So, I read Black Dawn in about three hours, if that, and one of the only bright parts of it was the AmelieOliver relationship. I've always shipped it, just not as much as Samelie, and it was the only thing that kept me going…that, and Oliver's being the only one [besides Richard] who 100% kept their characterisation right the way through.

Evidently, this contains spoilers, mainly for the end of Black Dawn.

note: I don't normally write in third person past [though I am a lot more, at the minute] and I did this to be more like the actual series...I apologise if it's shit, though.

Things were changing in Morganville.

That much had been clear from before their defences were breached by the draug, but now…now things were that much more complicated. Now, not only did Amelie have to contend with emotions which were far too human for her to admit she had, as well as discover how to rebuild her town from the point of ruin.

First of all, she had to deal with the feelings of returning to being a vampire, the desire to eradicate all feelings of the draug as possible stronger than anything else, as well as then progress into the next question: what was her relationship with Oliver?

Long before, back in the age when swords were drawn as readily as guns, and before the unity of the crown, there had been something possible between them; nothing was certain, nothing was verbally admitted, and nothing had ever been done in regards to it, yet it had been there, and she supposed that it had always simmered away beneath the call of resentment and hatred. Bloodlust and power…these were things that they both, though Oliver perhaps more so, and they had acted as a mask for something indescribable, something which would weaken Oliver more than herself, particularly with the situation they currently faced. He, the strong warrior, to have fallen in love with the ice queen…that was his only weakness, the only person who could amount to a chink in his armour; she had already shown she could love, that she could love irrevocably and truly, to the point that she had almost taken the most rash of actions.

If she had ever doubted it before, Oliver's feelings towards her (though never spoken aloud), there was no way she could have missed them now; his continuous refusal to kill her, to put her out of the misery of becoming something which could hurt him, as well as his unwavering belief in her to be able to destroy the draug from within only made her sure of it: one benefit of being as old as they were, was that they did not have to speak the words which they knew to be the truth. She had resisted informing him of her feelings, for fear that he would have to kill her, and she knew he had done the same, if only to prevent himself from further torment.

"My queen, we must make haste; the children shall be here shortly." As he spoke, Amelie gained flashbacks to mere minutes ago, to a time when she had begged to die, to be allowed to leave a world where she was nothing, and he wouldn't allow her to. He had made her understand that she was everything, the queen, someone who was more valued than any other – and without her, they were nothing. If she had needed further proof than she already had, she need not have looked past this moment.

"And what would you propose we do, Oliver?" her tone lacked the usual calmness she usually possessed, instead filled with something akin to whining. "I desire not to begin to rebuild my town tonight; we have only just eradicated the enemy, and generally there is a night of victory which follows first."

Their eyes met, and she couldn't quite understand what she felt; it wasn't something for Oliver that overpowered everything else – it was the desire to be a vampire. For the entirety of Morganville's existence, she had resisted the call, the pull to be one of her own kind, and she had only relinquished this tight hold when her Father came around. But the near loss of her vampirism, the close call she had between being her current self and the draug she had become for a short time…it made her certain that she would no longer withhold her true self.

She had never been this cold before; she was sure that this was what would have drawn Oliver to her, and her to Oliver, and then sparked the fierce competition between the two of them. She had been fiery and incandescent, burning brighter than the sun she could no longer stand in, and sometimes, rash and impromptu with her actions. And so she would return to this, and she would allow herself to feel.

And so as Oliver spoke, she realised that she already knew what he would say, because she had desired it even more since she had destroyed Jason's humanity. The feeling of his life leaving him and filling her own veins…it was something that bloodbags could never compare to, something she had relished before realising that she could not run a town and act in such a manner.

Now, with Oliver beside her, she was quite willing to change the rules, to realise that the vampires' position ought to be higher than that of their prey. No longer would she listen to the residents of this house, she thought.

"Did you hear me?" Oliver asked her gently, his eyes raking her face with an intensity that it made Amelie want to blush.

"Yes, of course I did, Oliver," she snapped at him, yet it was nothing compared to how she could have brushed him off, like before. She could have brushed him off, left him across the table, a seething enemy who wanted nothing more than her head…but she couldn't. "Let's hunt."

Only this time, they would no longer be hunting the bloodbank for their blood.

~x~

She had always adored the feeling of the wind in her hair as she ran through the streets, searching for her meal; it wasn't something she did more than necessarily – she had never been someone who enjoyed killing for no reason other than for survival – yet it had been her, and she had missed the ability to catch her own food.

As she made her way towards the house where she could hear three heartbeats, enough blood for the pair of them, she realised that she was no longer the person she was, that she was a different Founder of Morganville, now. No longer would she be the queen who would succumb to the will of others, but rather one who used brutality and force as means to get what she wanted, damning the consequences that fell on those who got in her way. It was in that moment that she was almost grateful Sam had died; whilst she enjoyed the ability to set free her vampiric self, she knew that she never would have with Sam…he was someone who freed the human inside of her, not the vampire.

It was Oliver and Amelie who were the perfect vampire couple, not Amelie and Sam.

She turned back for a moment to look at Oliver, who was running just behind her, a dutiful servant as always, and their eyes met, a light grey and near black colliding, and it was clear then what she wanted: she didn't want him behind her, like a servant – he was her equal, if only now, and he ought to run alongside her, not anywhere else. After all, he had saved her life more than the once, what with how he tried to make her see that she had to complete their plan, and then how he had persuaded her to just keep on going, to not give in. She owed him everything; if it wasn't for him, she wouldn't have continued to fight for all those days, would she?

"Come here," she decided she had to tell him verbally what she wanted, for him to be alongside her, her partner. "I don't ever want to fight you again, Oliver; I do not think that I could survive having to oppose you like that."

He didn't say a word as he increased his speed to be the same as hers, not pushing to be faster than her because she was still weak: the iridescent spark within her would fade fast without feeding, and if that happened, there was a chance that she would fade back to the skeletal figure which showed her true age – and she wouldn't be able to come back.

And anyway, he didn't want to push ahead of her. He was happy next to her.

"I do believe that this would be of benefit to the both of us, for I know I most certainly could never dream to destroy you." He didn't look away from her eyes, his continuing to bore into hers, and all it did was reassure her that he meant every word that he said.

(It made her feel something she hadn't felt in too long; she felt hope. She felt hope and she felt that there was a chance that she could be happy, happy without condition, because it had been far too long since she had had that.)

~x~

"Stay with me, Oliver." Her voice was soft as she murmured these words just outside of her bedroom door. "I…I don't think I can be alone, not after…not after that."

She didn't need to explain; he'd have understood why she couldn't let him leave her without her adding on the additional sentence – she had only just recovered, and to be expected to stay in a room similar to where she began to turn into a master draug. And he wasn't ever going to let her be alone, to be perfectly honest, because he knew that she would begin to overthink things, to consider whether or not her decision to let the vampire within have control was the right thing to be doing…he knew that she would soon become too compassionate if allowed to be left to her own thoughts, and whilst he knew he could never control Amelie, he would ensure that Morganville would be run by much harsher rules.

"Certainly, my lady." As he spoke, he inclined his head, yet the hint of a smile played on his lips, as it did on Amelie's. They had always shared a similar train of thought – perhaps that was what had made them such remarkable enemies, desiring to destroy the other rather than live under the other's rule. Perhaps it was that ruthlessness, the one that had lain dormant within Amelie, that had meant she couldn't destroy him when she defeated him all those years ago, or even when he had just joined Morganville, desiring to tear her down.

Things had changed since then, most notably her and who she felt emotion for and in what strength, yet she was sure that they hadn't.

He opened the door for her and they entered the living area adjacent to the bedroom, the pair of them gravitating towards the pair of chaise lounges in the centre of the room; he ensured she was seated comfortably, that she didn't have any other problems to do with her strength, and then he, too, sat down, unsure what to say.

"Words have always been our ally, have they not, Oliver?" she broke the silence suddenly, her eyes gazing over towards the far corner of the room, where a replica of one of her favourite portraits hung. "And yet here, now, when I desire to use them more than anything else, they fail me. Do they fail you in the same capacity, or am I merely too weak to control their meaning and manipulate them to put across how I feel?" she sounded bitter by the end, and it was with great effort that Oliver didn't lean forwards and say those words, the ones he had been denying even to himself, because he still had some pride left, did he not?

And so he merely inclined his head once more before raising it for their eyes to meet. "I often have the same problem as you have indeed described, even more so in this modern age, when words and their meanings hold so little value to the user," he agreed, and it was music to his ears when she gave a small laugh in response. It was the same as she would laugh before, though often not with him, yet different in a way; it was almost as though she had let him in on what was funny, meaning that he heard another level to the tone of her laugh. It wasn't fierce and it wasn't threatening; it was vulnerability, something he was well aware Amelie had. Hell, they all were vulnerable in some way or another, and yet she had managed to fight over what had made her vulnerable, no matter what.

She had fought to overcome the vulnerability left when Sam died, and time after time, she had managed to do it, cumulating to this final victory against their enemies. And Oliver was certain that now, it was his time to overcome this final hurdle.

"Ahh, well I must say that I am pleased we both suffer…the same problem to enunciate our words into an order which makes sense," she replied, a smile in her tone - if such a thing happened to be possible, of course. "I am tired, yet I…I fear to sleep without knowing…knowing that…" she trailed off, unable to finish her sentence with words which pleased her enough.

Somehow, Oliver knew what she was trying to say; he felt a similar feeling, an uncertainty as to whether or not he should say it, because he didn't want to appear weak. Amelie needed someone strong, someone who could help her follow through iron-fisted rules, the exact opposite as to what had happened the last time the town faced an imminent threat, and yet she needed to know that there was a reason why he would never turn against her. Whilst he felt she had to know, because he had been with her, to save her, rather than fighting against the draug, it was always better to be clear with Amelie.

"I understand your point," he continued the conversation as though she had completed her sentence, rather than allowing the silence to build up. "In fact, I thought I was the only one of us who felt that way. I am not about to launch into a spiel about how I cannot live without you, how you mean the world to me, because we need not hear things such as this, do we?"

She knew from his words that this was what he wanted to say, yet that he was far too proud and arrogant a man to confess it; perhaps cunningness and arrogance were all a vampire had, or at least one who had survived the seas of time, because she was aware that she had never been anything but. It had been what had ensured her victory over Bishop, and, in the end, it was what led to the demise of anyone who wasn't that way; she had seen it with followers in the past, with Sam, and even with Richard Morrell. All the ones who had good souls were the ones who expired, whilst the people who didn't deserve to survive, the generals who sent their troops to their deaths…they survived to fight another day, to send more unsuspecting people to their deaths, because war without bloodshed wasn't war, was it?

"We do not need to hear those words, that is correct." Her succinct reply pleased him, and she found that it pleased herself also, because she was confident enough in her theory of love that she didn't need to hear that he loved her. "And yet I wonder what we do now, as the night reigns and the town is peaceful. What do we do, before we embark on a journey which could destroy us all, if we aren't careful?"

He didn't bother to waste time with further words, not when their meanings could be interpreted with such broad a spectrum as Amelie could manage; she had always managed to find the hidden meaning within the most innocent of sentences. Instead, he moved slowly across the distance between them – deliberately paced so that she could stop him at any moment – and leaned over to press his lips to hers.

It was a soft, gentle kiss, one akin to the show of affection in her office, and she made no moves to stop him; instead, she moved one arm slowly to encircle his neck, pulling him closer to her, to make it easier for herself to kiss him back. She hadn't shown this much emotion for so long, she realised, as she found herself wanting to tell him things she ought to keep secret for now, to emotionally involve herself with Oliver to a point which may be unsafe for her future.

But, right then, she was sure that she had her first chance to be happy for quite some time, and that she was going to grasp it with both hands, if necessary.

"That…I shall see you in the morning, Oliver." As soon as they detached themselves from one another, Amelie stood up, using the side of the chaise lounge for support, and looked Oliver in the eyes once again. There was no guard blocking her emotions, as there usually was, and neither was there in his; they were both being completely open with one another for the first time, and it was then that they realised that they had the same amount of differences as similarities.

"I'll be waiting," he told her, tipping an invisible hat in her direction, yet unlike with Myrnin, it didn't seem mocking. And so, with a small smile that seemed to shine brighter than one thousand suns, Amelie swayed towards the other room, the one with the bed, and turned back as she reached the door. Standing as she was, leaning against the doorframe, she looked younger than Oliver thought he had ever seen her, even with the strange nature of her modern day clothing. The innocence her hair seemed to bring, hanging loose about her face, made him sure that she was the same person he had always known, and that it was probably him who had changed to be more accepting.

"Goodnight, Oliver." Her voice was soft and almost as though she was speaking to a lover of one thousand years. "Do keep the noise down, if you sleep in here. I prefer not to be interrupted as I slumber."

And with that, she closed the door, leaving him outside her bedchamber, yet by no means outside of her heart.

i'd appreciate it if you didn't favourite/read without reviewing, thanks!

vicky xx