Title: Coming out of the Dark © 1999 - 2004
Author: slaysvamps
Warnings: Adult Situations & Language

Disclaimer: Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Dark Ages, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Werewolf: The Wild West, Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade, Mage: The Ascension, Wraith: The Oblivion, Wraith: The Great War, Changeling: The Dreaming, Hunter: The Reckoning, Demon Hunter X, Kindred of the East, and The World of Darkness are registered trademarks of White Wolf Game Studio Inc. I do not own nor do I have the rights to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, La Femme Nikita, The Monkees, The Backstreet Boys, or any other familiar celebrity or story line used as a template for any original character or story in my fiction. I have used these items purely for entertainment purposes and have in no way intended insult or injury to the owners of those rights.

Summary: Eliza never expected to see Mac Brennan again, but now he's a hated vampire. She knows she has to help him regain the memories he lost, even if it means falling in love with him all over again.

Author's Note: This story immediately follows Child of Darkness.

Prologue

I dreamed of him again last night. It doesn't seem to matter how long it's been since I lost him I still reach out in the middle of the night and expect to find him right there beside me. It's not like we were even together for that long. I mean, we only had a little more than a year before….

See, I still have trouble talking about it. Hell, I've never really talked about it at all since it happened. If I'd lost an arm or a leg I'm sure I would have gotten over it a long time ago. But for real now? It's been almost twenty years since the night my life shattered into a billion pieces. You'd think I'd be able to pick them up and start over again by now, wouldn't you? But I can't.

Sometimes it's like I can feel him right beside me. I turn to look for him, but he's not there. He's never there. He's not anywhere, but he's everywhere I turn. Does that make sense? When I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes I think I'll go crazy missing him.

I spend my days working out and researching things that go bump in the night here in Salem, Massachusetts. At night I hunt and the darkness and pain help to keep me grounded. For real now, I'm scared. Scared of what I am, what I've turned into. It's hard to live in a fantasy world when the reality of death stares you in the face every night, isn't it?

Don't get me wrong, I hate what I do. It's just that I don't really have a choice, do I? As Linda would say, I've made my bed and now I have to lay in it and never mind the bloodstains and the tears.

The thing is, I'm never really alone in that bed. He's right there beside me, haunting me like a ghost. I just have to face the fact that I'm living with the memory of a man that I should have forgotten about a long time ago, about the time I took his ring off my hand and started wearing it on a chain around my neck. Maybe if I'd done that, I would have found the peace I've been looking for all these years. Maybe then I'd have the little house with the white picket fence I've always wanted, the garage, the kids and a dog to fetch my slippers.

Sometimes I feel like the whole world is moving but I'm stuck somewhere in the past. It's like I just keep sinking a little deeper into the mire everyday and nobody bothers to notice.

Am I losing it? Sometimes I can tell myself that if I just push the memories deep enough in my mind I'll be able to look at another man and not think about the one I lost. Some nights I even believe it. Tonight is definitely not one of those nights.

Tonight I lie on a mattress in a crappy little room and wait for the sun to rise. Tonight I look across the room at an ancient poster of Janice Joplin and remember the feel of my lover's hands, the taste of his lips. Tonight I think about blood and death and survival.

That's what it's really been about for me all these years, survival. If I can survive long enough, maybe our daughter can live to have the life we lost the chance at. It's too late for me now, I've already sold my soul, but it may not be too late for her.

Will I ever stop reaching for him?