Title: Last Stand

Summary: It terrifies her, because she doesn't know what's wrong. Set after A Perfect Blood. I took some liberties and I guess things might feel a little OC.

POV: Ivy's.

A/N: So I'm officially traumatized. I liked A Perfect Blood. I liked that Rachel is growing up and is (trying) to take responsibility for her actions. But I hate that I like it. I mean I love Rache as the action girl she is, always rushing into trouble trying to take on the world (which she still sort of does.) I like the tone of the book, I liked that Ivy is moving on. I'm actually really happy Ivy is moving on. Which makes me sad because; hey Ivy/Rachel is what I'm hoping for at the end of the series!(no matter how unlikely it seems things will turn out that way.)

What I really don't like is how much Trent there is. I mean he's cute and all, but I kind of like it more when he's annoying and trying to get Rachel to work for him doing shady things. Not when he's eating pie with Rachel (and hey they're eating Cherry Pie! I love cherry pie!) But I guess a relationship with Trenton was always in the stars and either Rachel will fuck him, get it out of her system and dump him and go back to just being BFF(or more) with Ivy or the story with end with Rachel and Trent as the golden couple!

Also; we have a new player in town – goat girl(I forgot her name)! I kind of liked her but I'm unsure what part she's going to play in the next books (there are three more right?) I also loved the last part when they turned her back. I was almost sort of sure Rache would make her look Asian in some sort of weird subliminal I-think-all-girls-should-look-like-Ivy! And Al being all "come to daddy-demon" was awesome!

One last thing before I stop ranting and we can get on with the story, did anyone think the book ended sort of…too soon? It felt to me like the story was a little cut up and like the action didn't really get started before it ended. How thick was it compared to the other Hollows books?(I've only got the computer file…)

Last Stand

I feel as if Rachel has been slipping away from me lately. As if she has the world on her shoulders and she can't tell me why or how. It's not the slow depression being cut off from her magic had caused, not the sadness of loss or a broken heart I had seen in her before. This was a sorrow - a weight - I didn't understand.

It terrified me.

Rachel had been my life-line, had saved me when I was at my lowest, but I feared I would not be able to do the same for her. I feared she would not even want me to save her. She'd want the elf to be there, she'd want him to save her. That really shouldn't matter though; maybe this was part of letting her go. Part of letting her go might just mean the slow loss of my best friend. I was losing her to silence and phone calls to Trent Kalamack. I was losing her to something I didn't understand. To the thing she wasn't telling me. Only I desperately didn't want to lose her. I wanted to be there for her, wanted her to confide in me.

"I miss you," I whispered. I wasn't sure she would hear me. Wasn't sure I even wanted her to.

She did.

"What?" she asked in her typically confused Rachel way, looking up from her spell pot. I turned away slightly.

"Nothing." I stared at my computer somehow not seeing it despite the fact that it was right in front of my eyes. "I didn't say anything."

"I wish," Rachel begun, I could tell she was debating with herself whether if she should ignore the words she had clearly heard but I was pretending to not have spoken. I hoped she would. I was being stupid. She was right in front of me. Only she wasn't. "I really wish for you to be happy," she said looking down into the pot. "That's what's important."

I continued to look at the computer screen while I really was watching her intensely from the corner of my eye. I wasn't sure what me being happy had to do with anything."I am happy," I said and it wasn't a lie. Glenn might have moved away and my past was still shitty but I felt like I knew what happy really was now. Rachel had showed me that I was worthy of it, that I deserved to feel joy despite my shortcomings.

"Yes, I know and I'm happy you are happy." Her words confused me further and I felt a twinge in my stomach. I didn't like where this was going. "I want you to keep being Happy," she continued and there was a slightly off pitch in her voice as if she was tearing up.

I stood up, not sure where this was going but very sure I didn't like it. "No," I said forcefully moving closer to the counter, to her.

She blinked up at me clearly surprised at my tone and that I had figured it out. "It would be better if I wasn't here," she whispered, sounding like she really did believe it.

"No," I took another step closer.

"Ivy, I'm a reminder of the past for you." She took a deep breath. "I don't think you can be happy with me here. I don't know if I can be happy here either."

I stopped moving closer to her. "You promised you wouldn't leave," I managed. I desperately didn't want her to go, I wanted to keep her. I also wondered what had caused her to suddenly come to this strange conclusion; that her leaving would be better.

"That was when you needed me, you don't need me anymore." Rachel wiped a tear away. "It's not happening now," she said looking down at her potion. "But maybe one day in the not so distant future I'll have to go to the Ever Afte-"

"No," I said again feeling my own eyes turn teary. "I do still need you, I need you every day. You belong here," I said more firmly than I thought I' would be able to.

"I'm a demon-"

"And I'm a vampire, we all have our problems. But you belong here in the church with me and Jenks." I stepped around the counter to stand in front of her. Close."You belong here with…me….not, not in the Ever After."

"I'm just," Rachel stepped back blinking. "I'm just so scared Ivy. There is no one like me. Not really. Everyone here, everyone I love, the more I care about them the bigger is the risk of something bad happening to them." She continued even as I tried to interrupt her to protest. "And I know you can take care of yourself and Jenks and his kids can too. But when you think about it. Really think about it, you will see that you will all be better off with me not being around so much."

It was so stupid. It was such a strange idea. It was one of those things that only made sense with Rachel-logic. I didn't say anything but stepped back. Went back to my computer.

"I'm sorry," Rachel moved to the end of the table looking at me. I didn't look at her.

"You said you wouldn't leave. You lied," I said between clenched teeth.

"Do you want to know what I spent half the time doing when you were with Glenn?" she asked. I started typing on the keyboard, trying to not give away my curiosity. "I spent it thinking; I'm so glad you were finally happy. That you were finally with one of the good guys. The other half of it I spent thinking that it could have been me." I stiffened and she noticed and read into it. "That doesn't mean I want to jump into bed with you Ivy. It's just…"

She sat down on the other end of the table. "That closeness – that's what I wanted for us. That's what I wanted Ivy, for us to be happy. For me to be able to be there for you. But I can't and…" I swallowed not liking this for a whole new reason. I was getting over her. I was over her. I didn't need her telling me these things. "And it's not just that everything is changing, my mom moving away, Trent and Ceri and the babies, Jenks and Belle and you - happy. Nothing is the way it was and I just think the Ever After might be what I need." I went back to tapping on the keyboard. I wouldn't be able to talk her out of this. This was one of those things she had decided on and no one would change her mind.

"I don't know what else to do Ivy," I kept ignoring her, kept trying to get her words out of my head. "Maybe the demons will help me figure out who I am or who I'm not. Al's been teaching me to jump the lines, when I can do it by myself maybe I can spend more time there. Learn more about demons. I know my home is here, but Ivy I am so tired."

"Tired of what?" I asked after a long pause, giving away that I was still listening, despite the fact that I did my best to make my tone sound disinterested.

"I'm tired of not knowing who I am, tired of crying in the showers because I feel like I lost something but I can't figure out what. I,I, I don't know anything anymore. I want to belong here with you but…"

I knew how this sentence ended, "…but you just can't." Not yet. Maybe never.

"I promise," she said getting up not looking at me. "I promise I will come back to you. I will always come back even though I probably shouldn't- you let me go. I'm just trying to let you go too. It's what's fair. You should want me to go."

That would have been the time to tell her I never wanted her to neither go nor let me go. That I would never be able to fully let my feelings for her disappeared. That I cried too, but I cried for what I knew we'd lost. She didn't know, she probably couldn't even imagine how great we would have been, but she still knew she had lost it. So she cried without knowing why, without daring to face the reason why.

Instead I said, "I understand."

End

Thanks for reading and reviewing! Please tell me what you thought of the story and of A Perfect Blood!