Title: Watching Over You (companion piece to Through the Years)
Author: Kat
Genre: General/ Romance
Characters: Mick, Beth, Josef
Pairing: Mick/Beth
Rating: PG
Summery: "over the years I tried to stay close to her, just out of sight, in case she needed me…" and sometimes she did, but never as much as I would come to need her.
Mick slipped into his office, drenched and weary. Of all the days it could have rained in Los Angeles--the Land of Perpetual Sun--it had to be on the on night he was working on foot and without the protection of his car. He was so tired he almost missed it, something out of place, tugging at his awareness of the place around him. He crouched down to pick up the envelope that had been carefully slid under his door. It was the wrong shape and size to be any sort of official notice and it was all wrong, too heavy, to be a letter. He stood up with the envelope in hand. Curiously he slid a finger under the flap and gently tugged it open. What he found inside took him by complete surprise. It was a homemade card, made of brightly colored construction paper and drawn on in a myriad of clashing colors of crayon. Inside was a message written in a child's unpracticed hand, letters uneven and capitals in strange places:
Thank You for Saving me.
-Love Beth
He drew in an involuntary breath and he could see the young girl, scribbling away happily with her crayons, room a mess of construction paper and her pale blond curls in disarray. Mick was surprised to find his hands trembling as he closed the card and moved to sit down at his desk. He remembered the way she has held onto him so trustingly as he whisked her away from the flames and what they claimed. Despite what she had witnessed only moments before she clung to him as her protector, and in that moment Mick knew that there was nothing he would not do to keep her safe and happy. He would have done anything for her and expected nothing in return. Perhaps that was why this card touched him so much.
He was a PI, he had helped many people, many times, and in many ways but he had forgotten why. In the years since he had become a vampire the purpose behind his actions had faded, blurred in a never ending world of blood, lust, pain and darkness. The gentler emotions had fallen by the wayside, victims of the monster he had become, or so he had believed.
Mick stared at the card in a mixture of bemusement and awe. Love Beth, she had written. The simple farewell of a child. He was once again struck by the overwhelming urge to go to her, protect her. Coraline was not the only threat that lurked out there. There were too many others, all waiting for the chance to snatch her and snuff out that innocence for good. He was halfway to his door before he had realized he even moved, but he forced himself to stop. What was he planning? What could he hope to do? Steal her away from her family as Coraline had done? No, he couldn't do that. There was nothing he could offer her that her parents could not provide better. He had to stop, but the knowledge of what still waited in the darkness of the world continued to thrum through him. An urge too strong to simply ignore.
So he made a bargain with himself; he would stick close to this child who loved him with out question or introduction. She couldn't know him--no, that was far too dangerous--but he would be there if she ever need protection.
The first time he the thought struck him was near Christmas that year. He was at Josef's, drinking as rather frightening mixture of blood and eggnog his friend had concocted for the occasion, and feeling particularly nostalgic when Josef's rather annoyed remark about eat the next person who tried to sell him a greeting card pierced his reverie.
"Greeting cards?" Mick repeated, turning his attention to the conversation at hand for the first time.
Josef eyed him oddly. "You've been in NeverNever Land all night and the only thing that grabs your attention is greeting cards?"
Mick shook his head. "Sorry, I was thinking about a case."
"That involved greeting cards?" Josef failed to see the connection.
Mick thought of the construction paper card tucked safely in the top drawer of his desk.
"Sort of," he replied. It was the first time he had wondered if maybe Beth would like a card in return. His second thought was no, it wasn't right. She wasn't supposed to know about him. She was supposed to forget it ever happened and live a normal life. Still cards were normal, right? He could send one, not sign his name, what could it hurt?
"There are lots of people sending cards this time of year," he remarked idly, more to himself the Josef.
His friend took no notice, remind of his earlier rant. "Horrible glittery things. Have you seen them? I wouldn't be surprised if they had ones that light up and sing. The lengths mortals go to annoy one another will never cease to amaze me," he said
Mick smiled. "This from the person who sent corpses to show his regard?"
Josef grinned at the memory. "Ah, good times."
Mick just shook his head.
He did not send Beth a card that Christmas, still debating internally on whether or not it was a good idea. It wasn't until a few days before her Birthday that he finally decided in favor of it and went to purchase a simple, common Birthday card. Plain and untraceable, he wrote in it a simple message and slipped it into her mailbox where she was sure to find it the next morning. He did not wait around to see her reaction but spent the day at his desk, holding his own card and savoring the feeling it still brought to him, even after all this time.
He found he enjoyed sending the card almost at much as he had receiving his. He couldn't risk being regular, for one he never knew when work or business would catch up with him and keep him busy and for another, it made the cards less likely to be traced back to him. He kept careful watch on Beth during those early years, always maintaining enough distance so she would never detect his presence. Never know of her dark, immortal shadow that found more joy in watching over her then he ever though possible.
Circumstances often kept him away for long stretches of time, however, and all at once the child he knew was gone. In her place was a young woman. She still held onto glimmers of youth but Mick glimpsed the beauty she would soon become. It was her distress that called to him, forcing him out after her despite the daylight that burned down, slicing into him as he followed her movements through the window of her school from across the street. He stood a distance away, careful to remain inconspicuous so as not to be take for some creep who lurked about the schoolyard--conveniently ignoring that lurking was what he was doing.
If it weren't for the bright red and pink decorations hung up all around he might not have known what day it was, not understood the wistful, forlorn look on Beth's face. He knew, he remembered what it was like to be that age, the boys in Beth's grade could not yet see what he saw. They could not glimpse the future and see what she would become. All they saw was the awkward teenager, far behind the other girls in school.They did not see the woman underneath the girl, but most of all Mick was surprised he could.
When had this happened? Had he been away so long that he missed seeing the child slip away? Apparently so. He saw it now, saw the end of that innocence, the end of that unconditional love that had touched his heart so long ago. Beth was growing up, entering a world of far more complex and confusing emotions of which the heartache she felt now was just the beginning. Mick's heart broke for her, wanting nothing more then to protect her from the rocky years to come, and for him, knowing that he could not.
Mick broke into her house with ease. Her parents were not at home, most likely still at work, leaving the house empty. He stole into Beth's room, feeling slightly guilty for intruding so. It too had changed. Band posters and actors replaced the cartoon characters and fuzzy animals that had once adorned her walls and her toys now sat in boxes in the closet, unused. He felt the pang of loss again keenly as he placed the bag of candy and card or her pillow. He breathed in deep, noting that her scent had changed as well, becoming fuller, richer, as she matured. The note was simple as always, and Mick fancied it as innocent as it once had been--but it was not. Nothing would be purely innocent for her anymore. He took one more deep breath before exiting, knowing he could not linger.
After that he knew it was time to distance himself. Beth entered high school and shed all traces of the child she had been. Mick kept his distance as he struggled to reconcile the child he had watched and the woman he saw now in his mind. He couldn't hold onto that picture of innocence--not when her scent now teased him, called to him in ways it should not, could not. Nor when he fought down pangs of jealousy, protectiveness, and possessiveness that flared up in him when he witnessed that first kiss, that first dance, first love. He was there when she graduated, of course. A silent shadow in the stands that stood indistinguishable from the hundreds of others there. He watched as she received her diploma and took her first step into adulthood, banishing forever the girl with construction paper and crayons who had made a card for a man she did not know and now did not remember. Others gathered around to congratulate her but Mick stayed back, simply happy that he had been with her to reach this point.
He stayed away through college, checking up on her only infrequently and never sending cards. He could not send simple messages of luck and blessings, not when his heart spoke of love and lust and all the things he knew could never be. It was painful to be close to her, and agony to be away. The construction paper card remained locked away in his desk, not looked at, no only remembered. When she earned her degree, Mick knew he could not help but send her some message. It was not a card, those no longer held the meaning the once had, but a note.
Good luck, Beth. Follow your heart.
It was not just a friend's message and Mick knew it was his last. Love Beth, her signature from so long ago flashed though his mind. He ached to sign this in kind,love Mick, wanted her to see it. In the end he signed it with the simple initial he had always used. It was the same as it had been then; he had no right to pull her into his world away from those who loved her far better then he ever could.
But oh, how he wanted to.
He stayed away, made good on his promise to remain in the periphery of her life, until that night, mesmerized by the sight of her walking through the fountain in the moonlight. She noticed him and came up to him before he could fade into the night.
"Do I know you?" she asked.
No, you do not, but you loved me once.
"You tell me," he replied, unable to speak the truth, but unwilling to remain silent.
He had no right to pull her into his world, but it was not his choice if she pulled him intohers.
AN: okay since there has been a demand for it. here is the promised sequel to Through the Years.
it turned out differently then I had originally intended. runs and hides hope you like it anyway.