I Miss You

   "I'm sorry I haven't visited for so long."

   I kneel and place the solitary white rose in front of the gravestone, nestling it amongst the accumulated moss and cracks of a hundred years. I haven't been here for a decade or more, and the place is getting less and less familiar with each visit – which is odd, because I had thought the reverse would be true.

   I suppose that's because I'm… well, losing touch with the human world, to put it bluntly. Ever since Dracula turned me, and gave me this blessing – this curse – of an eternal life in the shadows, I've been slipping away from what makes… made me human. I don't know how much longer it'll be before I don't come back here any more, but I'm going to make sure that I make the most of the time I have here, just in case.

   I kneel at the side of the grave and pat the headstone gently with one pale hand, the sharply-contrasting nails on it painted as blood-red as my fangs after a successful hunt. "It's good to see you, sweetheart – I've missed you so much." I smile, exposing my lengthened, needle-sharp canines for a moment, before I close my mouth, almost ashamed to show him what I've become in the intervening years between his death and this moment.

   I remember just after it first happened, I begged him to let me turn him as well. It might have helped me avoid this little ritual – we could have been together forever, just like in one of those old fairy tales. But I don't think he ever looked at me the same way again; he couldn't bear to know that we could never walk in the mansion's grounds unless the sun had set, or that the crucifix I used to wear around my neck burned my skin and made me hiss with fear every time I saw it, or that the holy water Kurt "accidentally" spilled on my arm left burns so ugly that I still carry the scars to this day.

   "You and me, babe… we could have been contenders," I say softly, rubbing the gravestone gently with my dead fingers. "Why didn't you listen to me?" I can feel a bloody teardrop beginning to bead at the corner of my eye – which surprises me, since I haven't cried in years (I mean, really, what reasons do vampires have to cry?). The last time was when I had to leave the mansion for good; leave the mansion and leave him behind. When he brought me my ration of slaughterhouse-bought blood, I'd begged him to let me turn him as well, but he said no. I knew he wanted me to do it, on some level – I could smell it in his sweat, feel it in the hairs on the back of his neck, and see it in his eyes. I could feel it when I traced my tongue along the skin of his throat, my teeth scratching his flesh and drawing thin lines of his blood. It tasted so sweet, I had to restrain myself from taking any more; at that point I was still trying to be human, after all. I could have taken it anyway, I guess, but I didn't. I regret that now – if it's possible for something like me to still harbour regrets, at least.

   I ran then, ashamed of what I'd become. I ran, and I didn't look back. And even after more than a century of un-life, it still stings; I feel as if I'm saying the exact same things I said the last time I was here, and that nothing apart from the moss on the headstone has changed. It's still so painful – even right in the centre of my unbeating heart there is a place where his loss will never completely heal.

   They say time heals all wounds.

   Right.

   Time is the one thing I have plenty of, and I still feel as empty as I did the day I left you.

   I wonder if that's a punishment from God for becoming what I am? I did choose this, after all – Dracula offered it to me and I couldn't refuse. I don't know how he did it, but he mesmerised me, and I couldn't resist him. He took me in his arms and bit my neck so gently I almost didn't feel it. All the others saw when they found me were two small bite marks on my neck, and living in a modern world as they did, they didn't think it could have been a vampire.

   But then he returned over the next two nights and he… he changed me. The agony of the transformation was incredible, but then everything stopped hurting. That was the last time I ever felt any pain.

   Physically, anyway... emotional pain is another story altogether.

   "I wish I could tell you something new about me," I whisper through cold lips, "but I can't – I've been doing the same thing I've been doing since I ran away. I'm a killer, and I can't stop. I don't want to stop. And I'm so ashamed." Another bloody tear drips off my nose and I wipe it away with the back of my hand. "I don't know why. I've been doing it for so long I've lost count of how many people I've killed – how many new vampires I've created. Why should I be ashamed of what I am? I can't change that now, any more than I can bring you back." I take a deep breath (not that I need to) and look down at the ground for a moment or two, as if I'm suddenly afraid of what I've come to say. "Actually, I had another reason for coming here today. I just wanted to tell you that I'm not going to come back any more. I think I'm doing this on purpose, to try and convince myself I'm still human, somehow, when I'm not. Not any more." I pause, gripping the gravestone with one hand in order to steady myself. "I love you, Scott. I'll always love you… but I can't come back anymore. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

   And as I melt away back into the night that has become my home for the past century, I think I can feel Jean Grey finally dying inside me, the Phoenix's firebird snuffed out for good.

   All I have left is the night.