He paced along the chaotic remains of his lab, glass shattering beneath his feet. His hair, wild and untameable, much like the look one saw in his eyes.

"Myrnin, she's leaving. Don't you understand, she going to leave, and she won't come back. You won't have another chance to tell her." Amelie said to the back of her old friends head.

"Tell her what Amelie? That I want her to stay here in Morganvile, stay with me?" he responded, agitated at the very thought of his young assistant.

"Tell her the truth Myrnin. Tell her that you love her."

"And then what?" he cried, slamming his fist onto the already greatly abused table, adding yet another crack to accompany the many more he had inflicted upon it over the passing hours. "Beg her to stay? Beg her to choose me over college, over her dreams?" - He shook his head "No."

"What are her dreams compared to what you could offer her? An eternity of knowledge, of learning. Of love."

Amelie didn't understand, she never understood the complex workings of Myrnin's mind. He could never ask that of her. Not Claire.

A solitary tear slid down his tired, sunken face.

"I can not do that Amelie. I will not damn her to this...this...hellish existence. She deserves, more - so, so much more." he whispered, voice breaking as he thought of the possibility - an eternity with Claire.

"More? What more could anyone possibly offer!" She demanded in reply.

"A life Amelie! Freedom! I won't have her trapped here like a lab rat. Stuck in Morganville, a vampire. her friends, family, loved ones, her life. Gone. The entire human population turned against her. I won't commit her to the same suffering we are forced to endure everyday!"

"So you would lose her instead? Spend the remainder of your time wallowing in misery, drowning in your anguish?" Amelia said, voice rising in anger and frustration.

"I would lose her Amelie - if it meant that she was happy, I would let her go."

Myrnin closed his eyes and sank into his chair, felling drained - human for the first time in many years.

"For her, I would give up anything," he confessed "Everything."