Title: And I Knew Nothing, Looking into the Heart of Light, the Silence

Author: OpheliacAngel

Characters & Pairings: Merrill/Marty, Prof. Murdoch, Karl/Essie (mentioned), The Fury

Genres: Romance/Angst/Family

Rating: Teen

Summary: In the beginning, Murdoch almost lost his will, his faith, his hope. After such numbness in her mind, Merrill picks up the pieces, and Marty figures there's only one way for someone to make it out alive.

Warnings: Post-Apocalypse, Blood-drinking, Blood-deprivation, Hinting at Character Death(s)

A/N: A fill on my h/c_bingo card for 'planet destruction.' Set in a post-apocalyptic world post-series.

References: The title and two verses are taken from T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land;' the verse in the ending author's note is also. The song that Merrill sings is Mark Shekter's 'Merrill and Marty's Blues,' which was featured in the episode 'Lost Weekend.' Lyrics in italics that serve as breaks, as well as in the beginning and ending, which are in between ~, are from Lapush's 'Aurora.'

A/N 2: So I figured I'd do Vampire High some justice and dedicate an entire bingo to the show, with this as my first (written) fill. Seriously guys, all the episodes are free and are less than a half-hour on Youtube, go check them out.

A/N 3: God, this is such a monstrosity.

~On your side, yeah it's real big

Holding on to everything you give

Say my name when you want to it's just fine

Keep me here forever in this flight~

The war was over before it had even truly begun. The Fury had won.

There were vampires who had fought and humans alongside them, very few but present and active all the same. It made not the slightest difference, both vampire and human fell into the perpetual flames and were not so much as memory before long. It was during the summer that the world came to a standstill, the heat not so much as burning their hand prints into the earth that had housed them for so long. His day school students had fled back to their homes and their families but those few making up the night school had remained, waiting out the storm with him.

Yet the storm would not be waited out, not this time. He envisioned the end in his dreams, indistinguishable from a premonition; he hated to call them that. Drew was the only one of them eager to fight, and soon he would be unstoppable. This was another vision: Drew fleeting Mansbridge Academy, never to be seen again. Like his vision he had not been able to stop it, nor that their side would lose.

But for Marty and Merrill the world had not ended quite yet.

In the beginning, Murdoch could not find Drew, only a lingering sketch he had drawn of Sherry. Murdoch had pocketed it and rushed downstairs to find his night students already packed and hovering anxiously in the classroom. Some paced and others sat, but all four heads shot up as he walked purposefully into the room. They were frightened, he could see it on all of their faces.

There was no time for fear or hesitation. They could not stay here, not even he.

In the beginning, Murdoch and the four vampires climbed into his Range Rover and took back roads. They kept to the wilderness before deciding to drive out to the ocean, trying in vain to get away from what was left of the world. Eventually they would catch a sentence here or there amid the droning static of the radio, alluding to the war still being fought in other countries, but Murdoch knew it was a lost cause. Soon the entire world would be plunged into darkness. Back then there was no ash but perpetual rain, as if the world were trying to rid itself of the Fury.

Or as if trying to drown out the remaining vampires.

In the beginning, Murdoch almost lost his will, his faith, his hope.

Their days together had not been long. Karl and Essie had been driven away by an encounter with one of the Fury, who were scouting for any living being: vampire or human. Before their separation, Murdoch fought in vain to hide his recurrent nightmares of humans slipping and sliding in their own blood, choking on it, drowning in it. The others knew not how to comfort, but they were there with him nonetheless, hovering, refusing to leave his side. Maybe they knew what comfort was after all.

Merrill had initially clung to him like a second skin, but drifted away almost like a wraith after Karl and Essie disappeared into the mist. Marty watched her silently and even longingly, his usual overly sarcastic remarks few and far between. Murdoch wrote in his surviving journal that he missed them, that he couldn't bear to see the lost boy Marty had become, or Merrill's faceless mask, or Essie, so lost without her clothes and her nail polish and living in a world that no longer knew what those things were, honing in on the small things and panicking. Karl stepped up and left not a doubt in Murdoch's mind that he would lead if he were to fall back into that darkness.

But that was not as it had happened.

Karl and Essie had remained together, his arm wrapped around her shoulders even as her once vibrant energy drained out of her. Even after she had wandered away, as if intent to die on her own, and Karl had chased after her as if there were some invisible link between them. By the standards of vampires, they may not be soul mates, but they didn't quite need to be. Merrill and Marty were together too, inseparable even though they rarely talked to one another and though there once had been some degree of animosity between them.

Still, Murdoch often woke up gasping from nightmares; they were a weakness that he could no more run from than deny. Yet sometimes in the moments where illusion bled greedily into reality, he would hear the hushed voices of his two remaining family members. They never fed from him, nor were they ever tempted to. It was true, that he was not human, that they did not crave his blood as they craved the blood of humans. There were no humans left though, they had come across no one living for weeks.

He turned away when they fed from each other; it sickened him in a way nothing else could. That he could no longer provide for them, that they were so strong and giving and cared about one another to willingly weaken themselves. It was human in a way that not even most humans could live up to.

The Experiment had worked in a way that could never matter; this was the thought that brought silent tears to his eyes.

There were dreams of Merrill and Marty too. Dreams where they were ripped right out of Murdoch's hands. Where Murdoch would scream 'please' to no one who cared. Where the both of them fed from his vein and laughed at his corpse. Where they screamed as he was beheaded by the Fury. Dreams where Marty croaked out 'professor' and curled in on himself, body caving in from lack of blood, the final link Murdoch had to keeping Merrill sane fraying and then splitting apart completely. He watched Marty carefully after that dream. Murdoch's premonitions were not frequent, yet every time he pictured Marty shattering from the inside he fought to draw in a decent breath. He would keep a careful eye on the both of them.

Without them, he would have no strength to continue on.

They were the ones who pushed him further on now. Merrill seemed to tap into an innate sense of where to go that would take them farther away from danger. At night, however, her doubts caused her to come apart at the seams, and then it was up to Marty to console her. The two were an unlikely pair and couldn't be more different than Karl and Essie, and yet it warmed Murdoch in some ways even more than a coat could that they trusted and leaned on each other.

Murdoch would lose them too. It was only a matter of time.

The sacrifice went exactly as he had wanted it to.

It was only a matter of time when the Fury would catch up to them, picking up their scent. Either the scent of the remaining vampires or his own unique, not quite human scent. Though whether it was Murdoch who had put them in danger or done them more good than harm was still up for debate, at least in a different time and in a different world.

This was the end of Professor Murdoch's story.

The last entry hadn't been completed the night before; no, he was not psychic in that sense. Yet he had a sense for certain things that others could not explain. He supposed he had his own powers, you could call them, just as the vampires had their own. He feared one could call them graces, unless the word was involved in one of Marty's sarcastic comments. His final entry had been completed the week prior to the Fury finally securing their prize, or at least part of it. Murdoch knew not whether they wanted him or not, but maybe the fact that he wasn't quite human could prove useful to them. Maybe they believed he would help them find Marty and Merrill after they escaped.

Because they would, escape, that is.

His last sentences, last words, detailed what his students had taught him, that each one passed the Experiment and showed him love, compassion, hope and leadership. That they could survive in a world like this simply by their wits, strength and loyalty. He had smiled in the dark, under the dull light of the full moon, because Merrill and Marty, and Karl and Essie, wherever they were, and even Drew, who he had not seen for months, they were all his legacy. And a bright legacy they were.

Merrill looked back at him though dark eyes, wide and sharp and glowing with what he might have guessed was perpetual blood lust. Yet she never lunged and he never feared her. She sat near him, but not so close as to invade his privacy, sat watching him write as if it consoled a piece of her that had once been. She would have been a great writer, would have been able to weave ideas into beautiful stories of love and passion and sacrifice. She had shown him the light, and he would repay her by giving her the means to endure in the wasteland for just a little while longer.

Several lines from a long forgotten piece came to him and he plucked his quill from the inkwell sitting solemnly beside him and put it to crumpling paper.

The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf

Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind

Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.

It was a verse that should not be forgotten and so it would not be. The other verses would follow in the nights to come, when he had the energy to write. There were a few pages left as he closed his journal, covered it with his coat and settled down to sleep for a few hours.

His eyes scanned the ever-present, breathing night that the world was peeling away. There was a crack of thunder and a sharp gray light somewhere far off in the distance, reminiscent of long ago nights as a child, afraid of thunderstorms. His vampires paid no heed to the storm, even though it was one of many things hunting them in the dying night.

Marty was still picking his way among the ash and dust, guarded eyes forever scanning the horizon and searching for something Murdoch often wondered about. A way out, or a quiet place to rest away from the ever-looming threat of decimation. He would make no sound, but the brooding was loud enough to give Murdoch notions of shushing him and wrapping both he and Merrill in his arms, protective of them as his children.

Merrill sensed this childish weakness and often glanced over at Murdoch, sharp eyes melting as they collided with his own before she chided Marty for stripping the Professor of his sleep.

It was moments of weakness that made Murdoch love them too. Love was the only thing left to them now. Only love that was eternal would survive, and Merrill and Marty could hardly betray him now, or do anything for Murdoch to think any less of them.

So it was love that kept him here.

He eventually sunk into liquid-like dreams, thick and viscous, gray and red. There was no need for oxygen, without the need to breathe he was still sinking ever deeper into things he did not understand, into a world where he was prey just as well as his companions.

There was no longer distinction between them. In his dreams he could see this and this was beautiful as it was haunting.

All else would be forgotten soon enough.

Before he slept, he contented himself with what would unfold even without him to watch. Merrill would leave Marty be for another hour before she made her way over to him and bid him lay down next to her. He would come back to himself, joke, talk about things that had never seemed to matter then but now seemed startling given how they could mean nothing now even if they desired them to.

Murdoch would gravitate away from the saturnine expression etched so perfectly on Merrill as Marty's face slowly fell, burdened by repression and a bitter fear of rejection.

Foolish. Merrill had loved that boyish nature then, and she loved it now even though the lack of it was dangled tauntingly before both she and Murdoch.

Some nights Murdoch would wake up and hear them whispering, see their faint outlines no more than several feet from him. Sometimes he would wake and see Merrill still asleep, unconsciously curling against her fellow vampire, or awake and stroking back Marty's hair, smiling down at him as if she already knew Marty, inside and out, but was convinced there was more too.

He had been in love like that before, just once. The love in their eyes, not all humans, or rather, beings, experienced the depth of that emotion.

There was no shying away for Merrill now, no denying what the heart wanted when the world had become so seemingly simple, Murdoch supposed. Underneath, however, there was still confusion, irritation and hatred. Merrill lashed out occasionally, as if there were someone else inside of her, a presence crawling their way up to the surface, intent to wreak purposeful havoc. It was not something she could control easily, but Marty grounded her when she threatened to lose that ever-weakening control.

His self-sacrifice was one Murdoch had seen before, but the fact that it was such a large piece of Marty still puzzled him. It was a pleasant mystery and not an ill-meaning one. His role as a teacher was not only to guide but also to learn valuable truths himself, and he told himself never to be surprised. It seemed that since he had taken in his night students, he was surprised upon every turn. This was one of the rare gifts they had given him.

Still, he didn't mind their young love and that they didn't try to hide it. This was a part that he never realized he was teaching them, but these two had latched onto the concept of love quite desperately.

There was still beauty in their wasteland, and it helped that the last he saw of them as he threw himself in front of the three looming Fury, jumping headfirst into death's waiting arms, was the image of their arms wrapped around one another, holding onto each other for support. He closed his eyes as he fell to the ground and he could relive it, go back to that memory as often as his mind allowed him to, as long as he still breathed the toxic air and dreamed.

He could only hope that his sacrifice would not be in vain.

After the image there was darkness.

And after the darkness there was... nothing.

~On your side teach me the real thing

No time to think of the old scene

Say my name when you want to it's just fine

I'm still here forever in your arms~

Marty was still annoyingly weak from Merrill's last feeding.

He laid propped up against the remnants of a concrete wall while Merrill, feet tucked underneath her, pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear and fed him from her own wrist. He drank slowly, savoring the taste of her with half-lidded eyes, images of blood gushing from waterfalls he had never seen and familiarly from the throats of his once prey dancing behind his eyelids, consuming his cluttered mind.

Merrill took pity on him, soothing him with her words and the way her fingertips lingered at his hairline, trailing down his forehead with confidence and love. He moaned against her wrist and had his first attempt at closing his mouth to the flow of her blood.

They could not keep doing this.

Feeding off of each other left them vulnerable and prone to vivid hallucinations. Merrill had her fair share of hers, but she always brushed them aside afterward and Marty never had to hold her down. Marty's were almost always there, hovering in the foreground, and Merrill often had to tie him down with some sort of electronic cable she kept around for entirely that purpose. It pained Marty that he wasn't strong enough, not as strong as his girl, but Merrill's warning gaze pushed most thoughts away. He didn't mind, he didn't mind when it came to a lot of things anymore.

The present and even the past had become a blurring cacophony of feedings.

And there wasn't much to do but think about food, because food tied into that pesky thing called survival.

Merrill shot him one of her warning looks - and if looks could kill then that would do it - when he turned his head away, refusing to take anymore from her. His second attempt had proven successful and he managed to grin somewhat in triumph. It was becoming clear day by day that only one of them could make it, and if they both continued to deny this then they both would slip into nothingness. Better it was him, all the more better that Merrill was accepting this without recognizing frailty in that.

He opened his eyes and looked at her then, really looked at her, as if it would be the last time and he was promised that one image forever, away from all the blood and the surviving crap and watching Professor Murdoch being pummeled to the ground and dragged away and not knowing whether he was still alive. Away from the fear and the desperation and the knowledge that their existence had rapidly transformed from months into days.

Marty could feel that other thing pulling at him. Not really death, he had died already, after all, but whatever came after death. Whatever death decided to give him after this. It wasn't something he usually thought about, wasn't something he believed his kind typically thought about, but here at the end of the world, with nothing else to think about if you didn't want to picture the next time you could feed, heavy with the distaste that your next feed would consist of cold, slimy blood, the notion of after-death weighed easily on his mind without fault.

Could his sins be repented? And was he even sinning given that drinking blood was his basic nature? These were questions Professor Murdoch never gave voice to, and no doubt would have shooed away if any of them had expressed them. Coming from Marty they would have sounded like some part of a joke, but he felt like he had lost such a huge part of himself with this whole end of the world thing.

Maybe the good ol' Professor could always see through him. He had noticed a change in Marty too, the way he bared himself to Marty's eyes after Karl and Essie disappeared, the blatant way in which Professor Murdoch trusted him and wanted Marty to know it. He had earned that trust, and long ago it would have been enough.

It wasn't enough because he had betrayed that trust. He had left the Professor to his death, and he would not let Merrill down too.

He smiled and licked his lips. To be in the arms of Merrill, that's all he really wanted.

But he wouldn't let them die together, not like this. This slow and unsteady death, this calling out in the perpetual darkness for old and lingering life, this feeling of descending after all that time of ascending as a vampire. The fact that it had all been a lie, but a beautiful one at that.

But damn, Merrill looked beautiful just the way she was, eyes so bright and otherworldly, hair so dark in the waning light of a dying moon, her angelic face seeming to shine out from underneath all that ash and grime. She had chosen him in the same way that he had chosen her. She could leave him, if not for her need to feed. She could leave him if she didn't love him so much, that love calling to him like her siren song. But she would feed.

She was still so beautiful, and she was his too. His girl.

She would always be his girl.

"You need more, Marty. Take your fill." Her wrist was pressed against his mouth again, urgently this time, as if he were choosing to die right here and right now. What she didn't know was that he had already accepted his fate, at the same time taking Merrill's away from her. It had been going on for a while now. Maybe that was why Professor Murdoch had looked at him resignedly as their days together came to a close.

Maybe he had always seen their end.

But giving them a few more days time, how the hell was that worth it?

He licked her already healed wrist, still attracted by her scent and the softness of her skin, and managed a grin that definitely must have looked cracked to her. "Already have." Marty could have his fill of her blood, but never her, not in the way he wanted.

It was still better than not having her at all.

She stared at him curiously as if she were drifting away into dreams again, but bleeding more suspicion than her usual acceptance of an ingrained knowledge. Marty ignored that gut crunching feeling and shook his head. "M' good. Really. Just peachy. We can't both be half-cocked, one of us's got to be predatory and all." It was quite intelligent of him to point this out, more so because it was the truth. They both couldn't be running on fumes.

One of them had to be able to run.

His words slurred and blood was coating the back of his mouth, cold, congealing, almost slimy blood that clung to the roof of his mouth, to his numbing gums. He wanted to spit it back out, but self-preservation and fearing he'd upset Merrill forced him to swallow. He never thought anyone could survive off of vampire blood, but here they were: surviving.

She snorted, which was very unlike her, Marty should have the care to add, crossed her arms and blew a long strand of hair out of her face. "If Professor Murdoch was here, he would smack you and tell you to stop being the hero."

He wouldn't, but it wasn't like the two of them didn't know it. He would look at Marty in that way of his, one that Marty had never seen back there, back at Mansbridge Academy. He would look at hopeless Marty who couldn't help but self-sacrifice, who would pale and shrink under the sheer power and capability of her.

I'm doing it, Professor Murdoch.

But doing what, exactly?

"I know," he gave her. "But I'm a damn good hero, Merrill." He had reason to be.

Thoughts of Professor Murdoch wore away at Merrill too, he knew that. They never talked about him even though they both knew they should, to keep his memory alive, to honor what he had done for them. The Fury could have won already and he hadn't let them; he had saved them and anyone who saved Merrill was okay in Marty's book. He doubted the Professor would blame them for not speaking of him. He would tell Marty not to worry so much and just to keep running, even if running had disintegrated into walking and soon into crawling and soon enough into immobility.

Marty would look up at the sky and witness the moon disappearing more and more everyday, under swirling masses of ash, and he would think about what the Professor had done. How he had stuck by them. Some days it was like his heart was ten sizes too big for his chest and about to burst out with gratitude. Some days Merrill would look over at him and echo that same look.

Professor Murdoch had had it bad too, struggling to breathe under the ash and dust and fumes from the ever-raging fires. The four of them had been out of their heads with hunger, crippling cramps tearing them apart and falling into unconsciousness unexpectedly and sometimes so close to screaming and crying and raging that their teeth almost cracked as they bore down, but they had gotten through it together and neither one of them had made a pass at the Professor.

A miracle, right? Professor Murdoch had been something else though, they simply didn't crave his blood as much as they would another human's. It was still blood, still a means to an end, but they had never touched him.

Marty had never been one for thinking about the past before, but he was developing a rather annoying knack for it now. He remembered how hard it had been without the coffins, though in retrospect not really given the absence of sunlight, but he also could remember how nice it had been, the five of them curled up together as if they really were a family. Well, the family was broken now.

Karl and Essie were still alive though, they both could feel it.

No doubt Karl and Essie could feel them too.

He would do anything to take away the pain in Merrill's eyes, to take the pain out of her world, to be a better man and lead them and give her even more. To stop her from stumbling occasionally, to prevent her from being trapped in horrid memories, to stop her from being led astray when he wasn't strong enough or there enough to protect her like he should. But there were so many shoulds, so many cants. So many excuses.

He kept his mouth shut and walked and thought about Murdoch and Karl and Essie instead of blood. He thought about family and hope and his eyes taking them all in and his arms hugging Merrill and the fact that he could still give more.

Just a little bit more.

For her.

They moved even more often than they drank, ever stumbling, crouching, hiding. He was older than Merrill but she was smarter and faster, with heightened senses and of course, the extra bit of blood in her system, Marty's blood, which certainly couldn't do anything but aid her further.

He followed, as ever-present as her shadow. She was his goddess now and he her dutiful follower.

His girl.

~Write your name in the stars

I am trying to heal your heart~

It took a long time to stitch up the pieces of herself.

The loss covered every part of her like a sickness, folding into the deepest, darkest crevices of her that not even she knew existed. The grief and guilt and blame made her mind sluggish and the time slipped away from her with malignant gratitude. The concept of hunger became foreign. Even though there were the words that she could not be certain were her own to keep going, to keep walking even when it had long since proven futile, she no longer understood the importance of standing up and trudging off to heed the call of the ocean.

Everything drifted away as soon as they had found shelter outside of an industrial warehouse. Everything was gray here, even the dirt, but the roof provided them shelter from the falling black ash and, it seemed, the remainder of the world. Merrill's malnourished rag-doll body had dropped to the ground, supported by a thick metal pole, cold and as lifeless as she felt. As lifeless as she was. All recollection of Marty slipped away along with the remainder of her sanity and an awareness of her surroundings. Letting her guard down had been the only option left. They could surely catch a break? It didn't matter that the reasoning didn't make sense, Merrill was already gone.

It could have been years when her eyes opened again and she took a gasping breath which wasn't a breath, considering the quality of the air paid no factor in her continued existence, given she wasn't a living being and therefore didn't breathe. There was a vampire across from her, the rotting smell more palpable than of a well-fed vampire, but the distance was still six feet or more between them. He was conscious but his eyes were open and unseeing, pupils blown wide and turned a deep, stormy gray.

She poured all her focus into being able to feel her hands again, flexing her fingers, clenching her hands, fingernails forming crescent shaped marks in her palms. She bit so hard on her tongue but she was certain no blood would flow. It did though, and the blood tasted so good and so pure because it was not just her own. The smell of the other matched the taste; this was the first step in trust. Merrill then tipped forward, hands finding the dirt and fingernails digging in, hands supporting her full weight as she lurched forward. The strength she found in herself was unexpected and much missed. There was no longer that temptation for Merrill to go back to the world she had been a prisoner of. The distance was great, her body protesting with every inch she conquered, but the smell of the other vampire bid her come nearer. The cramps had tore through him and left his body prone and mind frayed; Merrill saw the hurt written across every inch of him.

It was hard to remember his name at first, even harder to form the name on her lips once given. Her hands found him, dirt-marred hands cradling his face and taking in the far-away look in his eyes, with no reason why she was supposed to protect this vampire. Something pounded in her chest and the name came to her before the memories came flooding back.

"Marty."

Something cleared in his eyes. There was an immense pounding in her head and he winced and blinked, seemingly in response to her own inconsequential suffering. His body stretched languorously before he settled, putting his hands on top of her own, her hands which were still holding his face. There was embarrassment at the forefront of her mind for being intimate and not understanding why, but Marty's deep look was an answer to that confusion and she relaxed. She wasn't doing anything wrong, this was necessary given their history.

"Merrill? What happened? Damn, feel like I've been out for a long time."

And that was her name, wasn't it? She was supposed to love him and she was meant to lead them and Murdoch was right there, behind the nearest wall, telling her to stand up and pull Marty up along with her, beside her. Still, her senses managed to come back before the primal urgency to act won her over.

"We have." A long pause, waiting for him to speak again, then the impatience. There was a memory at the edge of her consciousness, a memory of pulling Marty to the ground, entirely at his own will or under her spell she didn't know yet. She blocked it, not wanting to witness anymore pain. "Are you alright to stand?"

Marty yawned widely and stretched again, as agile as a cat but clumsy too, tipping over but then righting himself. "Let's try it." Her hand grasped his arm and she pulled him up, holding onto him for a long minute before releasing him. He seemed exhausted but okay, out of it but here with her regardless. She wondered if she looked as terrible as he did. There were black streaks only further highlighting the dark circles under his eyes, his hair had grown dark and was even more widely tangled than the image in her memory, and his clothes were torn and crusted with soot. He caught her staring and stared back, his eyes nearly glazed over with some form of intent. "You alright?"

She grasped his shoulder, but knew not whether she was comforting him or herself. Most likely both. "Fine."

"It doesn't take long for it to come back. The memories, I mean. You'll be okay, Mer." She nodded in response, not recognizing the nickname. Marty must have gone through this same thing, to know the memories would come back, but she couldn't remember that either.

~On your side let's talk about everything

Got no time for words that you've already heard

Say my name when you want to,

You just leave when you want to

We're still here, we're still alive~

They walked for a long while after that, Marty trailing along behind her. She couldn't at first fathom why he should trust her so much, but she realized at length that she trusted him too. She hoped the other vampire would trust her even though she didn't have all the pieces yet, or rather, wasn't ready to open the door where all those shards of glass were. They took a short five minute break before they headed out again, something in Merrill leading her in one direction while she completely disregarded the other directions. There was no one else to rely on other than Marty and herself, and the other vampire appeared more than willing to let her lead them, even if it might be to their deaths.

The two came across a house that was tilting dangerously to the side: two stories, clapboard shutters, oblong windows gazing back at them. They searched the house but there were no bodies to feed from. Even if there were, their blood would have long-since boiled and their veins disintegrated. It would have felt like biting into dirt and sucking back sand. That didn't stop her from lingering, didn't stop her from looking at her reflection in that glass for a long time, Marty waiting patiently behind her, like her shadow.

Nothing came back until they started walking again.

Marty came first. Without a word she pressed her hands to her head and fell to her knees. Marty came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her. He was everywhere in her head too: laughing, making trouble, pleading with her. "It's okay. Right here, Merrill. I'm right here." She loved how he said her name, that was what brought her back. The love and adoration and trust in that one word.

Toes that didn't feel like hers curled into the dirt that was blacker than night. Marty spoke of one of his feeds, focusing on the guilt he had felt. She was supposed to embrace that emotion, but she only recognized that she was meant to dislike who he was primarily due to his lack of guilt over deeds long since committed.

Merrill breathed in this hate, allowed it to fill her up and then crushed it along with her own notions of how the world and her kind should be. These rules no longer applied. Marty could no longer be held to her standards. Marty deserved far better than her disappointment and cumbersome anger.

They walked and slept and she followed the call of the ocean.

~Write your name in the stars

I am trying to heal your heart

Write your name

When all you need is someone who is listening~

Whenever the world filtered back in, reality was this: the world was gray and the air dank and Marty wasn't smiling or complaining as much as he used to.

Those comments of days past were gone, and even though they had been gone for a while she still couldn't shake off that sense of fear and degradation. She missed Marty, but she could hardly judge him because she was gone just as often as he was. It was tempting too, to leave him to his own thoughts and retreat to her own, but it would mean she would be labeled as the selfish one.

Merrill thought of how much she had changed, and then suddenly realized she didn't want to remember.

She grumbled every time he offered her more, every time he shrunk away from what she was offering, but she accepted both without more protest than that. In the past she would have felt ashamed, but now she felt numb to everything but him. She would keep telling herself: now see, you're not alone. Here's Marty. Protect Marty. But Marty's need to protect her and keep her well-fed always outweighed her own. There could never be balance.

Not the balance that Merrill wanted.

They bantered for a few minutes at a time, but never more than that. They used to talk all through the night too, but one of them always fell asleep before too long now. The feeding off each other and little sleep and continual walking wasn't doing them much good. She wished she could find some sort of shelter, somewhere they could rest for a week or two.

But how much longer could they feed off each other in the first place? Professor Murdoch must have known it was only a matter of time, but he had still left them too soon. Merrill knew Marty never would have caved and drunk from the Professor, but she was becoming less sure of her own strength. She may be their chosen leader, but the way she still craved blood and how little Marty himself cared for it frightened her sometimes.

Frightened her all of the time.

If she sat still long enough, black soot falling onto her shoulders and embedding itself in her hair, if she closed her eyes and focused, shutting out the deafening silence of the world around them, she felt like she was still in control. She felt like she wasn't dying, slowly, piece by piece.

Her hands were always shaking every time she opened her eyes again, hands burned black, blood lust turning her into a foreign being of no hidden familiarity, obscure and unwanted.

Her whole body was shaking, anger and rage a dark mass in her chest, one she could hurl at the world. It was over, she told herself, so why should they care? This planet was burning and dying day by day, and here they were trying to stay alive.

Here Marty was, the fool, trying to keep her alive.

Marty was lying against a tree now, its gnarled limbs extending up into a nothing sky. She could smell the burning of flesh on the horizon, could hear the sizzling of the blood... disintegrating. The Fury knew what they were doing: no humans meant no food source. They were still alive though, Merrill smiled then almost simultaneously frowned again.

Not for long.

Marty brought everything into focus, probably without even realizing it. Watching him could still the chaos in her head and could also make the silence have sound. She had never meant to love him, and maybe it would have been better if he hadn't loved her.

Professor Murdoch was always smiling in her head though, a good smile, a smile that told her that everything was as it should be.

She granted Marty a few hours of restless sleep. The good thing was that there was no longer sun, the once flaming orb was now blocked by ashen clouds and dust so thick it was often difficult to breathe. Not that she needed to breathe oxygen, but she had often watched Murdoch struggle in a world that had become poisonous to humans. Merrill could no longer tell when it was night and when it was day, and she often stared up at the lifeless sky rather than watch Marty's eyes roam under their lids, and his eyelashes flutter as he tried to wake himself for the show going on around them, for them.

Merrill pushed them hard the next day, feeling the call of the ocean stronger than before. Water would both shield them and protect them for a time. There was a rumor that the Fury avoided water; Professor Murdoch had lent no credence to it, but if he were here with her right now he would also tell her to hope.

She had recognized the loss in their once mentor's eyes, and now she suspected she reciprocated that look.

He had gone on for them, now she could go on for Marty.

Marty, who had once been insufferable and agonizing at times. Marty, who her heart had begun to beat steadily for. Marty, who selflessly gave her more and more of his life everyday, who Merrill could no longer say no to.

It wouldn't help stave off the cold, but Merrill pulled a threadbare blanket from the small backpack she carried, which now held nothing more than her writing journal and Professor Murdoch's, which she had never plucked up the courage to read, and tucked the blanket around a lightly dozing Marty. A smile quirked his lips and he turned over on his side, facing her. She smiled and ran a hand through his untameable hair. He had collapsed on the sand that had now become soot as soon as they had reached their destination, bringing Merrill's fears up to front and center once more. He was already so weak, and there wasn't enough left in him to go on.

It had come too soon.

But as she looked out beyond the two of them it was still there: the ocean. It was so still and silent that she knew not whether it still flowed unless she ventured closer, which she wouldn't do for fear of leaving Marty, but it was there nonetheless. The surface was a dark gray and not the stormy blue it had once been, the dark blue she remembered from distant memory. She wondered what lay underneath that surface, but every time she dared think she was choked in an image of black hands rising up to grab her and tear her away from Marty.

There was heat emanating from Marty now and she looked down, admiring his features, her finger following the curve of his lips and worrying along his jutting cheek bones and tracing along his eyebrows. He looked beautiful in a way that Merrill had never expected but had now become used to, innocent, as if there was no longer that devilish nature inside him. He looked almost... human. Stripped of his strength, fury and blood lust, it was still startling to Merrill how young he looked.

Merrill wondered where they would be if this hadn't happened, if the Fury hadn't won, if Professor Murdoch hadn't run with them. She wondered if they still would have made it to this one spot, if in every scenario and in every world she was leaning over Marty Strickland, loss and love mingling in her as if they were cause and consequence, one and the same. As if she were saying goodbye one last time.

She moved Marty into a more comfortable position, mindful of the sharp rocks that jutted out of the soot around them, shielding them, almost, from the outside world. It was their fault that the world was against them; it was their very existence after all that caused this destruction in the first place, this lack of external chaos, this silent, chilling wasteland.

Yet there were islands out there, past all that ocean, small, secluded places where they could hide.

"Merrill."

The weak rasp of a throat without blood: dehydration, starvation, and Merrill had let it happen. Even if she pressed her wrist to his mouth now, he would be too weak to drink.

Her mind brought her back to that one weekend, the one where Marty had stayed behind with Merrill, the one where the two of them had almost died. The one where Marty had given himself over to Merrill so completely, nearly letting her drain him dry. There was no question that he was a good man, one who Merrill had chosen to label with horrid qualities for so long. She didn't dare read his mind now, didn't dare invade his privacy when it was one of the only things he had left, even though she wanted to see his love for her as a physical thing.

He was dying all over again. For her. There was no Professor Murdoch to save them again, to give her one last much-needed rewrite.

His eyes fluttered open like the useless flapping of gravely injured birds and latched onto her own. "Kinda like our own little fairy-tale ending, huh?" A smile. He could still smile even after all that had happened. She found she could too. Seeing him so at ease with what his life had become should have made her angry, but seeing his smile made her anything but.

She could go on easily, she had brought him this far.

That was it though. She needed him now, just as much as he needed her. She couldn't go on.

There was no wrist held out to her like there usually was. Marty knew just as well as she did that he had reached his limit. The fever wouldn't last long and the cramps had already subsided, willing to leave his body be given his weeks of slow starvation. Marty wasn't feeling much at this point, which meant he was already nearing the dying process. This was the part that scared Merrill: she had never watched a vampire wasting away, never seen the effects of blood deprivation and because she had never witnessed it, believed it technically couldn't happen. Surely the vampire would feed, or surely the body would step up to prevent anything further from happening.

It shouldn't be the vampire wanting to die and the body letting him be, even if said body was weakened after weeks of fighting.

Merrill regretted a lot of things now: pushing Marty away for as long as she had, blaming him for her weaknesses, telling him repeatedly how he could never measure up to Drew. The one who she had once believed beyond all doubt was her One abandoned them, that could be the only explanation. That other vampire who she had so harshly criticized for so long had done everything for her, including offering himself as a means for her survival. Long ago she would have seen it as her responsibility to get mad, to get so furious she couldn't see more than a foot in front of her, but she had been angry at Marty for so long and the least she could do now was accept.

Even though she knew deep down that she couldn't last without him.

For now there was the calm after the storm and the silence and the ash falling, there was the dream of hot, gushing human blood and the nightmare that none of this ever happened at all.

She remembered that song Marty had demanded her play on the piano. He had taught it to her before then, in case they'd ever have a moment alone to play it. Merrill sung it now: head held high, proud, as if she would carry Marty the rest of the way. In her arms. Into the ocean.

"Run and get the Doctor, cause my baby's got the blues. Run and get the Doctor, cause there ain't no time to lose. We got to find a cure for my baby's lousy blues. Rome has gone and left her, broke her tender heart in two. Rome has gone and dumped her, he went off with somebody new. So hurry get that Doctor and save my baby blues. Hurry get that Doctor and save my baby blues."

She believed the song was then carried on the wind, so every vampire or human who was still out there, still alive, would hear it. She knew not how Karl and Essie were faring, but she hoped it hadn't come to this; then again, she couldn't fathom any other end result.

"Not complaining about me stealing your show, huh?" She leaned down and kissed him, on the lips, making it last for a long time. The ocean wasn't as she thought it would be: the waves weren't rushing up the shore. It seemed even quieter here with no echo as there had been in the industrial city. The rocks were as jagged as their memories and the sense of loss seemed singular and lonelier here. There was no sound but there was the feel of Marty's hair and his lips tasting of burnt chalk. She wanted that to be the last taste in her mouth, vowed it to be.

Marty's head lifted up slightly, deepening the kiss but with lips moving against her own slowly, so slowly.

A moment frozen in time.

Before she could change her mind, her hand reached blindly for the backpack and for the journal that was not hers inside its dark interior. Icy hands flipped to its last page and the elegant cursive found there, which with time had become shakier and shakier. Still, she could read, her eyes ravenous as they roamed the page, tongue flowing with words that were not her own.

"After the agony in stony places

The shouting and the crying

Prison and place and reverberation

Of thunder of spring of distant mountains

He who was living is now dead

We who were living are now dying

With a little patience..."

Her gaze raced across the poem several more times, dry, cracked hands running over the page before she closed the book for good. It seemed Professor Murdoch was still living in the book, attached to it like some ghost. The comfort of that feeling was overwhelming.

"Always knew the Professor was a poet." Marty was watching her closely when she glanced up at him. He was still full of witty things to say, still conscious, still waiting for something Merrill didn't know about.

There was a sound in the distance and Marty made a move to sit up before collapsing back down again, shadows from the rocks around them obscuring his pale, hollowed out face, as if everything beneath had been carved out and was now held hostage along with the sun, every feeling, every memory. She took one last, long look, waiting for him to stir again but knowing he wouldn't. Any other moment and she would have waited; there was no time for it.

Merrill stood up on shaky knees, rolled up her sleeves and fled the scene in search of the noise. Her footsteps were quiet and purposeful, the only sound left on the air a choked whisper, an answer to an earlier word.

"Marty."

I'll protect you.

She found her prey and pounced.

~You've got soul,

You already know~

FIN

- And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water. Only

There is shadow under this red rock,

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),

And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust. -

-T.S. Eliot's 'The Wasteland'