before opening his eyes. Then he grabbed the crystal decanter with a steady hand.

"I think I'll pass," he finally said. "But allow me to top up your glass."

LaCroix held out his glass and Nick filled it. "Why, thank you, Nicholas."

Nick inclined his head slightly as he replaced the stopper and set the decanter on the desk. Then he sat down in the previously offered chair.

"Not that I don't enjoy you dropping by, Nicholas, but to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit this time?"

"Come, LaCroix. You don't expect me to believe that you've forgotten your own Conversion Day."

"No, I have not forgotten. I never forget." He hadn't meant the implication to sound so blatant, but, he supposed, he was still a bit raw over the previous year. And rightly so, he assured himself.

"I said I was sorry," Nick told him. "There had just been a lot going on last August and, before I realized it, it was halfway through September. But I thought I'd made up for missing your last Conversion Day anniversary with the gift I gave you for Christmas."

"Yes, yes - I can honestly say that you out did yourself with the purchase of solar panels for the Raven's rooftop."

"Well, I remember you once mentioning the importance of being environmentally conscious," Nick explained.

"Indeed." LaCroix was fairly certain that, if he had ever said such a thing, he'd meant it sarcastically. But perhaps it was time that he took this whole Global Warming brouhaha seriously. Especially since he planned on having many more Conversion Day anniversaries - whether anyone remembered them or not.

"So, I got you something," Nick said as he pulled a rectangular-shaped package from the inside pocket of his coat and handed it to his master. "Happy Conversion Day, LaCroix."

"Why, thank you, Nicholas," he said as he took the wrapped gift. "You shouldn't have."

Nick smiled and shrugged. "I wanted to. And, when I saw this, well... I just knew it was the perfect gift for you."

The present was wrapped simply, in glossy black paper, sans ribbon or other frivolous accoutrements. It was too thin and too light to be a hard-bound book, but perhaps about the right dimensions for an over-sized paperback, he thought hopefully. Though, it did not flex like a paperback; it didn't flex at all.

"What ever could it be?" he asked with a fair amount of trepidation.

Nick leaned forward in his chair as LaCroix found the edge of the paper and began to tear. He tugged slowly at first - he liked the sound of tearing gift wrap but, with the prevalence of tissue-paper stuffed gift-bags, the opportunity to tear open a present didn't come around as often as it once had. After a few moments, though, he couldn't hold himself back. Savoring only went so far and then one just had to dig right in. He tore the paper asunder and let it drop, forgotten, onto the desk.

Then in his hand he held a box.

He stared at it as he turned it over.

It was not a plain box, not an ordinary cardboard box, nor was it a box containing a book, as he'd foolishly allowed himself to hope.

No, this sleek, plastic, bright-blue box had a good bit of very tiny writing and half-a-dozen still-frame pictures on one side. The other side - the front of the box - was one large picture of an angry volcano spewing black smoke and fiery lava, with the word 'POMPEII' printed in overly large letters.

LaCroix was ... speechless.

"It's Blu-ray," Nick said, with a big, happy smile on his face. "The Special Edition," he added. "It includes the unrated director's cut, with 23 minutes of extra footage."

"Twenty-three?" was all LaCroix could think to say.

Nick nodded. "There's also a commentary track by the director and the head of the CGI team. And an alternate ending. Plus a blooper reel - those are always hilarious."

"Yes, hilarious," LaCroix echoed, still stunned by what he was holding.

"And then there's a little documentary about a local group of children who make paper-mache replicas of the plaster casts of the people from the ruins, which they then sell to the tourists in order to buy supplies for their school."

"Paper-mache?"

"I know, right? That's so creative. Oh, and I forgot the best part: there's also a video diary by the lead actor... um, what's his name? The one with all the dark bushy hair...?" Nick waved a hand at the box LaCroix was holding as if expecting LaCroix to look up the answer for him, which he did not. "Kip Herringbone! I think that's it. Anyway, it's a very moving day-by-day account of his 68 days on set and how being in the film got him thinking about what life was like back then - how different things were from today, without the internet and everything - but also how he was still able to really relate to those people, to their joys as well as their struggles and hardships---"

The muffled sound of a ringing phone interrupted Nick's description. Nick pulled the phone from his coat pocket. "Excuse me," he said to LaCroix. "Chief Detective Knight speaking." He listened to the phone for a few moments, then replied, "I'm on my way."

He slipped the phone back into his pocket and said, "I'm sorry, but I have to go. There's been a homicide."

"There was bound to be one sooner or later," LaCroix said, then added to himself: There might have been one right here in this very room a few minutes from now if we hadn't been so rudely interrupted.

"Happy Conversion Day, LaCroix," Nick said as he headed for the door, adding, "I hope you enjoy your gift." And then he was gone.

A sudden dour silence settled over the room as LaCroix took one last look at the Special Edition Blu-ray box before shaking his head slightly and sniffing out an incredulous little laugh. Then he opened the bottom left-hand drawer of his desk - the drawer was deep, having been designed to hold hanging file folders, thought he'd never used it for that purpose. He carefully placed the Blu-ray box on top of a very tall stack of other, similarly-shaped boxes - each of which contained a DVD of the same film, 'Pompeii'. All were Conversion Day gifts from so-called-friends, associates, and acquaintances.

How inspired they had all been.

Beside the stack of DVD boxes, there was one lone item. LaCroix reached down and picked it up. It was a gift from the Spaniard - Urs's master - Vachon. It was a beige plastic cassette tape - what the kids used to call a 'mix tape'. The label simply said, "LC's Conversion Day Jam, 2014."

Curiosity had gotten the better of LaCroix earlier in the day and he'd actually listened to the tape - well, mostly fast forwarded through it. It appeared to contain only one song on both side A and side B, repeated over and over and over.

By way of an internet search, he'd discovered the song was titled 'Pompeii' by a band named Bastille.

"It's too bad Vachon is such a wastrel, otherwise he might have purchased me the band's CD, so I might, at least, be able to return it or re-gift it," he said to himself before dropping the tape down next to the movie boxes.

Then LaCroix closed the drawer on another disappointing Conversion Day.