Disclaimer: I own nothing.
It takes Annie a full month to come to terms with the fact Mitchell is gone.
When it does hit her, like a bucket of ice water, she is careful not to tell Nina and George. What with the wolf-child in Nina's stomach growing by the day, she figures they really don't need anything else to worry about.
Unluckily for her, it's the constantly fusing light fittings and occasional exploding mugs that tell them all they need to know.
She hears him sometimes. Late at night, when the other two are sound asleep and there are no clouds in the sky so she sees every single star.
He sings to her. Which is weird, because never in her entire death has she heard him sing like he does in her ear. His voice is soft, and the words are in a language she doesn't understand, but it's enough to bring shivers to the back of her not-quite existent neck and tears to her ghostly eyes.
Sometimes, she swears she can feel the caress of his fingers against the small of her back, the rough material of those stupid fingerless gloves making her giggle, the sound strange in the drowsy silence of the night, but soon her laughter turns to tears as she curls up into a ball on his bed and just wishes he was really with her.
After another month, she thinks she really must be starting to go mad.
When Nina's little boy is born, four months early and as healthy as anything, she cries with happiness and insists on cuddling all three of them at least six times; but when she leaves the happy family to their own devices, she is sure she sees him, leaning against the door jamb of his old room and smiling at her with that smile he reserved especially for her.
She doesn't cry, this time.
Jonathon is five months old, and rather cute for a lycanthropic baby. Annie spends rather a lot of her time doting on him, but sometimes when she meets those big blue eyes of his she can't help but be greeted by a familiar and very old wave of regret, that she never did things like have children and she never will.
She sees Mitchell in his eyes. Literally. He's there, reflected back, like he's looking over her shoulder at the baby too but, of course, he's not there in her peripheral vision. Maybe it's because of the boy's name, and maybe George and Nina see it too.
She doubts it, though.
She only means it as a passing comment, but George seems to take it completely the wrong way.
'George?'
It's him and her, alone in the house for the first time in a very long time as Nina has taken little John out for a walk and wanted some time alone; it feels nice.
'Mm?' He settles the paper he was reading onto his lap, and smiles at her. She's fiddling with one of the books from the bookcase. He can't help but think she looks a bit like a lost puppy.
'D'you think vampires can, y'know, come back as ghosts? As in, do they even go to purgatory like normal humans?'
The question is innocent enough, but George is older and cleverer now to see past it.
He gives her a look, a look of abject helplessness that scares her a bit, and tears glisten behind his glasses, like hushed-up whispers he hasn't dared let escape. 'Oh Annie,' Is all he says, but it's all he needs to say and it's only moments later when she's taking the place of his newspaper and he's rocking her gently back and forth as loud sobs wrack her body.
It's the first time they've even come close to mentioning his name since it happened, and afterwards the two feel closer than ever.
Nina returns ten minutes later complete with baby stroller, bright smile and another young man in tow, cheerily introducing him to the other two as Evan. A ghost. Apparently Evan died in 1985, the year Annie was born, isn't that funny. Just like Gilbert.
She squeezes George's arm as she politely greets Evan, and knows he understands.
She sleeps with Evan, when he asks her to, and finds it not unpleasant; it's been so long since she's been this close to anyone and of course she's missed sex. She's only human, after all (she finds this thought particularly amusing).
The next day he senses her excruciatingly polite disinterest in what they sort of might be, and with a chillingly warm kiss pressed to her forehead he leaves, sauntering away down the street as the sun groggily slides into the sky. The pink tinge it lends the clouds reminds her of their house back in Bristol, and it makes her smile, at least for five minutes.
A few hours later, when George gets up for work, he knows better than to ask where Evan went; unfortunately, Nina isn't quite so perceptive (both George and Annie agree its due to baby stress) and Annie finds herself stuttering something about ghost business and Rent-a-ghosting places, about utilizing his skill set for good and it's all so ridiculous she wants to laugh, but eventually Nina gets it and the subject is dropped. Annie gets back to making tea.
When Jonathan says his first words, they're "mummy" and "love", or at least some sort of baby equivalent, and Annie cries because Nina is crying and it's all so beautiful.
Later, though, she's alone in her room and she's crying again, but this time she can't stop. The lightbulb above her smashes and she can hear Jonathon's cries and Nina and George's attempts to calm him down, but it's like she just can't hear them. Every single one of her senses is overwhelmed by an excruciating sense of unfairness, he's not here and she's alone and she wonders how much more of this she can take.
She buries her face in her hands and waits for morning.
At some point, in the hours that follow, she feels soft, strong, familiar hands rubbing her shoulders and a soft kiss pressed to her curls, then there's a soft click as the door is shut.
George's snores continue from the other room, uninterrupted.
Things head a bit downhill from then on.
Luckily, Jonathan evolves to becoming particularly amused by every exploding mug or slamming door. A true comic book horror character, George jokes. Nina is less impressed.
She spends her days either moping (and making things blow up with her mind) or trying to work out in her head whether the man she loved (loves) was the man John Mitchell really, truly was, or whether it was the man he pretended to be, the man he simply morphed into every time he needed to feel something more than a desire for blood.
What's most terrifying is that after all this time, she just doesn't know what she wants the answer to be.
He killed so many people. The magnitude of the death he carried around with him was tangible, like an electric spark every time they had touched. And when he'd finally been brought to justice, she'd wanted more than anything else for him to suffer.
She realises now what a huge mistake she had made back then. Not in asking him to be punished, that he deserved. She shouldn't have handed him over, right into Herrick's grasp again, it only led- then she stops herself, and reminds herself he's where he wants to be now, and he's not in pain any longer.
She wonders if vampires go to hell.
'Shall I do my George impression for Jonathon?'
She's sitting in the kitchen with Jonathan on her knee as George and Nina eat a casual dinner. It's dark outside, and Jonathan is always more pleasant at this time of the evening. A crescent moon is just about visible through the kitchen window.
At Annie's enquiry, George frowns, mid-mouthful of carrots, and Nina just looks a bit confused.
'I-I find that slightly degrading. That is my son, you know.' There's a hint of pride in his voice as he says that, and Nina chuckles.
Annie glances down at Jonathan's chubby little face again as Nina and George start teasing each other over their parenting skills. A faint smile ghosts across her face. She feels... okay again.
That night, she's trailing her fingertips along the mantelpiece in the living room. She likes the sensation, the dust against her dead skin. It reminds her that eternity had existed for a long time before she did.
Suddenly there's a light, and she gets this tingling sensation in the bridge of her nose that's similar to the one she experienced when she crossed over. She's scared, and she can't see anything, but something tells her this isn't Kemp coming back for revenge, so she is silent and waits for the light to pass. Her grip on the mantelpiece tightens.
When the searing in front of her eyelids grows dull and the tingling finally disappears, she opens her eyes. Her groggy mind notes that she has no idea whether ten seconds or an hour has passed.
He's there, sitting on the sofa. Something supernatural in her tells her that he isn't what he was; he's paler, and the temperature of the room has dropped, but there he is, fingerless gloves, sad smile and all.
She's pretty sure that if she had had a heart, it would have stopped.
'Wh- what are you?' She finally manages to croak, and inwardly chastises herself for not being stronger than this.
The phantom figure stands up, and she finds herself automatically stepping backwards, colliding with the fireplace. The dull throbbing in her back feels detached, somehow, like it's someone else's pain.
He's glowing slightly. It's a bit weird, but that doesn't really matter.
'I'm your guardian angel,' ghost-Mitchell tells her with his classic smirk.
When they finally kiss, it feels like a whirlwind.