The problem here is not Nikola; the problem is Helen. The problem will always be Helen.

The problem will always be Helen because a long time ago, she was not so jaded. The problem will always be Helen because once, a very long time ago, she had been... naive? If naive is not the term for it, she doesn't know what is. What she does know is that one-hundred and thirty - no, no, two-hundred and forty-some - years have changed her greatly.

The problem isn't her personality, either; the problem is the disillusionment that no one else sees. It's that particular, private sense of loneliness, and it's a heart that cannot fill itself.

Perhaps John has had it right all along; for if, by some chance of fate, there had been no source blood, or merely no creature, no awakened propensity for violence on his part, would she or would she not have been content at his side for a lifetime or more? She does not know. She only knows that she loves, but does not love Nikola, and she suspects that the little-love she has for him is not so much John's fault as it is her own, despite that she has steeped herself in the desire to blame him for everything. It's so easy to pin one's shortcomings on others, particularly the ones which are so damned difficult to accept in the first place.

If she's honest, she only has the vaguest sense of what the problem really is, and it's not something she can make concrete no matter how she tries. In fact, she is aware of it only when she immerses herself in his presence, beneath him, against him; only then does something akin to incompleteness manifest itself, shrouded somewhere in the recesses of her mind. She loves him - oh, for all the world, she loves him. And she needs him too. He's her friend - a final vestige of a once-life in a time long gone. And yet, for some reason, together never works for them. There's a hole in this puzzle the size of a single missing piece; it's a hole that spills blood and tears, ruining itself. One night, she can't stop the tears; she cries violently in his arms, blind to whether he is willing or merely feels obliged to hold her close while she sobs into his chest, and she won't see him for weeks thereafter - her choice, not his. He follows her like a pup, won't stop until, on another night, she drags him desperately into her arms and doesn't let him go until they're both battered and bruised. Life is not a joyous event; it is, by its very definition, but a brief candle in the history of the universe, and it always ends in destruction. Its only satisfactory outcome is that death bears birth and rebirth.

But then of course, happiness is not her be-all, end-all; life, that inexplicable time between birth and death, is not measured in degrees of mirth, she thinks, but in whether or not you can live with the things you have and have not done. Happiness has nothing to do with it; reconciliation of your choices has everything to do with it. Sometimes she is not certain she can do that much.

Sometimes she pities Nikola, because she knows that he will be the last of them. Immortal and alone. Completely alone - not her alone. Her alone is an alone surrounded by people, so many people, and a complete disconnect from all of them. At times, she wants to rail and spit and claw her way out of it. She doesn't hate them; she hates the masquerade. Really, the only thing she hates in this life is what she's become.

If she could destroy everything, she thinks, she might rebuild from rubble. Order out of disarray. And yet, she remains a mere mortal, ageless or not. She cannot change what has already occurred. Furthermore, "you destroyed my heart" was neither lie nor overstatement; her heart has already been in shambles for a very long time. After three or four lifetimes, it almost isn't worth the effort.

In fact, Helen's not even sure she deserves a happy ending.