"They're expecting you.."
Eve's words echoed in Annie's mind as she looked at the door, bright light coming from behind its windows. She recognised the door. It was bright white and had six windows, separated with a thin frame. It was the door from her bedroom in her old house. Not the pink house in Bristol where she had lived with Mitchell and George, but the house where she was born and grew up with her mum and dad.
Her hand hesitated for a moment before she turned the golden doorknob which was just as cold as her ghostly hand. What did Eve mean by that? Did she just mean Tom and Hal, or had she known about George, Nina and Mitchell? Of course she had. She had told her about them before, she even knew about Gilbert and Herrick. She wiped the tears from her cheek and stepped through the door.
There they were.
Nina had a sad look on her face, because she had just had a baby and was killed by some vampires before she had even had a chance to hold her, cherish her and make her feel loved like mothers do. She hadn't even had the chance to give her a name. As soon as she saw baby Eve, the sad look on her face changed into a bright smile, because all the things she didn't have a chance to do in the short time that Eve and her were both alive on earth she now had all the time in the world for. She knew that Eve would now grow up safely with her, even though they were in purgatory. Gilbert had told her that when they met each other. Gilbert had found Lia and they were now a happy couple.
George looked happy, the happiest Annie had ever seen him. Happier even than when he first moved in her house together with Mitchell. Not remotely like the broken man he was after the birth of Eve and the death of Nina, holding a stake firmly in his hand and a cross in the other. He smiled a smile that reminded Annie of the old George. He was holding Nina's hand. His Nina. Annie had been completely devastated by his death. She had just lost Mitchell and Nina and couldn't bear the thought of losing another person, of losing George as well, but George had said that he had to be with his Nina and that made it a little easier for Annie, because it meant that Nina was no longer alone in purgatory and it also meant that George didn't have to be alone there.
This was of course because she didn't think Mitchell would be there.
But he was.
The love of her life.
The man she had seen dispersing into smoke because George had driven a stake through his heart, a choice he had made himself.
The man she hadn't expected to ever see again. Hal and Annie had had a little talk about Annie's old friends and Annie had asked Hal what he thought was the fate of vampires who were staked. He had said that they probably didn't get an afterlife. Maybe Mitchell did get one because he died at his own will, to repent for his sins and to stop him for doing more bad things. Annie was so glad that Hal was wrong. She was going to miss Hal and Tom, but at least she could now tell Nina, George and Mitchell everything about them. And she still had to explain to them why their baby was dead. But that was after a long group hug.