A one shot featuring Hal and Annie. Set after 'A Spectre Calls' and before 'The War Child'. Hal shares a little bit of his past with Annie, deciding to trust her just a little bit. This is my first attempt at writing Hal so there is a lot of guess work and supposition here. Apologies for any and all errors. Hope you like it. Love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

Disclaimer: The characters of Hal Yorke and Eve Sands and Annie Sawyer belong to Toby Whithouse, Being Human and associated writers. I just love to take them out of the sandbox and play with them once in a while. I always put them back when i'm done.

Lonely Boy.

I watch how she looks at the child and I recognise the expression in her eyes for what it is. She loves her, she loves Eve as if she has given birth to her herself, which of course is nonsense. Whoever has heard of a ghost giving birth to a baby?

I see the warmth in her eyes all the same, the slight smile that curves full lips and for a moment I feel a brief flash of envy. I don't believe I've ever had such a look directed at me before. I don't think I've ever known or felt love. The realisation leaves me feeling surprisingly…bereft.

"You okay Hal?" her question startles me and I flick a glance up at her. My answering smile is equally brief.

"Perfectly fine Annie." I reply, my voice low. She lowers herself and the baby onto the sofa beside me and she gently rocks the child in her arms. Any protest that was about to come from the baby promptly ceases.

"You looked like you were a million miles away." I look at her once more and almost of my own volition I look to Eve. I stare at her for a moment and then I reach out a tentative hand and hesitantly I tuck a finger into her tiny fist. She squeezes it and I'm surprised by her strength. She's much stronger than she knows, in ways she can't possibly realise just yet. I smile faintly and withdraw my hand, curling my fingers into a tight fist and resisting the urge to go and wash my hands.

"I was." I admit quietly.

"Oh?" It's an invitation to share and I lift my eyes to her face once more.

"Old memories." I tell her instead and she smiles softly.

"Want to talk about it?" I quietly sigh and toy with the idea of sharing aspects of my past with someone I'm only just beginning to get to know and someone I'm not sure whether I trust enough with my secrets and believe me there are quite a few of those. I see her look down at the baby and smile that age old smile once more. Eve has drifted off to sleep. I watch Annie rise to her feet in a single elegant move and walk to the white Moses basket set up across the room from us. She lies the child down and fusses for a moment or two. I watch her return and she resumes her seat beside me. It confuses me for a second because she's usually constantly in motion, making tea, washing dishes, taking care of the baby. She never stops so this stillness takes me by surprise.

Silence stretches achingly between us and rather than embrace it, I scrabble for something to say to her. Anything to take away the enveloping quiet.

"You seem to enjoy taking care of Eve." I begin haltingly. Her eyes flit towards the basket and I see how she clasps her hands together in her lap.

"You're very…good at it." I continue.

"Someone has to take care of her and protect her Hal…"

"And that can't be me, I understand."

"No…it isn't that. She's my responsibility, I can't let her down." I nod. I know this. I've seen her protective streak, I've seen how she ruthlessly dispatched of Kirby, blasted his ethereal remains to God only knows where with a single minded ferocity that still stuns me and all because of the helpless infant who currently slumbers across the room from us.

Annie suddenly disappears. I should be used to this, she calls it 'rentaghosting' why I have no idea but she does it and I never get used to her suddenly materialising in front of me without warning. After spending over fifty years living with Pearl and her habits you would think I would get used to it but I never did, I never do. I start when Annie appears in front of me once more and she's carrying two cups, one of which she hands to me. I stare at it for a moment before I carefully accept it. I look down at it and see the tea it contains, black with a splash of water from the tap. She remembered. I smile faintly as I take a slowly experimental sip. I close my eyes as I taste. Annie always remembers.

"So." I open my eyes again at her voice and look at her. I quietly sigh once more. She isn't going to let this go.

"Annie…I…." I stammer. Pearl never really pushed too hard, oh of course she pushed when she had to but she knew my moods and she quickly realised and understood when I didn't want to talk. She recognised when hunger and dark thoughts would begin to overwhelm and she'd let Leo know and together they'd work with me, involve me in my routines, with my familiarity until control was resumed. I glance around at the gaudy wallpaper and the mismatched furniture and I try not to cringe too visibly. The décor of this place is one of pure chaos to me but for now it is home, for now it has to be suffice. I pause. I look into her eyes. She can't help herself, this is who she is.

"Eve's parents…they loved her?"

"With all that they had." I slowly nod. Of course they did.

"And they entrusted her to you. A wise choice." I take another sip of tea.

"She's very lucky, Tom too, that you care so much and so…easily."

"I care about you too Hal, you're part of this family as well." she reminds me and once more I look into her eyes and I want to believe her words.

"Am I Annie? Am I part of the family?" She blinks in surprise.

"Of course you are." Her voice softens with surprise. It touches me strangely that this person has accepted me so readily and so quickly. It took Pearl at least a year.

"You barely know me. You have no idea of what I was…what…" my voice trembles with self-disgust and barely contained fear. It would be so easy to revert to what I once was, a single decision, a choice made and I could become Lord Harry once more.

The very idea of it terrifies me because it is an easy choice to make. The thought of this cycle coming to a close, of what the next cycle could unleash chills me to the very bone.

"I'm beginning to get a good idea of who you are now Hal. You're…Hal and you're…decent." Annie stumbles over her words.

"I'm not decent Annie…never forget what I am." I warn her.

"Oh I haven't forgotten Hal…one thing I'll never do is forget what you are." Her voice hardens very slightly, through fear or what I'm not entirely sure but it pleases me. I'm a little bit more comfortable with that hint of suspicion in her voice. It keeps me…honest.

The first step is to trust. I need to be able to trust those around me. I take a breath.

"I was born during a time when England was beginning to settle after many years of turbulence and rebellion. The Wars of the Roses culminating in the Battle of Bosworth Field and Henry Tudor acceded to the throne." I see her look of confusion and I'm reminded of her youth.

"Henry VII, father of Henry VIII, he of the six wives." I remind her and I see her understanding.

"As far as I'm aware, I was born around 1492, when Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and made claim to the Americas." Her eyes go round with wonder as I see her calculate my age. I shrug self-consciously.

"Like I said, as far as I'm aware, I was born in a brothel. I'm not entirely sure who was my mother and I have no clue whatsoever about who fathered me. All the prostitutes at that place had a hand in raising me, I had no single person to call mother so I suppose they all claimed a part of the title." My eyes grow distant with memory.

"So I also suppose that in a manner of speaking they were my family but it wasn't good for business, a child in a brothel. I left the first opportunity that I got. I think I was about ten." I see her look of shock.

"It was a different era Annie, there were no social services back then, education was a privilege not a right and I had to survive somehow or I'd die so I went to sea. I thought it sounded exciting, brave." I remember how hopeful I'd been and for a while I'd truly believed that I would have excitement and more, sailing the seven seas. It was an idealism that had not lasted for long. I found excitement alright but nothing in my wildest dreams prepared me for what that turned out to be.

"When were you…turned?"

"In 1514, the Battle of Orsha, it's in what is now known as Belarus, on the border with Russia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine. I was mortally wounded and offered the chance of eternal life by an army surgeon. I was young, I was terrified and I was dying."

I can still remember the utter terror, the pain of my wounds coupled with feeling of my life draining out of me. I can still hear the screams of the wounded and the hopeless. The sounds of the conflict going on outside and around still echo in my head at night. Then he appeared with his whispered promises of eternal life.

"Fergus called you Lord Harry… but you just said that you were born in a brothel."

"Ah." The very faintest of smiles twitches my lips. I pause and take another sip of my tea. I don't really taste it this time. I feel the burst of hot water on my tongue but that's all. I swallow reflexively.

"Vampire hierarchy that has nothing to do with actual nobility. I'm an Old One and I gained the title through age and survival I suppose. People feared me, humans and vampires alike. I suppose it can be considered a somewhat twisted mark of respect."

"You don't like the title?" I glance at her.

"What do you think? It's meaningless. It means nothing to me. I'm Hal, just… Hal."

"Named after a king maybe…Henry…who did you say?" I smile very faintly.

"The seventh. Who knows, perhaps I was. Back then it wasn't unusual to name a boy child after the regent. Hal is a form of Henry so maybe." I shrug, again feeling self-conscious. I look at her. I have never shared this much about me with anyone that i haven't known for at least a decade. This is new but necessary territory for me.

"It suits you." Annie smiles at me. I slowly, almost shyly smile back.

"Thank you. One of the prostitutes often used to tell me tales of chivalry. She used to say that with a name like Henry that I had to be descended from a king. Not true of course but when you're making a name for yourself in the vampire world, it helps to build a believable and impressive back story." I look at her again. I can almost see the cogs in her brain turning.

"And that's what you did?" I slowly nod.

"I did. I gave myself the surname of Yorke. I watched, I listened and I copied. When I was recruited, I improved, I got better at it and in time no one dared question me or my beginnings. As I climbed the vampire hierarchy, no one dared to defy me. They were too afraid and eventually what I created became truth. In the days of less than impeccable record keeping, no one could accuse me of lying. It began as a mark of respect, maybe the opposite but back then at my worst it defined me."

"And you were..."

"One of the very worst, which is why you should never completely trust me, you shouldn't ever completely care about me. I have cycles Annie, times when i'm calm and in control and away from blood. It never lasts for long."

"But you've been clean for over fifty years now Hal..."

"And tomorrow it could all change, tonight even. Always be on your guard." my voice lowers to a whisper but she gets the message. Her eyes gradually widen with understanding.

Then her expression changes. She straightens her shoulders and regards me and i'm reminded of a queen looking at her subjects in the way that she suddenly scrutinises me.

"Thanks for the warning Hal but I made Leo and Pearl a promise. However long this...cycle lasts you're part of this family now. It's new for us all but we have to make do." her gaze flickers away and she glances down at her cup but i see her mask slip just for that instant. She's remembering her friends, the previous occupants of this house.

She looks back at me and i'm surprised to see a glimmer of tears in their depths and then just as suddenly i'm not surprised. This is Annie, this is who she is. It humbles me.

"Thank you." I whisper back.

END.