I tend to shy away from writing for British shows (despite my love of them) because I'm really afraid I'll fuck something up due to being American, and I'll be horribly embarrassed by it. That said, the Being Human finale was absolutely incredible, and I just had to write about it. So please, please review, and feel free to point out any jackass mistakes I may have made in the dialogue that makes them seem like they're being written by an American girl.
Even If It's Just In His Head
He used to dream about different girls. Dead ones.
Girls of all kinds, of all times. Girls named Victoria and Emily and Beatrice became girls named Melanie and Diana and Ashley, and then those became girls whose names were all spelled a bit wrong, like Cindi or Britnee. Girls who were Irish, English, American, Australian, a few Russians from that one winter in St. Petersburg.
During the day, it was a bit easier to pretend that they'd never happened. He'd push them back, push them away. The memories would become distant. Except, he'd think of one of them suddenly; of their contorted faces, of the taste of their blood, of their pitiful screams. But then Annie and George would be around, and it was easier. They'd watch telly, drink tea, order pizza, joke about things that normal people joked about, and it was easy to pretend he was twenty-something and single, not older than their oldest living relatives. Sometimes he even felt young again, like it was a new start. Like the old shit was just a nightmare.
And then, for a while, he dreamt of Lucy. She was supposed to help him, supposed to bring him back down to earth, or up from Hell, or wherever. Annie and George were all right, but they couldn't help him. They expected too much of him. They assumed he was pure of heart, and they didn't understand that every moment was a fight against himself. Every night, he dreamt of drinking Lucy's blood. Killing her. Strangling the life from her with his bare hands while his mouth greedily sucked…
And then he'd awake to the sounds of his own frightened gasping, and seconds later he'd be sure to hear a timid knock on the door and a lilting question in Annie's voice, "All right?"
Those were bad nights, but this is worse.
Because now, all he dreams of is Annie.
Most of the time, he doesn't even see her face. Just searches for her in an endless blackness. An empty space, and all around him, no matter how fast he runs, all he can feel is that horrible, aching roar of horror and fear that he felt when she was being pulled to her death. Ripped from the world like a discarded bandage. He will rage into the darkness, scream murder, but it doesn't matter. No one is there to hear him.
Other times, he will be trapped, forced to watch her scream George's name over and over, forced to watch her dragged across the rug, her fingernails scraping, scrambling for a hold. He tries to move, to save her, to yell at Kemp to stop, but he can do nothing.
He wakes up from those dreams, usually with a shout or a muffled sob, that horrible feeling in his chest that's never fully gone away since she was taken from him. George and Nina have learned to ignore the odd scream from his bedroom, even though he'll always find a mug of tea waiting for him in the morning and Nina will be sure to pat his shoulder sympathetically on her way out the door.
But then there are the other dreams. The ones that he can't tell them about.
Sometimes, she'll be standing by the window in her old room, hands worrying at the hem of her shirt, and while looking out at the street she'll ask him something like, "Do you miss me?"
He'll reply, invariably, "Annie, of course."
She'll turn, and she'll smile, and the rose-colored light that filters through the filmy curtains will frame her face in a way that's completely beautiful. And the light doesn't hurt his eyes or his skin like it usually does, because he's so focused on the fact that she's gorgeous, and real, and alive. She'll shuffle across the room, looking unsure and hesitant, and let her arms go about his waist, and then he'll just wrap himself around her body, bury his hand in her hair, bury his face in the crook of her neck.
And she'll be solid. And she'll smell like rose petals and meadow dew, and all those other things he would have thought ridiculous before, but now he'll love it, because it's something that reminds him of her (and he will deny it for all eternity, but he started getting that new scented air freshener for a reason).
He'll say, "You won't leave again, right? You're here forever?"
She'll pull back and laugh at him; mirthful, loving, tender Annie.
"Mitchell! Don't be silly! Of course. I'll be here forever. And we can travel the world. We can invent fake names. And George and Nina will die one day, but I will help you through it. We'll help each other through it. And we'll go on living, or…well, I guess unliving, forever. But the time's not so bad when you think about it. Especially not since I'll be here." She'll smile, tilt her head to one side, as if asking him if this is what he wants. "Forever."
Maybe the last part will be said like a question, but maybe it'll just be a statement. A reassurance that he so desperately needs. He will smile at her and kiss her on the cheek, or maybe the mouth, or the forehead. Then he'll hug her again, just hold her so tightly that it seems like she's going to burst into a million pieces, but she just laughs and laughs and keeps laughing.
He always wakes up gradually, buried in his comforter and smiling into his pillow.
"Annie?" he'll say gently when he realizes that she's no longer laughing, but then he will remember that he's awake. He's not in Bristol anymore. And Annie is gone.
Those dreams are worse. He'll lie there for hours afterwards and stare at the ceiling with red-rimmed eyes and a deep, burning resentment in the pit of his stomach that grows sharper and less tolerable each time he has to let her go.
One night, though, is completely different. (It's the night before Lucy shows up, although of course he can't know it at the time). In his dream, he's standing at the door to Annie's old room, and all around the edges he can see this bright, glowing light. He doesn't want to go in (that old vampire instinct), but he pushes open the door anyway, because Annie's in there.
And good or bad, at least these dreams let him see her. If only for a while. And strangely enough, needing this Annie fix has dulled his longing for blood until he hardly notices that the veins on Nina's neck are so lovely, anymore (hardly).
"Annie?" he says as he steps into the room and adjusts his eyes to the painless brightness that emanates from her. She looks up from where she's sitting in her armchair with her knees drawn to her chest. Mitchell's heart seems to snap in two, and he remembers the moment very clearly. It was the day they accidentally kissed. The day that he realized for the first time that Annie was going to be with him forever if he didn't manage to scare her off. At the time, it was a confusing prospect. Now, it's his fondest fantasy.
"Mitchell," she says with surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"I just came to see you. Are you all right?"
"Yeah, yeah. Of course. But Mitchell, why haven't you told George what you've done?"
Mitchell freezes halfway between sitting at her feet, and finally hits the floor with a graceless thump.
"What?"
"I know what you've done. You wouldn't believe the amount of shit I've had to put up with the past few weeks. I mean, God, Mitchell, more than twenty people! All of them holding me personally responsible for not keeping you human enough to last one single ride on the metro without a midnight snack."
"What? No! Tell them to fuck off. It wasn't your fault."
"Wasn't it? You were acting like a spoilt child, and I ignored it because I was frightened of you."
The admission, or maybe the vulnerability and fear behind the words, hits him like a punch in the gut.
"Frightened of me?"
"You got snappy, stayed out all night, popped in for tea and then vanished again. You were getting violent, having fits about the tiniest things…I mean, really, Mitchell? The Real Hustle?"
He knows she's trying to get a laugh, but he can't reply. He feels tears gathering behind his eyelids, and can't be bothered to hide them.
"I never meant for you…"
"Mitchell, it's fine. I'm dead, remember? It's not as if you could really hurt me. And other than being seriously creepy for a bit with those comments about my skin under my clothes, it's not as if you tried to make me frightened. Anyhow, my point was that I feel responsible for you."
"Responsible for me? Annie, I was supposed to save you, and I got fucking distracted by Lucy. Do you think I can ever forgive myself for that? I should have just killed her and left her there. I should have searched every room for you and George. If anyone's responsible for anything, it's me."
Annie shrugs, and Mitchell thinks it's fucked up that even in his most perfect dream, he can't escape the blame he places on himself.
"The funny thing is, I wanted to go, at first."
"I know. George told me. And, while we're at it, that's another thing that you should blame me for. If I hadn't been such a selfish bastard, I would have realized that you were lonely."
"You had your own problems to deal with."
"Yeah, and they seem pretty fucking petty now."
He sighs and puts his head in his hands. Annie's fingers lightly run through his hair, and he gladly rolls his head back so that he has an upside down picture of her smile as she looks down at him fondly.
"You're afraid to tell him, aren't you?"
"Of course I am. Now that you've gone, he's become the moral police."
She smiles a little, then says, "But you need to tell him, don't you?"
"Stop reading my mind."
"Mitchell, I am in your mind," she points out sweetly. He frowns.
"Oh. Good point."
"Anyway, I'm just your subconscious telling you what you already know is true. You just needed to hear it from me."
"Don't do that. Let me have this, just for a little while."
"Fine, fine. It's your lucid dream, Mitchell." Her fingers play at his hair again, and he closes his eyes and feels like weeping. He also feels like tearing out Kemp's jugular and playing football with his organs. He feels like draining the blood of every priest or scientist in the whole fucking country.
But for now he can settle with talking to her. Even if it's not real. Even if it's just in his head.
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. And this pain that I've had in my gut, it's starting to fade. I've had it ever since…well, you know. And it's leaving. I don't want it to leave. I'd rather feel this pain forever. I'd rather let it continue because what I did to those poor people…"
"You have to let it go, Mitchell. You've made mistakes in the past, and you'll probably slip up in the future, as well. The trick is to live your life as humanely as possible, because I know you, Mitchell. I know that you can't live your life the way you used to. You were barely holding on, back then. Back before you met George and started living like a human again. You care. That's just who you are, and no amount of cynical old age bullshit can cure you of that. Take my advice, Mitchell. Tell George what you've done. You'll feel better, and George can help you stay clean."
"And what happens when he dies? When he and Nina die, and I'm alone again?"
"You'll find other friends."
"You know that's not true. Not like them. Not like him."
Annie shrugs, and Mitchell realizes that he can see straight through her. She's fading.
"Well, then. I guess whenever you're feeling a little down, you can sleep on it. I'll be right here, waiting."
And then he opens his eyes and cries, really cries, for the first time in weeks.
The next morning, he asks George why he hasn't asked about what Mitchell did to have him feeling so guilty. George says he doesn't want to know, and Mitchell lacks the courage to tell him.
And it's only later, after Annie returns from the dead just long enough to save them, and after they've removed their sweat-sticky hands from the glass of the television screen where the image of the beautiful, frightened, amazing woman who has managed to worm her way into their basic needs has faded away completely, it's only then that George turns to Mitchell for guidance like he used to.
"What happens now, Mitchell?" he asks, voice heavy with tears. "What do we do?"
And Mitchell finally pulls his eyes away from the static, his heart racing in a frantic, giddy rhythm that mirrors his mental process. Because there's only really one thing they can do (and it eventually works, because not too far into the future, he's holding her tight against his body while she laughs, and he's crying again, only this time for an entirely different reason because he's saved her, they've all saved her, and she's back with him again. And this time, she isn't a dream, and this time he won't wake up to find her gone. This time she's here for good, and when he tells her his plans for forever, she lights up his world with a smile that is more beautiful than anything his subconscious could have ever given him).
But that's later.
For now, he just says, "We're gonna get her back."