"Sorry." He told the brown-haired teenager as he wrenched her head back, exposing her neck. "But I'm going to kill you now." He started to lean in, fangs extended, and she whimpered. She was so young, he noticed. Pretty and young. She probably had no idea how shitty life was, not yet.

"Fuck!" he shouted, mentally cursing that stupid messed-up spell, and shoved her away. "I can't do it!" He punched the wall, cracking the bricks. "What the fuck is wrong with me?"

"Well..." a young female voice said slowly, "How about this: We'll wait 20 minutes, then you can try again and I can knee you in the balls and run." He turned and stared incredulously at the brunette, who was standing a few feet away with her eyebrows raised and a smile playing about her lips. He frowned and crossed his arms.

"You know, most people would consider now a good time to run." He pointed out.

"Oh, I know." She smiled sweetly and rocked back on her heels. "But how many witches can say they've kneed a vampire and lived to tell about it?" He raised an eyebrow, fangs still extended and face still monstrous.

"Aren't most of you people pacifistic vegetarians or something?"

"Well, everyone has off days."

He grinned suddenly – a slightly feral, predatory grin. This girl was something else, something he'd never run into before. "I'm Roger." He said finally. The girl grinned widely at him.

"My name's April."

He was curious why a shop would be open this late; and he was bored – that's why he walked into the little pagan store that night. The first thing he noticed was the almost-overwhelming yet pleasant smell of peppermint and burned sage. The second was that, despite it being almost 11:30 at night, the only visible employee looked hardly over 16. And he looked very familiar.

"Hi, welcome to Cohen's Books and Herbs, can I help you?" the boy asked with a faint smile. The quiet type, it seemed, hiding behind his glasses and undoubtedly more comfortable doing inventory than manning the front. Roger shrugged.

"Just looking around." He wondered briefly if he dared risk attempting to feed off this kid when another employee came out of the back room.

"Hey, Mark, I'm almost out of hoarhound, comfrey root and... rosehips." The pretty brunette said, not looking up from her notebook, a pen tucked behind her ear. Roger stared in disbelief – of all the people in the city, the girl working here was—

"April?"

She looked up, startled, and he froze. If his heart were still beating, it would've stopped. She blinked in a confused manner for a split second, and then a bright smile blossomed on her face.

"Hey, it's the little vampire that couldn't!" she exclaimed with a laugh. "You stalking me or something?"

"Hardly." Roger snorted, noticing the other clerk – Mark – looking at him through narrowed eyes. "What?" he asked challengingly.

"Don't either of you start." April said, putting her notebook down. "You'll mess up my store."

"Our store." Mark said calmly, still looking at Roger suspiciously. "This is the one who attacked you?"

"What if I am?" Roger interrupted, an eyebrow raised.

"Boys!" April snapped, hands on her hips. "I don't think you two've been introduced. Mark, this is Roger, the vampire who didn't hurt me. Roger, this is my brother, Mark."

Siblings. Well that would explain why Mark had looked so familiar. Seeing the two of them standing next to each other, Roger wondered why he hadn't thought of it before – same brown hair, same bright green eyes, even the same smile, though Mark's seemed more reserved. "Nice to meet you." Roger said dryly. Mark didn't say anything. Roger rolled his eyes. "So this place belongs to you guys?" He stuck his hands in his pockets and glanced around. It was a small store, but it seemed well-stocked.

"Yeah. Willed to us. Our parents started it." April said quickly, and cleared her throat. "I take care of the herbs and incenses and magic, and Mark does everything else!"

"Are you guys even old enough to have hit puberty yet?" Roger asked dubiously. April drew herself up to her full height (she was as tiny and beautiful as a china doll, was she as fragile?) and crossed her arms.

"We turned 17 last month." She said, her eyes flashing a challenge. Roger grinned wickedly.

"Just as I thought. Hardly out of diapers."

April gasped in mock indignation, and though it didn't hurt him, it rather surprised Roger when she closed the space between them in two quick steps and smacked his arm. "You jackass!"

"April!" Mark yelped, looking rather scared that Roger was going to snap their necks or suck them dry.

"Oh, he won't hurt us." April smirked. "He's got a soul. That's why he couldn't bring himself to hurt me."

"He... what?" Mark blinked. Roger gaped at her openly for a moment, and wondered how the hell she'd known about that...

"So, who cursed you?" April asked, a wicked grin on her face. Roger scowled a little.

"No one. I'm not that stupid." He growled. April looked intrigued.

"You'll have to tell me that story sometime, then." She said finally, smiling. Roger found himself smiling back – an honest-to-goodness smile like he hadn't given in god knows how many years.

"Maybe I will."

He was never sure afterwards what exactly possessed him to do what he did six months after he found the shop. The Midget Twins, as he'd taken to calling them (both were under 5'5"), lived over the shop in one of the two apartments, and they'd never bothered to rent out the second. April, much to Mark's discomfort and displeasure, had offered it to Roger within a week. Mark and Roger hadn't exactly hit it off, but they were slowly coming to a place that might be called friendship. With April, however... they always seemed to be in the same room. She seemed to adore teasing him, despite of (or, often, because of) the fact that he was a vampire. And he... well, she made him smile.

Still, that was no reason for him to go and do what he did.

And what he did was to corner April against the kitchen counter while she was making dinner and Mark was downstairs watching the shop.

"Roger, the burgers are gonna burn." She said, her voice tense with uneasiness and uncertainty. She was scared, he could smell it, hear it, feel it start to build in her, and he growled.

"Let them."

It had been leading up to this. Everything, every word, every laugh, ever joke, every time she'd sat with him during the day and read from whatever book she was reading just to get him to stop brooding. That first night in the shop they'd talked. They'd gone upstairs for hot chocolate, much to Mark's disapproval, and eventually she'd slipped a little sachet on a string from around her neck, where it had been hidden under her shirt. "This is for protection. You need it more than I do." She'd smiled and gotten up on tip-toe to slip it around his neck, then kissed his cheek, just at the corner of his mouth.

And he'd wanted more. With every moment, he'd wanted more. And finally he'd come to the conclusion that he needed more, even just once.

He leaned in, April's eyes widened in fear.

But instead of his mouth meeting her neck, it captured her lips, and Roger kissed her as passionately as he could remember how. It was funny, how he'd thought of so many things that it would make him feel and think...

All he could think was that she tasted like peppermint.

He pulled back finally and she just sort of stared up at him for a moment. His eyes met hers uncertainly – more uncertainty than he'd felt in almost a century – and he realized he almost felt warm.

She licked her lips finally and whispered, "What took you so long?"

When the burning hamburgers set the smoke alarm off, bringing Mark with it, they didn't notice, too wrapped up in each other to care.

It was bad. He'd known it was bad. He just hadn't expected it to be this bad.

He'd smelled it towards the beginning. Something just a little off about her. Seen it in the way she would zone out sometimes for no reason. Heard it in hardly-noticeable slips of tone and wording. He'd told her to go see a doctor. She did.

They sent her home.

A month later, she was in the emergency room, sobbing because her head hurt so badly, and it was all Roger could do not to scream at the nurses to get her some fucking painkillers. That would just make her more upset, but he couldn't handle seeing her hurting like that. Mark had paced. Roger had sat next to her, holding her hand. It was as if they'd switched places for a night.

They ran test after test on her, and she was so drugged with painkillers that she was hardly coherent, and two days later, they had an answer.

Brain tumor.

Too deep in the brain to operate. That's what the doctors told them. It may be benign. We'll start her on radiation and chemotherapy. Mark nodded.

She was weak, and sick – sicker than she had been, because the original problem wasn't going away. Her hair fell out in clumps, and in their bed at night, she'd curl against his chest and sob; because her head ached, because she felt awful, because her hair was falling out...

Because she could feel herself slipping.

Not into death. The realized relatively quickly that the tumor was benign, and it had stopped growing – it wasn't going to kill her. He'd've known if it was – it would be obvious. To him, at least. No, where April felt herself slipping was worse, in a way, and more frightening.

"Things don't think right anymore." She'd confided to him one night in a frightened whisper. "I think I'm losing my mind." And despite how much he'd wanted to protest, to tell her that it wasn't true, that she was fine... he knew she was right. Mark had noticed it, too. She wasn't always quite "all there". She'd say things that made no sense, but she'd say them like they were so important.

The treatments did nothing. Eventually the health insurance (and their savings) ran out, and they stopped. As long as the tumor didn't start growing again, the doctors told them, she'll live a long time yet.

With headaches. And only brief moments of real lucidity. Some life, Roger thought. She was crazy. Sometimes he could hardly keep from yelling at her, hitting her, lashing out, even though none of this was her fault. The perfect excuse to leave, to move on.

But he couldn't. It didn't make sense to him. Roger Davis was impatient, cared for himself above everyone else, wouldn't waste his time taking care of some mental invalid who was only lucid enough for real romantic involvement about a quarter of the time, probably less. And yet he was still here, soothing her when she'd freak out over nothing, comforting her when she started crying because nothing made sense anymore, and watching with a broken heart as she continued to cheerfully do her job making amulets and teas and the like. It was all she had that hadn't been at least partially stolen, and Roger was so thankful for that.

"Slayer's coming." She said one morning when she woke up in their always-dark room, and Roger frowned.

"It was just a bad dream, 'Ril." He murmured, and kissed her forehead, his arms around her waist. "Just like the past three nights."

She didn't say anything, but just snuggled up against him until her head started aching so badly that she cried and he had to give her one of the painkillers he always carried before he went to sleep for the day.

He mentioned it to Mark that night, and Mark's eyes widened a bit.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he groaned. "Shit." Roger frowned.

"Why would I tell you? It was just a nightmare..."

"April dreams things. Always has. Things that haven't happened yet." Mark rubbed his temples and cursed again softly. "Look, be... be really careful for a while, okay?"

"...okay." Roger said, dubious. There were many things he believed, but prophetic dreams were not one of them.

Until the next night, when word started spreading among the local underworld that the Slayer was in town.

"I'll teach you to hunt innocent girls, you bastard!" the tiny girl was a lot stronger than Roger'd imagined possible, and he winced when she kicked his chest, sending him flying into a wall. The Slayer pulled out a stake and hefted it, starting forward, and April screamed, launching herself at the smaller girl.

"No, don't! No hurting!"

The Slayer tried to shove April off without hurting her, a look of confusion flickering almost unnoticeably across her face. "He's a vampire, kid." She said, not taking her eyes off of Roger, who had decided that – despite what he wanted to do – moving was not the best idea right now. "He was going to kill you."

"No! My Roger. Mine. No hurting no hurting no hurting!" April was in hysterics, and detached herself from the Slayer only long enough to fling herself at Roger, covering Roger's chest with her body. Roger tried to move her, just in case, but she clung so tightly...

"What's going on?" Mark stepped out of the shop a few doors down, looking worried.

"Go back inside, sir." The Slayer said calmly. "Everything's under control." Mark took in the situation in an instant and sighed.

"So you're the Slayer?"

That got a double take. "What do you know about it?" was the suspicious response.

"Call your watcher and then we can all go into the shop and get squared away." Mark shook his head. "We've been waiting for you."

"Wha—"

"And don't kill Roger, okay? My sister's crazy enough without someone staking her boyfriend."

In the stunned silence that followed, Roger grabbed April's hand and they slipped back inside, leaving Mark to deal with this new development.

He wanted to kill Tyrone. He wanted to rip his throat out with his bare hands, tear him apart.

But he was already dead. He was dead, and Mark was dead at his hand, and April was shattered beyond what Roger could repair.

He knew, technically, that it had been a demon who'd murdered April's twin right in front of her, a demon who'd taken her and held her hostage and done who knows what to her until Nate and Nigel had found them. He knew the demon had killed Tyrone when he'd possessed him.

But Tyrone was the only name he had to put with that face, so it was Tyrone he'd hate as he held April tightly and wanted to cry (if only he could) when Chris reluctantly sedated her, so she would stop screaming and rest.

He wanted to kill Tyrone, and he made a vow that if he ever saw him again, he would.

She was gone.

He didn't know where, but she was gone.

He'd known something was wrong when she wasn't home by sundown two days ago – she never went out alone after then, she was still scared, or something. And then when he and Tyrone and Nate and Nigel all together couldn't find her...

Two days. Almost three, now. And no one could find her. Roger stayed out looking until almost sunrise, making it back to the shop with only five minutes to spare. Normally, Tyrone would've snapped at him for that, or Nigel would've told him to be more responsible.

Today, Tyrone just went about his business getting the store ready. Nigel was already home. Roger glowered and stalked upstairs without a word to Tyrone or Nate. Anger. That's what he showed.

Except that when he got upstairs, and into their room, and locked the door. That was when he pulled out her favorite sweater and pressed it to his face and curled up on her side of the bed, wishing like hell he could just cry.

He couldn't handle it. He tried, for a week, and just...

One morning he holed himself up somewhere safe and didn't come back. He headed out of town, where they wouldn't find him. He knew April would be upset, but he needed space. He needed to think.

He smelled it the minute they'd found her. Well, technically, it had been a couple of hours later, when he'd clung to her long enough to calm down and think about things other than "she's alive". But he had, and he'd been so fucking glad she was asleep, because he'd nearly shot across the room.

She'd slept with someone else.

Never mind that there was no possible way it had been consensual, he knew her far better than that. She was pregnant, and vampires couldn't have children.

He got over that pretty quickly, though. Well, he thought he got over it, but there was no way to be sure until he saw her again. But there was still the issue of the fact that she was pregnant. It wasn't that he was pissed that it was some other guy's kid – he was pissed about that, but only because it meant the other guy had raped her. His problem was that, despite the fact that she rarely had the mental stability to be sexual or overly romantic, he was her boyfriend.

Which meant that he'd be expected to play daddy. And he couldn't do that. He killed people on a regular basis, because even with help, there was no way both he and Nigel were surviving solely on refrigerated blood. And Roger didn't have quite as much of an issue with live feeding as Nigel did.

He cursed. He had an explosive temper with an amazingly short fuse. Except when it came to April, but April was an exception. But the point was that he'd be a terrible role model and a terrible father. He didn't even like kids.

So he stayed away for a month. Get her used to functioning without him, because why would she want to keep him around when she realized how bad an influence he'd be, and that he didn't want to be a father? This was, of course, going to have to be after she found out.

He came back for less than an hour at first, and she was... so happy to see him. And he was uncomfortable and his heart was breaking over the thought of losing her, and so he pushed her away. Left her crumpled on the floor sobbing and screaming that he'd promised he'd never never leave. But he couldn't...

Almost a week later, he came back. She knew, by then. And he clung to her and told her everything. That he wouldn't be a good father. That he was no role model for a kid to have. That he didn't want to be a father. Eventually, she stopped arguing, but he knew she didn't agree.

But by then, he was busy reassuring her that he wasn't going to leave, and they left the subject for another day.

April's water broke at 3:30 PM, two days before her due date. She didn't tell anyone, and when the contractions started getting bad enough that she couldn't hide it anymore, she refused to go anywhere until sundown, so Roger could come to the hospital. She wouldn't go without him – she hated hospitals.

At 1:27 AM, April brought into the world a baby girl with dark hair and green eyes – Kim later said she'd never seen eyes that green on a baby. The doctors handed her to April first, and April immediately held her up for Roger to take.

"Oh, I... n-no, I really..." he stammered, taking a small step back. April smiled that sweet, naïve smile at him.

"Go on." She urged, and he reluctantly stepped closer to take the baby in his arms. It felt awkward for a split second... and then he looked down at her and it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Roger stared down at the surprisingly quiet baby with a mixture of awe and adoration. He glanced up for a moment at April and smiled uncertainly, and she beamed back, looking the sanest he'd seen her since Mark had died.

"What's her name?" Roger asked softly.

"You pick." April said, equally soft, and Roger looked up at her, startled.

"Y-you mean..." April nodded and he felt a surge of nervousness and uncertainty. He shouldn't be naming the baby, it wasn't his baby, he had no idea—

He looked back down at the little bundle in his arms and just stared at her for a minute, and realized that the strange feeling that was swirling inside his chest was, against all odds, pride and love. He smiled and gently kissed the baby's forehead.

"Hey, Rebecca Rose. I'm your Daddy."