A/N: A sequel of sorts to Love Like Yours. Spoilers for The Saga of Larten Crepsley.

Dawn has broken outside the crypt. Small rays of sunlight break through chinks in the roof, but they cannot reach into the haven which Arra has made. She carried Larten here when he passed out after fighting the vampaneze, which was awkward as he is taller than her by quite a bit, not that she's small by any means. She lay him down on his cloak and shifted the stone around to protect them from both the sunlight and any trespassers. She didn't stitch him up and carry him this far just to let him burn to death.

He doesn't wake from the depths of his fever, so low has he sunk into unconsciousness. Even if he woke he would not know her, would address her as Alicia, or Malora, as he has done when he has surfaced every time before. (Who is Malora? Alicia she knows, has heard all about from Wester and Gavner, and that's without Larten's sleep talking and delirium. Malora, though, she's a mystery.)

His body is slack with the fever, limbs limp and powerless. She eased off his jacket and shirt to make it easy to deal with his wound – now weeping through the stitches, which she takes as a good sign. Now that jacket and shirt are bundled up under his head. It's not to make him comfortable, more so he's less likely to choke on the vials of blood she feeds him with (so she tells herself.)

She gently cleans the wound and washes the sweat from his forehead, squeezing his fingers when he whimpers.

"It's necessary," she murmurs, and presses her lips to the corner of his mouth. "I'm sorry but it's necessary."

He gasps, eyes fluttering without opening and tries to twist away. But he's too weak and his fever is too strong, and all he can manage is to writhe feebly. A flash of panic stabs Arra's chest (what if he bursts his stitches with this?) and she tightens her grip around his thin form, pulling him tight to her and forcing him to still. He groans, and his eyes open a crack, just enough for her to see a rim of iris.

"Arra." His voice cracks, and her heart twists painfully. "Arra."

"Ssshhh. It's all right, Larten. It's all right. I'm here." She presses a kiss to his forehead, watching as his eyes slip closed and he nods against her chest. He's still feverish. She must not let the fact that this time it was her name which came from his lips to get to her. It means nothing when he can't think for himself.

"Please . . . stay."

Even with vampiric hearing she almost doesn't catch his words so faint is his voice. Thank the gods she learned to lip read years ago.

"I'm not going anywhere. I promise."

She will probably slap him. In fact, she would be perfectly correct to slap him. And that is if she does not do anything worse like gouge his eyes out, or grossly disfigure him in his sleep. Slapping is by far the lightest punishment she could hand down.

She will probably break his nose at the very least, and though he is not a vain man he has always been rather fond of his nose. It looked quite well in that infernal portrait Alicia –

No. Now is not the moment to think of Alicia.

Arra smiles, a glint in her eye which he barely notices, because a moment later her lips are pressed to his. He chokes on his breath and she pulls back, smirking. "Is that a proper reply to the question you were so clearly struggling to ask?" And she does not even try to keep the laughter from her voice.

Soon after, they find themselves half-undressed in Arra's coffin. Her uninjured hand having found its way to the waistband of his trousers, he stills her wandering fingers.

"This is inappropriate," he murmurs into her mouth. "We are not even mates."

She laughs, and curls her fingers around his hip. "Does past history count for nothing?"

"It counts for quite a lot, I just think –"

"It's perfectly appropriate, Larten. You wouldn't have objected once upon a time."

"I –"

"Fastest hands in the world, as I remember you so proudly told me one night when you were drunk up to your eyeballs. The old Quicksilver charm, you said, irresistible to any woman, except of course Evanna."

His scar itches, and as he scratches it he blushes as red as the trousers he is still wearing. "There is no need to remind me of that," he murmurs.

She moves to straddle his hips, and he shifts under the added pressure. "Larten Crepsley, do you wish to become my mate again?"

He does not answer. Instead, he wraps his hands around her waist. Mates. She wishes to mate with him again. No, The time has come for us to mate, instead, Do you wish. She is not the Arra Sails she was the last time, but nor is he the Larten Crepsley, though he suspects that both of their past selves are buried somewhere deep inside. The last time they were mates, he did wrongly by her. He was not the mate he should have been, and he certainly did not love her as he should have. He remarked at the time that he thought he could come to love her and now –

He smiles. Is it love? Or is it the old infatuation come to the fore? Or does any of it much matter? It need not be a long contract if they are uncertain. They could try it for a short term, just to see how things work. They could try it as friends and build from there. They are friends, are they not?

She is still watching him, an eyebrow quirked. He entwines his fingers with her and brings her hand to his lips. "I would be delighted, though I feel I should consult Darren. It will have an impact on him. We will wait until after his Trials before deciding anything."

Arra disentangles her fingers and strokes his scarred cheek with her thumb. "And what about tonight?"

"Darren is gone to find Seba. He will not be looking for me for hours." He reaches up and brings her head down. "Now, where were we?"

She kisses the corner of his mouth. "Well . . ."

His clothes are soaked through with her blood. It blends in with the red fabric, almost invisible, though he feels it against his skin, sticky and warm. Her breaths are harsh, and she tries to breathe around the pain, lips twitched so that even as she is dying (how is she dying?) she is smiling up at him. And her eyes, those grey eyes, always fixed on his face, watching him fight the tears that he does not want her to see. She always disapproved of tears, why should now be different?

He talks to her, quiet murmurs, all of the lies that he can think of. She will survive, they will mate, he will reassume his position as a General, they will train Darren because Darren has to come through all right and the three of them will go on missions together, and sometimes they will leave Darren at the mountain, travel alone, enjoy each other the way they should have the first time.

(He will never become a General again. He knows that with bone-deep certainty. Quartermaster is within his realm, but General? Never again.)

She does not call him on his lies, just rests in his arms, fingers intertwined with his, face smiling serenely up at him. (These are the moments which will stay with him forever.)

He raises her hand and kisses the back of it, not minding the flecks of blood. They are of no import except as a mark of what has happened to her. She will live. She has to live. She cannot have fought this long and then not live, even if her breath does catch every few minutes and her eyes are wandering. She must live.

She murmurs something, voice soft, and he cannot make out her words, not with all of the other voices in this Hall, of medics and patients and friends. He longs to yell at them all to just be quiet so he can hear her voice once more.

He thinks he sees "bars" on her lips but he cannot be sure and her eyes are half-closed, breath fainter than a moment before, still smiling. He tightens his grip on her and lays his head against hers, rocking her.

"You will be all right, Arra." His voice cracks as her breath catches again. "You will be all right." A tear slips into her hair, and he cannot feel her breathing against him, though he did a moment ago and why can he not feel her breathing?

He shakes her, gently, and her head lolls back. "Arra. Arra wake up." She does not stir, and his heart aches. "Arra." He lets go of her hand, which falls to her side, and brushes the hair from her face. Her mouth is still curved in a smile, but there is something different about it now, something wrong. He caresses one finger over her bottom lip, eyes burning, and makes the death's touch sign. "Even in death may you be triumphant, Arra Sails. I am sorry." And through his tears he cannot see her still smiling face as he breathes, "I love you."