First there was darkness. Then there was pain.
Then he opened his eyes.
A vision of beauty swam before him; raven black hair, rose red lips, snow white skin.
Snow White...
Snow White had woken the prince with a kiss.
"You're...there, aren't you?" Her voice was sweet and familiar, but the memories hadn't quite returned yet.
"Yes," he gasped; he would never get used to this pain, he thought. He couldn't remember life without it, yet it never ceased to shock him. He sat up, the girl leaned back to give him space, and he began to remember who she was. A friend. "Rose, isn't it?"
"That's me." She seemed oddly cheery.
"What happened?"
"Well we were talking last night - I was helping you with some Charms - and suddenly you went pale and bolted for the door. So naturally I followed you. I followed you all night," she added matter-of-factly.
"But, I didn't...?"
She shook her head with an enigmatic smile he would come to call her trademark. "Gareth Nightshade, you have a lot to learn about me."
Three weeks after their first proper meeting, Rose found herself in detention with Gary, polishing trophies while the rest of the fifth years enjoyed the first Hogsmeade weekend of the term. It was very unfair. She had wanted to buy a new quill. And the cleaning was taking forever - Gary was so slow and tired. But of course she forgave him. She hadn't been effectively stalking her fellow Ravenclaw for two and a half years (excluding school holidays) to lose it all because he wasn't pulling his weight when it came to dusting. No way. Not after they'd met so successfully. She glanced secretly over at him polishing a silver shield half-heartedly and immediately looked away, blushing.
Gary couldn't concentrate on the task at hand - not in the same room as Rose, while she stood on tiptoes in her too-short school skirt and high stockings. She was still a girl, yes, but there were plenty of hints about the kind of woman she would become - pretty big hints as well. She was nice, and much prettier than most people judged, but there was still something a bit weird about her, which explained why he had been trying to avoid her since she woke him up in the forest. Had she...kissed him? He had a distinct memory of feeling something warm and soft against his lips. Had he missed his first ever kiss? And from her, too? But, more mysteriously, why had he started to transform in her presence? That night, that change had been so...intense, as if she, she, was some kind of catalyst to him. And the kiss...
Luckily she broke the silence, albeit nervously. "Are you...doing anything tonight?"
"Apart from sleeping, no," he replied, sounding grumpier than he'd meant to.
"You should come out with us tonight, then. Faith and I, I mean. We always go out on Saturday nights."
"Go out where?"
"The Hog's Head. Where else?" She spoke as if it were the most obvious and natural thing in the world.
"But..."
"Oh, come on! Not afraid of breaking some rules are we, Gareth Nightshade?" She grinned, and he had to give in.
"Are you sure this is the right passage?" he asked in a dubious hiss. Every sound echoed; his crunching footsteps, the dainty tap-tapping of Rose's high heels, the dripping of water onto damp, cold stone.
"Of course it is - I've done this hundreds of times," she hissed back. But she stopped walking for a moment and stood still, and he admired her in the wandlight. She was - or ought to have been - every pubescent boy's dream; her long hair fell like an inky waterfall down her back, almost to her waist, her face and neck and bare shoulders looked as thought they had been carved from the finest marble, her eyes were dark and wide and dreamy, her lips were always red - always - and her teeth a brilliant white behind. Those lips, that mouth... And her body, oh, her body! Curves the kind you only thought existed in the imagination, and, though she was shorter than him even with the added four inches her shoes gave her, her legs were long and slim, pale as the rest of her...oh, her legs! She knew what to show off too; fishnet tights, a tiny black dress, low cut, and she was holding a leather jacket for when they got outside.
He cleared his throat, very aware that he was staring. "Didn't you...didn't you say your friend was coming?"
"Faith?" Faith Liquin, Ravenclaw's answer to Hermione Granger. Smart, beautiful and perfect - far more popular than 'Miss Granger' though - and Rose's best friend. The professors called them twins. They were almost identical, only Rose was shorter and Faith didn't tend to wear lipstick. "I don't know if she's coming, she said she had to meet someone."
"Rose, can I...ask you something?"
"You just did." She smiled and added, "Go on."
"How much do you know about me?"
She paused. Then she spoke in quite a rush. "Your name is Gareth Nightshade, you're just sixteen, you've never had a girlfriend but you like redheads and blondes, you love to eat chocolate and you keep a bar under your bed always, you don't really have any family, you're a pureblood wizard, you keep a diary sometimes, you have a nice laugh and a nice smile, you love to play Quidditch - you're a beater - and you love flying in general and you...you're a vampire."
"How do you -"
"Know all this? What else can a teenage girl do to occupy her mind?"
Gary raised his eyebrows. "It doesn't...bother you?"
"No," she said, but she seemed nervous.
"In the forest, after I..." He paused, then worked up the courage to continue. "Did you kiss me?"
"No," she answered, frowning slightly. "Do you...want me to?"
"Yes." He couldn't lie to such an outright question. Staring at her face in the flickering, greenish light, he couldn't tell whether she was nervous or pleased. She walked over to him slowly, every step echoing in the dark tunnel. The light from her wand went out as she reached him, plunging them both into pitch darkness. He could sense her face very close to his and her warm breath tickled his lips. Then she leaned in with her mouth against his, slow and sweet, and he realised that her body was pressed to his at the same time as the tip of her tongue touched the join between his lips. Following her lead, he wrapped his arms around her; hers snaked about his neck. Before he knew it, he'd pushed her against the damp wall of the tunnel, still kissing her, more deeply than he could ever have imagined was possible. It felt so good. It felt so right.
Then, suddenly, the blackness in front of his eyes turned crimson. He could feel his pulse quicken, and the pain as if his brain was being squeezed in a giant fist. He stumbled backwards away from Rose, his cry of pain bouncing around the tunnel and confusing him even more. His vision went blurry - there were three girls frowning concernedly, three girls stepping towards him as he fell to his knees.
"Get me out of here!" he managed to gasp, clenching his fists and drawing blood where his fingernails punctured his palms. But it was too late. The fangs were growing. And then, for Gary at any rate, everything went black...
When he woke, he felt more drained than ever before. He was still in the tunnel, still lit only by Rose's wand, which lay on the floor a few feet away. Rose... He looked around, and eventually spotted her in the gloom; in her dark clothes she blended into the shadows. She sat against the tunnel wall, her knees drawn tightly up to her chest and her face hidden behind her hair. He realised she was crying.
"Rose...?" He scrambled to his knees and crawled in her direction. His own pain was forgotten now he could see her distress. "What is it?" She flinched from his outstretched hand. Oh God, he hadn't...?
"It's...nothing," she said, sniffing, still transfixed by her knees.
"Did I bite you?"
"No...well, not exactly..."
"What happened?"
Silence.
"Rose, you have to tell me." But she had closed herself off, and she wouldn't open up for anyone. It was useless to try.
She couldn't sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw that face again; the teeth... It wasn't Gary. It was a different person. He looked different, but the same. He spoke differently, but the same. His laugh wasn't nice like Gary's, but cold and cruel and evil. He was slimmer, but at the same time more masculine, more muscular. His facial features were more defined; his nose was sharper, his cheekbones more prominent. His hair was different too - Gary's was a very dark brown and straight, but his was more like a bluish black, and it was scruffy. Messy. He ought to have been better looking than Gary, but he wasn't. There was something in his black eyes that said, 'I am evil. I am pure evil. You should fear me, little girl.'
Carefully, she began to go over what had happened. If she studied every detail now, while it was all fresh, it might not haunt her so much in the future. So Gary had screamed in pain, and writhed around on the floor - or she thought it had been Gary. Now she remembered it, it could have been him all along. Once the transformation was complete, he had sat up, sniffed - like an animal - and then those wandering black eyes had settled on her. They had stared right through her, like twin drills boring into her skull.
"Well, well, well, what a pretty piece of meat..." He had murmured in his precise, low voice. The fangs made it difficult for him to talk; he spat every consonant as best he could. He approached her as she stood against the wall, paralysed with fear and a perverse desire to see what would happen. He reached out a pale, spidery hand, and ran one of his long fingers down her cheek, her chin, her neck, her collar bone. "What beautiful skin, you have," he said, speaking to himself more than to Rose. Then he replied to his comment in falsetto. "All the better for you to eat, my dear!" He laughed - a short, high pitched, crazed cackle - then his face became deadly serious once more.
"W-who are you?" Rose breathed, her voice returning, albeit timidly.
"Very perceptive," he said, tapping her nose and smiling crookedly. "Not everyone can tell that I'm different to him. Interesting... You must be very observant, R...R..." He appeared puzzled for a moment, then closed his eyes. His brow furrowed, as if he was concentrating very hard on the inside of his eyelids. Finally, he opened them again. "Rose," he said with a smile. His breath was cold upon her lips.
"You still haven't answered me," she replied in a low murmur, leaning back against the wall. Her newfound boldness seemed to have manifested itself as flirtatiousness.
"Well, well, well, my pretty little flower, how can I refuse to answer you when you put it like that?" His peculiar smile widened, and he stepped forward to match the distance she had leaned back, keeping them as close together as they had been before. Rose got the strange impression that he was feeding on her warmth. "My name is Sammael." He spoke it as if each syllable was a separate word: Sam-mae-el.
"Sammael," she whispered, blending the three syllables together in a way in which he couldn't. The sound of his name on her lips seemed to please him.
"Say it again," he murmured. She shook her head playfully. He frowned, and barked, "Say it again!"
"Sammael," she repeated, adding a theatrical sigh at the end as if she were speaking of a long lost love.
He laughed. "I knew a girl like you, once! An actress! Bella Dubois, she said her name was, though I knew her as Jane West. 1921, I think... She had red lips and black hair too." He seemed to slip into a dream.
"And what happened to her?"
"I killed her," he replied shortly, snapping back to reality. "And I drank her dry. She was one of the best I've ever tasted..."
Rose said nothing. She could see what he was hinting at, plain as day. It had only just struck her how truly dangerous a vampire could be.
"Give me something," he ordered. He was like a child, his mind flitted between things so freely and quickly.
"I'll only give to you what I'd be willing to give to Gary."
Sammael leapt backwards and spat on the ground. "Don't speak of that idiot when you are with me! Now offer me something, and I shall judge whether it is adequate."
Very aware that it could be the most dangerous thing she could or would ever do, Rose took three soft steps towards him. His eyes drifted down her body, surveying her, and came to rest on her bare legs just where her dress stopped, a few inches down her thighs. She stood before him, presenting herself to him. She felt like a prize, a piece of meat. Then she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, at the same time as she wrapped her arms around his neck. She tiptoed in her high heels to reach him, she pressed her body tightly to his, she flicked her tongue across his lips and licked his sharp fangs. He was motionless. He did not respond to her movements.
"Was that adequate?" she asked softly as she broke the kiss.
"Not quite," he growled in reply as he grabbed her wrists and pinned her against the wall again. She cried out in surprise and he laughed. "Poor little girl," he mocked, pouting in fake sympathy. "Thought she could have a bit of romance with a vampire, did she? Well, she'll have to learn the hard way, just like all the others!" He kissed her with incredible force, her head slamming back against the wall so hard she was surprised she didn't pass out. She was trapped so tightly between him and the cold wall that she couldn't even move to kiss him back, let alone to lash out to defend herself. And then... Then it happened. His mouth slipped, his fang got in the way and punctured her lip. She felt the familiar metallic taste of blood in her mouth. And he stopped kissing. He let go of her wrists. He stood back, staring at her, licking his lips and shaking his head in disbelief. "Exquisite," he whispered breathlessly. "Exquisite...beautiful...delicious... Let me have my fill!" he cried, and was about to leap at her, when she ducked out of the way and screamed,
"No!"
It stopped him in his tracks. "No? No? Why no? I drink when I want, I kill when I want, and now I want to do both! I will not be stopped by a little girl!"
"Wait, wait... My...blood. My blood, is it...good?"
He let out a short, outraged barking laugh. "Good? My dear, you do not know how much restraint I need to listen to you now. Perhaps it is because your body and your scent are almost as beautiful as your taste. Now finish your dying words, my pretty little flower!"
"Don't kill me!" she screamed.
"Why not?"
"Because...because if you do, you'll never taste this again." The words seemed to hit him hard. For someone who had lived for so long, he had little concept of patience. "If you kill me now, you'll drink my blood and it will be all gone, forever. But... I could allow you a small amount, so we could both survive, and you could drink whenever you liked. I... I seem to be able to make you appear. I don't know why, but when I'm around, I think it makes the transformation...easier." A sudden idea popped into her head. "Can you see and hear things that happen in Gary's life?"
"Sometimes, yes. Tell me what you are planning, my clever little Rose..."
"Well... If we had a code - a signal - that you wanted to come out, you could make Gary say it or do it and I could set you free."
"And why would you do this? I am not stupid, Rose. I do not think you would do this just out of the kindness of your heart."
"This is true. There would be...conditions."
"Like...what?"
"You...you could only drink from me." She stumbled to her feet, and looked him squarely in the eyes. "And you could only be with me. You wouldn't be able to leave my side. You wouldn't be allowed to hurt anyone else."
He thought for a moment. "That seems...fair."
"Then...we have a deal?"
"Yes. But we must seal it!" He became excited again, and he wrapped his arm around her waist and leaned forward, dipping her backwards in some bizarre romantic dance. "You know how vampires seal promises, Rose, my dear? With blood." And he plunged his fangs deep into her neck and drank as her body grew limp in his strong arms.
When she'd woken up, he'd been sleeping on the ground. She'd crawled over to the wall, and, overcome by the terrifying reality of what she had said, what she had done, she'd begun to cry. She cried and cried and cried until Gary woke up and asked her what was wrong. Then she returned to the castle with him, silent and cold and shaken.
Two weeks later, and still no 'talk' with Gary about what had happened. In fact, they'd both been avoiding each other. Rose returned to the dorm room she shared with four other girls after an exhausting and altogether boring day, and threw her schoolbag onto her bed. There was a note on her pillow, in spidery, scratchy handwriting she didn't recognise. Quickly, while no one else was there, she grabbed it and tore it open.
My dear little Rose,
Tonight, I think we should go on a date. I should like to know you better. You somewhat captivate me. Heaven only knows why Gareth has neglected you for so long - your beauty in both body and mind has haunted me these past days. Thus, I have concluded that I should like to show you my world. However, I am weak, and you must help me. You must go to Gareth's bed while he sleeps. Kiss him, and I should awake. Then I shall take you somewhere which is almost as beautiful as you.
As promised,
Sammael
The letter filled her with both excitement and dread. Beautiful? Her? Rose Ligeia Quattromini? Beautiful? He truly thought so? He, who had seen so many women, and commanded such power that he could own any girl's heart in the whole world? But every moment she spent thinking of him, of Sammael - and there had been a considerable number of moments - was a betrayal of Gary, however little interest he seemed to show in her. She had loved him first, and she had been so close to having that love returned, after all those years of following him in the shadows. And now... Now she was in far too deep, and had no idea which way to turn.
As night crept over the castle, she was still undecided about what to do. She sat in the common room, glancing over at Gary's hunched form in the shadows as he scribbled some notes on some ripped parchment. How could she betray him? How could she be a part of the plan of someone so evil, someone who caused him so much pain? She looked away hurriedly as she saw him fold the piece of parchment, address it, and get to his feet. He looked over at her; she could feel his indecision hanging in the air. Then he looked around the common room, and saw that she was his only option. He approached.
"Hi, Rose," he breathed with the utmost sincerity. She looked up from the book she had been pretending to read for two and a half hours and saw that there was a nervous yet serious look on his face. "Can you, umm, do me a favour?"
"Of course - what is it?"
"Can you give this to Faith for me?" He held out the note. Rose frowned. As far as she knew, Faith and Gary had never spoken.
"Yes..." she said, though she raised her eyebrows.
"You...you can read it. You are my best friend, after all. Just... Make sure she gets it, okay?"
"I promise," she said, pretending to be cheerful when really her heart was sinking fast within her chest and her stomach was performing acrobatics. She took the note.
When she was alone in her dorm - Faith was out with yet another admirer - she found the courage to read the note. After all, Gary had said she could, hadn't he? It wasn't a crime. She was allowed to... But still it felt wrong. When she read it, she understood why.
Dear Faith,
We haven't ever spoken, but I'm friends with your friend, Rose. I don't know if she's ever spoken about me. The thing is, whenever I see you around school, I want to talk to you but I'm far too shy. Perhaps you could meet me on Friday night, by the entrance to the passage leading to Hogsmeade. Rose told me that you knew where it was. I hope you can make it. I understand if you can't.
Yours hopefully,
Gary Nightshade
As soon as she finished it, Rose felt tears pricking the backs of her eyes. So he really was that stupid? He couldn't see what was right in front of him? And of course he would want Faith, truly; she was far prettier, she always had been, and Rose was too insecure, too desperate to be able to attract anyone decent. But...he'd asked her to kiss him. She knew his secrets. And she was the 'best friend'. Yes; she would deliver the letter. She placed it carefully on Faith's pillow, just as her own love note had been.
One good betrayal deserves another...
At midnight - the only time for the darkest of deeds - Rose slipped silently out of her bed, dressed herself, and carried her shoes out of her dorm. She hesitated at the staircase into the boys', then with a deep breath she began to climb. It took her a few moments to spot Gary - most of the Ravenclaw boys had dark hair and pale skin - but when she saw him he was unmistakeable. She had studied that face, that form, for too long to not recognise it. She hurried to his bed, wanting to get this whole business finished lest anyone woke up to see what was happening, and knelt beside him. It was a brief kiss, just enough to make him sigh in his sleep. She smoothed his hair away from his forehead affectionately. When he was asleep, she could pretend that he didn't like Faith at all.
His eyes opened. Black, black eyes.
"Sammael?" she whispered as quietly as she could.
"My dearest," he murmured, running one of his long fingers across her cheek. "Are you ready for our date?"
She couldn't be quite sure how they got there, but one minute he was slipping his stone cold hands around hers, and the next they were standing, windswept, on the very edge of the Forbidden Forest. He looked up at the towering trees longingly.
"Dearest little flower, this is my paradise."
"I love it here," she replied breathlessly. An impulsive idea came to mind. "Catch me if you can!" she cried, and darted away from him, transforming into a vixen as she did so, and bounding off into the trees. He smiled that cruel, sickle-like smile which she had come to think of affectionately, and dived into the forest after her. He loved games. And, though he didn't like to admit it, he loved her.
Rose knew he would win. He could run much faster, he had a better sense of smell; he was designed to hunt things - people - down in this exact environment. She was just a girl who could turn into a fox. She stopped at the base of one of her favourite trees in the forest, and changed back into human form in a whirlwind of black and orange. Having discarded her shoes about ten minutes ago, she began to climb the tree. She swung through the branches, higher and higher, until she could see a good distance all around her. It wasn't difficult to spot him, and the zig-zag lines he made as he ran at his top speed, chasing her scent. As he approached her tree - fast - she felt an overwhelming desire to just give herself up, to jump down from the branches and lie on the ground in front of him. Slowly, she began to climb down, her hands shaking at the thought of what she wanted to do. She stood, leaning against the tree trunk, waiting.
"I, 2, 3, ready or not, here I come!" he whispered excitedly, then leapt into her clearing, landing right in front of her, licking his lips. "What's my prize, dear one?" She said nothing, just tiptoed and kissed him gently. "Is that all?" he chided her, frowning. "Dear, dear, what an awful lot of effort for such a pathetic reward. I might have to play with the other children next time…"
"No!" she shouted, louder and more suddenly than she'd thought, and reached out to touch his chest. "Don't go! You can have...anything you want."
"Anything?" She nodded, biting her lip. "Well, that certainly seems much more satisfactory…" He placed a finger under her chin and tilted her face upwards, then kissed her.
It was the most beautiful kiss. Even his fangs, which had seemed so crude and ungainly last time, were now graceful, perfectly formed pieces of machinery that Rose admired. She licked the tips of them - he seemed to take some pleasure from that - and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her in a strong, secure embrace. For the first time in many years, she felt safe. It felt right to kiss him; she'd forgotten completely about Gary, and now when she thought of Sammael's face, she didn't see cruel and evil features like she had last time. It was just beauty. She put her arms around his neck, tugged at his hair ever so gently, pressed her body to his, which caused him to tighten his hold. Her lips moved to his neck, licking gently the two puncture marks that proved his race. He let out a sigh of pleasure, then pushed her roughly against the tree trunk.
"I might not be exactly at Hogwarts," he whispered cruelly as he held her head in place. "But I pick up on the gossip, my dear. Waiting until the second date is rather...quaint… for you, isn't it, Miss Quattromini?"
"W-what do you mean?"
"Give me what I'm owed!"
She regained her dignity by taking off her dress herself. He licked his lips at the sight of her in her underwear. She thought he'd continue to be playful, but the moment she started to remove her bra, he was throwing her to the ground and kneeling over her.
"You are pretty, my little Rose, some might say beautiful. I would say beautiful. But do not ever try to trick me again, my dear. Sammael knows. Sammael always knows…"
"Sammael," she murmured, with the little theatrical sigh she'd come to attach to his name. That word in her voice always excited him. "I'm aching for your touch, my darling."
"Then you shall have it," he said, through gritted teeth, as he hastily unbuttoned his jeans. Rose got to work on his shirt, and soon his white chest was revealed; beautiful, like a Greek sculpture.
Naked seemed to be how he was meant to be, Rose thought, as he knelt before her. Like his default setting, like clothes ruined him. He rolled onto his back, and pulled her on top of him, keeping a tight grip on her waist.
It was rough. When she awoke afterwards, she had bruises and scratches all over her body, as well as the two dripping holes in her neck, but as she looked at her sleeping lover, and the sweet, calm smile on his face - the sort of innocent smile she'd never seen on him before - she knew that she had made love. She fell asleep again, and woke up in her bed in her dorm, as if the whole night had been a fantasy dreamed up in her imagination. Even her battle wounds were gone or fading fast. The only evidence that it had been real was a small, origami crane on her bedside table, which opened itself when she picked it up:
My darling,
The time drags on so without you. Please release me again soon. I cannot bear to not be kissing your lips. Release me from this hopeless body, so I can love you once again, or release me from this terrible enchantment you hold over me.
Your possession, forever,
Sammael
It was an exaggeration, yes, but it put a girlish grin on her face, to be certain.
Months passed, and the love between girl and vampire blossomed, until they were at the point of discussing running away together. Rose had forgotten Gary altogether; he was just yet another obstacle to keep her from her Sammael, as far as she was concerned. That isn't to say she wanted to get rid of him, it was just that she had become indifferent to him. And he felt the same about her.
He was obsessed with Faith - almost as obsessed as Rose had been with him. He followed her religiously, he did whatever she asked, just to get her to smile in his direction. If Rose had been able to warn him, perhaps he would have understood that she was not going to return his devotion. She was part veela, half French, beautiful and intelligent, and altogether insecure. Like Rose had been, she would take as many admirers as she could, to convince herself she was worthy of one of them. Perhaps she believed that Gary only wanted her body. No one could say. But he chased her and chased her, and eventually she graced him with one perfect kiss.
But someone saw. A quiet boy named Edward, the year above Gary, Rose and Faith, and infatuated with the latter. He was truly the favourite to win, out of all Faith's devotees. And Rose had a sneaking suspicion he was a vampire, too. Not that she took an interest, of course.
Now, a vampire knows a vampire, as the old saying goes, and Edward recognised Gary for what he truly was, one way or another. And he vowed to get rid of him. So one night, one dark night when the moon was turning her face, he waited in the forest. There - they approached! A vampire, running as only vampires could, carrying a beautiful pale girl with long black hair. Gary and Faith, or so Edward assumed. So he broke a branch off the tree he was sitting in, perched like some terrible vulture, and began to follow the couple. They laughed, they smiled, they kissed, they undressed - Faith must be under some horrific spell, he thought - and he watched them make love in the pitch darkness. And… Gary plunged his teeth into Faith's neck? That made Edward's bones burn, and the scent of sweet, floral blood - like wine - left him more eager than ever for the kill. He landed in their clearing with a thud that shook the trees for miles around.
The first thing he noticed was that the girl was not Faith. It was Faith's friend, that rather strange girl called Rose, who was quiet but not quiet, pretty but not quite pretty. Edward frowned. And that was Gary, but not quite Gary. He was too angry to consider it all properly. And while Rose screamed, begging him not to, don't do it, stop, stop, stop, he plunged the tree branch deep into the other vampire's chest. Rose grabbed for her wand, shrieking, "Crucio!" and shooting a jet of red light at him. It was pain beyond belief, but not as painful as watching that poor, little girl screaming and sobbing over the body of her dead beloved. She tore at her hair, scratched her cheeks, tried to drip some of her own blood onto his lips in the vain hope that it could wake him.
He was gone.
Gary awoke in the hospital wing, with no recollection of how he'd got there. His chest was covered in tight bandages, but there was no wound, just a slight twinge of pain as he moved - as if he'd pulled a muscle. Rose was sat next to his bed, a glum expression on her face as she stared at the wall. There was something different about her, as if… Well, as if a part of her had died. Her eyes were no longer bright and twinkling, she had forgotten to paint her lips red, her hair hung limply, with no flowers decorating it as usual. Instead of wearing her normal, elaborate dresses, she was dressed in something he'd never seen her wear before: jeans and a baggy jumper, and some beaten-up sneakers. She was sitting cross-legged on the chair, occasionally running her hand through her hair, always staring at the same place on the wall.
"Rose?"
She snapped her gaze onto him. "You're awake," she said simply.
"What happened?"
"You...had a fall. Tripped." He knew she was lying. "Down the stairs. You've been asleep for days."
He had a sudden remembrance of something strange, an odd sensation perhaps from his concussed dreams, of Rose and something sensual. "While I was asleep, did you...kiss me?"
She shook her head.