Expo – this is a post-ep for season 1 of Being Human. It's set about 2 weeks after episode 6.
Rated about 15, for language mainly.
Disclaimer – Being Human and all its lovely characters belong to Toby Whithouse who is a much better writer than I am. No infringement is intended, and certainly no financial benefit is being made.
---
It was the nights that were worst, for Annie. The long hours when everyone else slept in their beds, and she just… didn't. She remembered sleep, like she remembered food and drink and warmth and human contact, but it remained separate from her, far away, a distant concept that she couldn't touch.
So instead she would sit in her chair and think, or sometimes sneak downstairs and put the telly on really low to avoid waking the boys. Or sometimes she would stare out of the window at the dark world below, the occasional car rushing past, people going about their nightly business, never looking up, never noticing the pale face staring down at them from the window.
And that's what she was doing now: staring out. It was quite a cold night, clear, a few stars just visible beyond the light pollution of the city, the new moon just rising over the horizon seeming oddly bright. Her mind wandered on these occasions, ran over events from the near past, or recalling details from her life that would replay over and over again. It was oddly satisfying, a tie to her former self and what she had been when life had pumped through her veins, before Owen had taken everything that she was and left her on the fringes of existence. Remembering her family in particular brought her pleasure, touched with nostalgic sorrow usually for what had once been, but leaving her happy for all that.
A noise in the corridor made Annie turn her head sharply. That was odd. Was there someone in the house? There were footsteps on the stairs, soft, deliberately soft, and she peeled herself away from the window and from her memories, to listen intently, moving towards the door and cracking it open just slightly.
There was no one outside, and the sound of footsteps had now faded, making her wonder for just an instant whether she had imagined the whole thing. Then there was a sound from the kitchen, what sounded like water running. Now that would be an odd thing for an intruder to do, she reassured herself, rolling her eyes at her own unfounded fears, and pulling the door more fully open. She stepped out into the corridor, noting that George's door was standing ajar, and made her way softly down the stairs, avoiding the ghostly teleport she sometimes used in favour of good old fashioned walking.
Downstairs, George was sitting slumped at the kitchen table wearing his dressing gown. The kettle was just beginning to boil on the countertop behind him.
"Hi," Annie said cheerily, coming into the room. For her, one of the advantages of not sleeping was that she didn't have to adjust her mood to the time of day.
George wasn't so fortunate. He jumped visibly at the sound of her voice. "Oh! Hi," he responded. "Sorry did I…? No, you don't sleep do you?"
Annie shook her head, still smiling, happy for the company. "Not even a bit. What's up, you got an early shift today?" She glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was twenty minutes past three.
George shook his head. He wasn't wearing his glasses, and had that disheveled air that most people did when just out of bed. He rested his cheek on his hand wearily. "I couldn't sleep," he explained.
"Oh," she said, coming further into the room and pulling out a chair. She slumped into it. "Why?' she asked, curious. The concept of people who were still alive not being able to sleep was one that puzzled her.
He shrugged. "Nina."
"Still going over the break up, trying to figure out where the wheels came off?"
George looked at her disdainfully, amazed sometimes by her insensitivity. But then again, he could be insensitive himself, so he it was a trait he forgave. He rubbed his face.
"I just keep running over it, what she said, over and over," he sighed. "And it just – doesn't make sense somehow."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know," he said, hearing the kettle boil then click off, and getting up to make himself some tea. "It just seems unlike her somehow." He poured in some milk. "I mean, when it happened with Julia – my ex – when she freaked out about the werewolf thing, I pretty much expected it. Our entire relationship had had this slight air of non-permanence. I always had this feeling she was just looking for an excuse to make a sharp exit."
"I thought – you were going to get married," Annie said, confused.
George turned with the mug in his hand. "Yeah, that was the story. Whether it would have happened, you know, if all this other – stuff hadn't got in the way, I don't know. But we were engaged." He took a sip of his tea. "Until I met the werewolf."
"You can hardly blame her!" Annie pointed out. "Didn't you let like your whole family and everyone you knew think you were dead?"
"I ran away," George confirmed. "Of course I did; from her, from everyone, but then when she found me again and found out, I thought maybe we might actually be able to… But that was it. Too much for her."
"Maybe it's too much for Nina too," Annie suggested. "It is a lot to take in."
George screwed up his face and shook his head. "Not for Nina. She took it so well, considering, when she found out. Yes she was a bit colder afterwards and we hadn't been – you know, but it took her two weeks to tell me that she wanted to break up? It took her that long to decide? And she doesn't trust me any more? She knew I was keeping a big secret from her. I never hid it. I just didn't tell her what it was." He shook his head again. "No, I don't understand it at all." He drank some more tea.
"Have you tried talking to her about it?" Annie asked.
"I tried," he said. "But since our 'conversation' she's been surprisingly unwilling to talk to me. She keeps avoiding me in the hospital. I see her making detours when she spots me coming."
"So what are you going to do?" she wondered.
"I don't know." George looked despondent. "Give up I suppose. Accept that having a werewolf for a boyfriend is just too much for your average girl to cope with. I mean, when you were alive, would you have dated someone like me?"
"Oh, well," Annie was caught off guard. "Someone like you, I mean George you're not really my type – I mean if you look at Owen…"
"Hypothetically," he sighed. "And think werewolf not me."
"I really don't know," she admitted. "It's just not something you think about: date a footballer, date a werewolf. Maybe everybody's missing out. Maybe everyone should want to date a werewolf. Didn't you say you turned into a bit of an animal in bed just before your time of the month?"
George looked uncomfortable. "That was – only the once!" he protested. "And only because she practically forced it on me."
"No George, I'm saying it's a good thing: wild sex. Who wouldn't want that?"
"Nina apparently," he huffed. "We had great sex. And we had great everything else too. Uh!" he exclaimed. "Why did she have to see me changing? It's ruined everything!"
"Weren't you going to split up with her anyway?" Annie said, cornering the market in pointing out inconvenient truths.
George slurped his tea. "I kept trying to," he said. "But it never quite worked out. Fate seemed to be pushing us together always. Anyway," he shook his head, brushing his woes aside. "How about you? Have you had any luck with your quest for the portal?"
"What, my am-I-stuck-here-forever-now question?" she said. "Well, as a matter of fact – I haven't. But, I have found a really good book in the library which I want one of you boys to go and pick up for me at some point. It's about life after death. I think it's one of those strange cult things."
"Sounds fantastic," he said scathingly. "That won't be embarrassing to collect at all."
"Shut up," she scoffed at his sarcasm. "At least I'm trying here."
"Hm," he said. "What does Mitchell say?"
"That he thinks I'm stuck here now. That I only get one shot at the portal, and then that's it: log-jammed forever."
"Seems a bit harsh."
She smiled softly. "There's a lot about this that seems harsh."
"Yeah," he agreed decisively, putting down his mug and coming over to the table once more. "There is. But I'm going to attempt to sleep through it."
"You going back to bed?"
"Yup, and if I don't sleep this time, I'll come back and get you to smother me with a pillow or something."
"Okay," she said, surprisingly willingly. "Just say when."
He smiled. "See you in the morning Annie."
"Night George."
Mitchell came out of the hospital with a fag already out of the packet and ready to light up. He flinched at the sunlight, which was already strong and hot, despite it being only April. He hated this time of the year, because it only meant more pain and misery until things started to quiet down again in the solar region in the autumn.
It was while he was glancing away from the light, that he caught sight of Nina, perched on the bit of wall she usually occupied for her daily puffs. He considered his own white stick. This was, after all, the perfect opportunity to talk to her in a reasonably relaxed, public, yet out-of-earshot place. But would she talk to him? That was the question. He'd seen very little of her at all in the last couple of days, and the one time he'd passed close to her in the corridor, she'd pointedly looked the other way and ignored him, talking to a fellow nurse.
Well, the lighter gambit had worked once before. It couldn't hurt to try it again.
He crossed to her quickly. "Got a light?" he asked.
Nina looked at him sardonically, blowing out smoke, and for a moment, he thought she was going to ignore him again. But she handed the lighter over with obvious reluctance.
"If you've come out here to try to talk me into getting back with George, you can piss off right now," she said directly.
"Hey," Mitchell said out of the corner of his mouth and he tried to light the cigarette. "I just came out here for a break." Clouds of white smoke started to puff out from the end of his cigarette, and he handed the lighter back to the nurse. "Besides. What the two of you do is none of my business."
The look on her face implied fairly strongly that she didn't believe him.
"It just isn't going to work, Mitchell," she insisted, seemingly trying to talk him out of talking her out of it, before he'd even opened his mouth. "I mean, we're talking about trust here."
"Yeah, I know," he said back. "He told me what you said to him. Of course, you understand that my loyalties lie completely with him."
She shrugged. "I wouldn't expect it any other way."
They smoked for a few seconds in relative silence.
Mitchell decided to stop beating around the bush. "When are you going to tell him?" he said.
"Tell him what?" she said, crossly.
"That he scratched you," he dropped in unexpectedly.
She looked genuinely floored and her jaw actually dropped open in a rather comical manner as she stared at him in shock. But then she turned on him angrily. "How do you know?" she hissed, furious.
"Come on," he said, unmoved by her emotion. "How do you think I met George? Vampires can recognize werewolves, and…" he broke off. Her anger had brought about an instinctive mirror emotion in him, but it wasn't the way he wanted this conversation to go. What had happened was awful, for her, for George, for all of them. And he wanted her to know that. "Nina, I'm so sorry." His regret was genuine, and it cut her anger, dispelling it into the April sunshine.
She drew back from him. "Did you know he'd scratched me?" she demanded. "On the night I mean. Have you known all this time?"
Mitchell shook his head. "I didn't know. But I – sensed – what you were becoming, and going back over things in my head – it's not like I saw him bite you. Was it when you ran in, when he, sort of, threw you away?"
Nina slapped her hand over her eyes. "I'm so fucking stupid," she cried. "You were, all of you, trying to protect me and stop me going in there and I just – I just wanted to help him. I didn't know what was happening."
"How could you?" Mitchell countered.
"I just saw him in pain, he was in such… and I thought I could help. You all said not to but of course, I, I knew best. I always have to know best. Jesus," she had another puff at her cigarette.
Mitchell regarded her with sympathy. "Where did he scratch you?" he asked.
She left the cigarette in her mouth and pulled up her right sleeve. He winced slightly at the sight of the four still-red marks on the inside of her wrist. But then something occurred to him.
"How have you kept that hidden from him?"
She pushed down her sleeve again. "I denied him sex," she said bluntly, taking the cigarette out her mouth. "And then I broke up with him."
Mitchell nodded in understanding. "So that's what this is all about. It's not a trust thing, you're not afraid of him or unsettled or any of that shit. You're just trying to prevent him from finding out what he did to you."
She didn't look at him, staring at the ground instead, her eyes unfocussed. "I thought that maybe we could go back to the way things were – just colleagues – and he wouldn't need to know. I thought that he would accept it if I said that it freaked me out, and that I was angry that he'd lied to me and not told me. And he did."
"Do you love him?" Mitchell asked her.
She nodded, staring at the ground. "I didn't expect to. I didn't – want to even. I thought it would just be a brief fling or something." She took another drag. "But then it just, happened, you know? You just realize one day that you're totally and completely stupidly in love with someone, and you don't even know why, you just are."
"You've got to tell him," Mitchell insisted. Nina shook her head. "He'll find out!" Mitchell went on. "The wolf is in him, even when he's not transformed." She looked at him finally, surprised by what he was saying. "The closer he gets to a full moon, the sharper his senses get, and he'll know. He'll sniff you out. Even if he never sees you transform, no matter how hard you try to hide him from it, he'll just know."
"Then I'll leave," she said. "I'll go away, far away. He'll never see me again."
Mitchell grimaced. "You could. That's what he did when he found out, when he first changed. It terrified him, what he was becoming, and he left everything and ran. He had a life, a family, a fiancée even." By her expression at that, it was clear this was something George hadn't shared with her yet, but Mitchell ignored it. "And he left it all and had nothing. He was working in a café when I found him, putting rubbish out. The guy's like 50 times smarter than I am, and he had nothing. He'd left everything that he cared about, his entire future, because he was scared that he was becoming a monster and he didn't want to put everyone else at risk."
"Exactly!" she exclaimed. "It's his biggest fear, he told me. His biggest fear was infecting someone else, that and – killing someone."
"Well great, he managed them both in the same night," Mitchell said glibly.
"It'll destroy him," she said, annunciating every word. "If I tell him that he scratched me it'll absolutely destroy him. He's got this – thing – he's so bloody," she searched for the right word. "Caring," she decided. She stubbed out her cigarette vigorously, and got her packet out, searching for another one. But she scrabbled among the packaging. It was empty. Mitchell quickly offered her one of his, which she accepted, screwing up the empty packet in her hand, and throwing it onto the floor. "I mean, what's it all about," she lit the cigarette, becoming more agitated. "This werewolf thing. How can they exist? How can no one know about them? How can they – exist! It's like a disease or an infection that's so old and so terrible that no one knows about it and no one talks about it. I mean, he told me, or he didn't tell me, tell me, but he said there was something dark in his life and when I found out about it, I would walk. But he didn't let on or even hint that the world was actually full of werewolves and vampires and who fucking knows what else." She stopped, shaking slightly.
Mitchell almost didn't know what to say. He knew it was a huge amount to take in; that the world was a darker place than most people could ever imagine, or even begin to comprehend in their blackest dreams. These things had become only the fodder for light entertainment: Hammer horror, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. People didn't want to think that these things were actually real, that those stories we'd told around the fire in stone and turf houses bathed in wood smoke, were based on truth; warnings no less pertinent to our lives than the lessons we learned from our mothers about wild berries and wild beasts in the forests. We were supposed to be afraid of monsters, we were never supposed to become them.
"Do you blame him for what happened?" he asked eventually, as his own cigarette burnt down to the filter and he stubbed it out.
She shook her head. "Not for a minute," she said. "He tried everything to avoid putting me in danger. He'd broken up with me for Christ sake. He didn't want me there. He didn't want me within a million miles of there. And I don't know, maybe it's just because I haven't gone through it yet, because I don't know enough about it, or what it's going to do to me, but I'm not – scared. Things – happen," she explained, philosophically. "Things happen in our lives, in everyone's lives. If they happen because of someone else's deliberate actions, then yes, it's someone's fault. But the world is so complicated. Everything we do has all these little tiny consequences that we could never possibly anticipate. You shout at someone at work, they go home and batter their girlfriend. It's just what happens. And we don't have one state of being. We change constantly and this is just – somehow – what's next for me."
Mitchell smiled slightly, suddenly seeing clearly what George found so attractive about this woman.
She turned to him. "What is it like?" she asked. "The transformation?"
His smile faded quickly, and he zipped up his leather jacket. "You'd have to ask George."
"I'm asking you," she said.
He considered the question for a few seconds, seriously considering saying: 'I really don't know' or 'it's not that bad'. But she was too smart for that.
He held out his hand for his cigarettes, and lit a second one up when she handed them over. "It's a nightmare," he said bluntly, nodding a little as he blew out new smoke. "Your whole body changes, tears itself apart from the inside to become the wolf." She shut her eyes, and raised her chin a little as she took it in. "Every bone breaks, every muscle rips, and your organs shut down and shift and change size, it's like you die really, but you don't die, you just endure it. And then you become this – beast – this thing that you can't control and that wants to kill. George just," he pictured his friend in his head, transforming. "He screams and he screams and it's awful – it's awful. But then it's over. And it's once a month. But it's forever."
"Unless you die," she said, smiling sweetly and opening her eyes. She wasn't naive after all. She was a nurse, and she saw people in pain and suffering and dying every day. She'd seen and heard it too, George transforming, his pathetic screams of agony as his body betrayed him and ripped and re-modeled itself. She might not have gone through it yet, but he was pretty sure she could guess what it was going to be like, or at least start to imagine it, because he was also pretty sure that it was so terrible, so gut-wrenchingly painful that you couldn't allow yourself to imagine fully what it was going to be like.
"But he can help you," Mitchell insisted. "He had this guy, this other werewolf, who was a complete wanker actually, stayed with us a couple of months ago. George really got a lot out of meeting someone like him, however much of an idiot he was."
"Another werewolf?" Nina asked. "How many of them are there?"
Mitchell shrugged. "I doubt anyone knows. Not many though. This guy, Tully, he was the first one apart from George that I'd seen in, 20 years maybe."
Her eyes narrowed. "How old are you, Mitchell?"
He puffed on his cigarette. "Old enough," he responded grumpily. "So are you going to talk to him?"
"I don't know," she sighed, stubbing her second cigarette out with much less vigour than the first. "It's all just happened so fast, and I had to make that decision to break up with him, you know, because otherwise I knew I wouldn't be able to hide the scratches from him."
"Talk to him," Mitchell insisted. "This is a lonely world, Nina, and being what we are makes it lonelier. In many ways, vampires do this really well. When they bring someone over, they care for them and show them what to do – however monstrous it all is. But werewolves, they don't even know what they're doing when they get someone. There's no support."
"Maybe they need a helpline they can phone up," she joked softly. "Wolves anonymous or something."
He chuffed out a laugh. "It could be an untapped market." Then he got serious again. "If you want to talk," he said. "About this again, or about talking to George, I want you to know that I'm here for you. I know we don't know each other very well, but I understand something of what you're going through, and I understand him – sort of."
She looked at him and gave him a genuine smile of gratitude. "Thanks," she said. "Really." Then she puffed up her cheeks and blew out a breath slowly. "Eight days," she said, referring quite clearly to how long it was until the next full moon.
"Talk to him," Mitchell said one last time. "He'll take it hard, there's no denying that. But if I know George, then the thought of him doing this to you, and then you suffering alone because you didn't want him to know would be much worse than just knowing what he'd done to you." He put a hand on her shoulder. "Really. We're there for you. You're not on your own."
She smiled gratefully, as he turned and left her. But the smile faded as he walked away.
