Full Summary: Steve Leonard. It had been two whole years since the name had come up, but Annie Shan could surely never forget such a strange individual. And when she suddenly meets him again on a cold September night, what is she to say? StevexAnnie, SPOILERS to Book 11, T for language. First romance fic I've written in a while, forgive me if I'm a bit rusty.

Morning comes slow today

Memories push through from yesterday

Where will I be tomorrow?

What do I have to show?

From my life

Stay

I need you here for a new day to break

Stay

I want you near like a shadow in my wake

- "Stay" - Poets of the Fall

Steve Leonard. It had been two whole years since the name had come up. Two years since that one strange day in August when he suddenly took off on a train, shouting out the window about how he was going to slay a vampire and become a hero. Something about me admired his tenacity, even then at the age of 14, and perhaps even now. Of course, back then, I thought it was a little strange that he still believed in vampires after all those years, but now I knew it probably had something to do with Darren.

I remember that old rumor about that one time just a year after Darren's death how he suddenly blew up about how useless algebra would be to him six years from now when he was fresh off his fiftieth kill. Or the rumor about how not six months later he was caught sharpening a wooden stake in woodshop. Or the terrible tale of the poor cat he'd disected in front of his whole chemistry class in the eighth grade. And least I forget the one about him supposedly threatening to "hack off [his teacher's] head and replace it with the flag in front of the school to display it to everyone who [passed] by" (exact words. Supposedly.) Eventually, they took him to a clinic run by people in all-white suits and told us all that he'd be "Better in no time". "Better". Sure. He marched right out of the clinic in less than a month and sure enough, ten weeks later, the rumors of him and his vampire obsession were back up and running at full speed.

But as soon as he hit 16, the boy took his whole water jug of savings and took a train to the other side of the country, and then a boat to France to continue his trip. They later found a journal in his room detailing the specific way he was going to gut open "his" heart, precisely the angle the stake would go in, the perfect conditions for the wood and for the garlic, the type of knife he'd need to cut off his head and exactly how much it would cost in five years (he allegedly had made a rather involved graph of the direction the economy was most likely to go in and what affect it would have on the knife industry).

Everyone in the neighborhood knew about Steve the Crazy, Steve the Psycho, Steve the Lunatic, Steve the This, Steve the That. And somehow I always felt like I was the only one who had any idea as to why he was the way he was. Why he had such a lust for blood. Why his obsession persisted beyond those childlike years. And for some reason I hadn't quite had it figured out until that one fateful night coming home from work when I finally saw him again.

It was a cold night in late September. The leaves were beginning to fall, the air was starting to have a slight bite, the days were putting themselves to rest a bit sooner. Thus, when it was eight at night and I was travelling home from work on foot in the twilight, I was starting to feel just a bit more on edge.

I sighed deeply to test the coldness of the air. Sure enough, a whitish steam exhaled from my lips in a cloud in front of my eyes, warming my nose and sending a welcomed chill down my spine. The words of a song that had played on the radio a bit earlier rang through my head pleasantly. The tmp-tap of my heels against the pavement unconsciously timed themselves to the beat.

As the last inches of light creeped out of the sky, the uneasy feeling in my stomach began to stir. I'd always had a strange fear of the dark; I couldn't help it. I hid under the gracious streetlamps as though they were giving me some kind of prediction. I laughed to myself nervously and let my eyes fall to the sidewalk below. What did I need protection from? This was a quiet neighborhood. Nothing strange has ever really happened hear for two years. Two whole years...

That's when I saw him. Heard him, rather, but that was beside the point.

"Annie Shan? Is that you?"

I literally jumped. My eyes shot up in front of me, searching for the origin of the noise. All I saw was a spot of light under a streetlamp and no one else. A voice behind me chuckled. My head whipped toward its direction - the streetlamp right behind me.

Sure enough, there was the trouble-maker from two years ago. Somehow I wasn't surprised. I really should've been, looking back on it now.

"Too lost in your own thoughts to notice someone you haven't seen for two whole years?" He asked. I nodded shyly. He laughed lightly to himself. He sounded just like he had two years ago. No... maybe his voice was a bit deeper. His hair had gone completely white over the years, which wasn't strange. He'd been well on his way to a full head of white hair the last time I'd seen him. He tossled his hair and added, "Now that I think about it, you were there to see me off, weren't you?"

I blushed deep red. "Wh-what are you implying?"

He grinned. "I'm implying," he said, leening closer to me, probably just to make me blush deeper, "that you had something for me, didn't you?"

I opened my mouth to say something, but the words wouldn't come. I wanted to make a clever rebuttal about how practically half the town was there to see the departure of Steve the Insane, but that'd be an exaggeration and he'd know it. So what came out of my mouth instead sounded something like, "Buh... you... you're... y-you can't-"

"Be here?" He answered. Not knowing what else to do, I nodded dumbly. He smiled knowingly. "Ah, yes, but I am, aren't I? I was just away for a short while, trying to figure out the ways of the world. I've become enlightened since then, you know?" He did seem more mature than the last time I'd seen him... but I knew Steve. He was a natural when it came to acting. The sinking feeling in my stomach worsened.

"So why aren't you out there instead of here? Are you backtracking or something?" I asked, flustered.

He pouted. "How rude of you. Maybe I like it here. Or maybe I plan on going back to school, making things up with my Mom, letting the nice people in the white suits 'fix me up' and restore my reputation somehow." He head the expression for a good second before doubling over in laughter. "Yeah right!" He hollered.

Worried he'd cause a commotion, I shushed him. "Well if not for any of those things, then why are you here?"

He calmed himself down quickly and sighed. He was close enough that the steam from his breath nearly would've reached my face, had I been tall enough to see him eye to eye. "Evidently it's because I feel I've left some things behind." He smiled at me. Not one of his sly smiles he always had on while he was acting, but one far more sincere. "Like you, for one."

I shivered and adjusted the scarf hugging my neck so as to pretend I was shivering from the cold. I couldn't tell yet if it was a good shiver or a scared one. "Why... why me?"

He leaned a bit to pick up my hand and lightly pecked it. "Why else?"

I blushed even deeper than I had before. Snatching my hand from his, I immediately turned around and headed back in the direction of my house. How dare he show up out of the blue after two whole years and just openly flirt with me like that!

"Wait, Annie," he started again, clutching my shoulder with what seemed to be less of force and more of comfort. He'd somehow managed to catch up to me without making a sound.

I shrugged him off of me. "What do you want?"

"Listen to me, Annie," he pleaded. His eyes were surprisingly soft. I took a step back involuntarily. "Just give me a chance. I swear I'll never do anything to hurt you. I've learned better than to follow petty grudges and superstitions like I had in the past. You know about what happened between Darren and me, more than everyone else in this godforsaken town, anyway."

"What about it?" I asked nervously.

"You're like a co-conspirator to me, Annie." The way he said my name... I didn't think he was capable of such softness. "All I want is to set things straight over all this nonsense. I know it's been six years since his untimely death, but... I suppose it just takes a while to get over some things." He sighed. His gaze momentarily dropped to the ground. He closed his eyes for a second, then looked back to me. "Please, Annie. All I'm looking for here is a bit of closure. Would you give that to me? Help me finally be rid of my demons?"

I don't know what possessed me to nod, but I did. I was entranced by his stare, something I hadn't felt for two whole years.

He smiled graciously. "Thank you, Annie." He lifted my hand again to his lips and kissed it gently. "Thank you so much."

I smiled back. I wanted to say he didn't have to thank me, but I blinked for just too long and he disappeared. Suddenly I was standing under an anonymous streetlamp in the mere dawn of a cold late September night. I blinked again. Turned around. Three-hundred-sixty degrees. Above my head. Behind a nearby bench. He was gone! Vanished! Dissolved! I'd been gyped by a ghost! Finessed by a phantom! Bilked by a banshee, and various other alliterations.

There was no trace of the white-haired troublemaker from two whole years ago that had stood before me just moments before. Befuddled beyond belief, I turned in the direction of my house, shook my head so as to snap out of my confusion, and headed back home, unable to define the feeling of emptiness that my stomach had then held.

((A/N: Ah, I love this couple~ It's such a shame Mr. Shan never did much with them. This story is basically what I think happened to him. If I ever get that far, it'll eventually coincide with my other story, The Gibsellent Diaries. Or, rather, it'll be canon with it. In other words, Stevey's relationship with Annie is meant to go like this, in my mind. 3 I can't wait to write the rest of this! It's going to be so much fun~

((So let me know what you think. I'll probably continue this regardless of how many I reviews I get, but I still like to hear back from you guys. :) Thanks for reading!

((~Elly))