When Mitchell got home that night, clutching his bag of shopping, Annie was in the kitchen, cooking.

"Hey," he said, wandering in and throwing down his keys.

"Hi," she responded in her little sing song voice, looking over her shoulder from the cooker.

"What are you doing?" He asked, putting milk away in the fridge.

"Making some food," she said. "You hungry?"

"Yeah," he said uncertainly, crossing to behind her so that he could see what she was cooking. It was something bubbling away heartily in a pan.

"It's a curry," she said. "Beef and – " she looked over at a tin on the counter to remind herself. "Chickpea," she finished.

"Okay," Mitchell said. "When did you start cooking?"

"When I realized I wasn't going anywhere, so I might as well make myself useful."

"You've accepted that then."

"Yeah, well, there doesn't seem much choice does there. I don't know who makes up the rules about these things, and it's totally mental, but I do seem to be stuck here."

"Annie," Mitchell moved towards her. "It might not be forever. And there might not be 'rules' for this. Who knows what happens next for you. Maybe it's something better."

"You think?" she said, suddenly angry. "Don't you think that, if there was something better all those ghosts that chose to go through the portal would have done so? They didn't want to be stuck here any more than I do!"

"You don't want to be here that badly?"

She threw her hands out. "Well I don't know," she said. "At least having you here means that I won't be lonely I suppose, even if it is forever. But it's not like George is going to hang around here for the rest of his life."

"Hm," Mitchell said. "You spoken to him recently?

"Yeah," she said, turning back to the cooker. "And it turns out I'm a better chef than I am a councilor."

"What do you mean?" Mitchell wondered, putting his back to the countertop.

"I was talking to him last night," she said, stirring the pot vigorously, and lifting the lid on a second pot that seemed to contain extremely gloopy rice.

Mitchell groaned inwardly at the sight of it, hoping he wasn't going to be forced to eat it. "What was he saying?"

"What do you think," she said. "Nina this, Nina that."

"Oh. I saw her today."

"Who, Nina? George said she was avoiding him."

"She is," Mitchell confirmed. "She's been avoiding me too. But I pinned her down."

"So what's her problem?" Nina turned away from the cooker towards him. "Is she honestly freaked out by him being a werewolf, 'cause he thinks that's not it."

"Does he?" Mitchell looked surprised. "Well he's right, there is more to it than that."

"What then?"

Mitchell looked shifty. "I'm not sure I should tell you," he said.

"Oh, come on Mitchell!" she complained. "It's much easier for me if I know what's going on, I'm always the last to find out about anything around here."

"Is he in?" the vampire asked, moving so that he could look out the door into the living room.

"No, he's not back yet," she said. "Mitchell what is it?"

"Okay," he said. "George doesn't know this yet, so you can't tell him. You can't, okay Annie."

"What is it?" she insisted.

Mitchell steeled himself, still not sure he should be telling her, but it was such a huge piece of news, such a bombshell, that he wanted to tell someone. And it wasn't like he could tell George. "That night," he said. "In the room with Herrick. When Nina rushed in and George pushed her away, he – scratched her."

"Oh my God!" Annie was genuinely shocked. "Oh my God!! Does he not know?"

Mitchell shrugged. "He's no idea."

"And does that mean that she's…?" he nodded. "And she knows that she's…?" he nodded again. "Oh my God! So why did she break up with him? Is she angry at him?"

"No, just the opposite," he said. "She doesn't want him to find out. She thinks he'll take it badly, which he – will."

"But she can't keep that a secret Mitchell. She's got to tell him."

"I know, that's what I said."

"So what's she going to do?"

"I don't know," he said, then opened his mouth to say something else, but stopped at the sound of a key in the front door.

They both looked at each other, Mitchell miming 'not a word' to Annie, and she scurried back to the cooker as they heard George open the door and come in.

"Hello," he said, walking in to the kitchen.

"Hiya," Annie said, looking over her shoulder in what she hoped was a casual way.

"What's that?" Mitchell asked, as George was carrying an over-sized hard back book in his hands.

"The Mysteries of Death and Portals to Another World," he read out, holding it up.

"Sounds like a fun read," Mitchell commented.

"Oh, it's not for me," George protested. "It's for her."

"Is that the book?" Annie turned excited, for the moment forgetting about her conversation with Mitchell. She came over and took it from George, quickly opening it to scan the pages.

"It is indeed, all two thousand seven hundred and eighty three pages of it. At least it'll give you something to do for the rest of eternity." He wandered past them to the cooker. "What an earth is going on here?"

"Annie's cooking," Mitchell explained.

George picked up a wooden spoon and took a cautious taste at the gloop in the pot. He made a face. "Yes," he said, putting the spoon down quickly. "Well isn't that nice."

"You in or out this evening?" Mitchell asked.

"In," he said gloomily. "Why, do you have a plan?"

"I was going to watch something later. Something comic possibly if you're up for it."

"Maybe," George took off his glasses and scrubbed his eyes. "It's been a long day though. I'm gonna take a shower." He made for the door. "Happy reading," he said to Annie as he passed her.

"Yeah – oh and thanks," she said, distracted by the book, but grateful none the less.

"You really think there's gonna be something in there that can help?" Mitchell asked her.

"Well I won't know that until I've read it, will I," she pointed out, her eyes riveted to the page, her cooking on the stove forgotten.

"True," Mitchell said, his eyes following George as he disappeared up the stairs. Then he crossed to the fridge and helped himself to a beer.

Life got into a bit of a holding pattern for the three housemates over the next few days. George was moody, up in the night, dragging himself around in a depressed funk that no one could break him out of. Mitchell didn't know what to do, burdened with the knowledge he had, and knowing that the only way out of this for all of them was for Nina to tell the truth. But she was avoiding him again, and he hadn't had another chance to talk to her.

Annie just buried herself in her new book, and Mitchell would now regularly come down into the living room to find both of them on the couch: him sitting there staring into nothing, and her reading, sometimes with her booted feet on his lap. It was like he didn't notice. Like he'd stopped caring if people used him as a foot rest or not.

But the day that Nina came to tell him, it just so happened that he was there on his own. Annie had gone to the library herself this time to do some research, and Mitchell was out somewhere. George didn't know where.

When the knock on the door came, he pulled himself slowly to his feet, and made his way over, pausing as he recognized the shape of her on the other side, and for a moment, at a loss for what to do. He looked down at his shoes and took a breath. Well, whatever it was she was here for, it couldn't be worse than what she'd already said to him.

He took a deep breath, reached up and opened the door.

Nina stood on the other side, hands in her pockets and looking awkward. A half smile of welcome flicked across her face as he came into view, though he'd only opened the door partway, shielding his body with it.

"Hey," she said.

"Hi."

She opened her mouth, then shut it again. He could see this was difficult for her, but he wasn't in the mood to make it any easier.

"Can I – uh – can I come in?" she asked, realizing that he wasn't going to give anything away in this exchange, and that she was going to have to do all the work. That was fine. It was fair.

George seemed to consider the request for a few seconds, then pulled the door open more fully and stepped away to let her in. Once she was inside, he closed it after her.

They stood, awkward.

"Look, Nina…" George began.

But she cut him off, holding up a hand. "Can I – talk," she said.

He yielded the floor without a fight, and she crossed to the couch, slinging her bag off her shoulder and placing it there. Then she turned back, hands together.

"You see, the thing is," she began. "This is – going to be difficult."

He looked a bit confused at that, and came closer. "More difficult than what's already been said?" he asked, a little sarcastically. "More difficult than you watching me transform into beastman right in front of your eyes?"

"Well," she tilted her head slightly. "Possibly, yes."

"Oh."

"But," she went on quickly. "I don't want you to freak out at all, okay, this is tough, it's – it's difficult, but if I can just get through it then we can see where we are."

George took that all in, as anyone might. "Alright."

"You see the thing is," she said again. "I don't actually want to stop being your girlfriend."

A little bit of hope, a sliver, like the first light that creeps through the clouds at dawn, entered George's heart.

"It's – I - like you, a lot, I – love you even," she went on.

"And I love you," he put in with feeling. "Nina, I really do."

"I know that," she said, then turned away at the sight of his face, scared that she'd lose her nerve. "But, all the things that have happened, they're huge, they've big, really big, big things, and it's taken me a little while to work through everything. So really I said that I wanted to break up with you to give me a breathing space more than anything else. And I was scared that if I didn't do that, then I'd never be able to get it all into my head and work through it properly, and I didn't want to – worry you with stuff like that, so I just said we should break up. You see?" she turned back to him.

His eyes were watering with emotion. It broke her heart.

"Oh, George," she went up to him, to his chest, and spoke without raising her eyes. Which meant she was basically speaking to his throat. And as she spoke, her hands toyed with the front of his chequed shirt. "You are the best thing that has happened to me in a long time. A long time. And I knew all along that you had this dark secret that you couldn't share with me. And it was my choice to ignore that, and to stay with you, because I wanted to."

She looked up into his eyes. "I want to be with you, whatever you are. But we need to be completely honest with each other, that's my one condition."

"Yes," he nodded sincerely. "I promise, I will never hide anything from you, ever again, Nina. I just – want us to be happy, to be really happy."

"But," she said, turning away again, and putting a hand to her head as she got to the difficult part of the conversation. "That means I have to be honest with you."

"What do you mean?" he said.

"Well." She paced a little bit. "There's something that I really need to tell you," she eventually confessed. "It's maybe something I should have told you straight away, but like everything else I needed to think about it, and go over it, and I think I need to tell you, and certainly if we're – going to go on like we were before, then I really do need to tell you, because there's no way we could be doing stuff like we did before without you finding out anyway."

"Nina, whatever it is," he said, coming forward and stopping her nervous speech. "I'll understand - Jesus, it can't be worse than what I was keeping from you, and you're saying that you accept that. I'd accept anything about you. Anything. Please just tell me."

"Okay," she said, feeling her blood pounding with fear and anticipation. "Okay." She stepped a pace away from him, and put a hand to her sleeve. He followed her action with his eyes, ignorant and innocent of what was happening. Then she pulled the sleeve up.

There was a gap of maybe 6 seconds when he didn't seem to realize what she was showing him. And then he got it.

It was actually like a physical blow. She watched his face crumple as he stepped away from her, making an almost involuntary movement with his right hand towards his left shoulder, where the scar that had made him still marked his flesh. The mirror scar to hers. He went pale, so pale she thought he might faint.

He moaned, the emotion already building, his anguish rising to the surface like pasta on the boil. "You're – Nina I'm so…"

"George, it's okay," she insisted, dropping her sleeve and coming towards him, but he backed away, as if he feared what else he might do to her if she got too close. Her own eyes filled with tears. "George, please," she begged. "It was an accident."

"It shouldn't have happened!" he screamed suddenly. "You should never have been involved with any of this!"

"But I wanted to be!" she shouted back. "This is my fault, George. You tried to keep me away from it all, but I'm the one that came after you, I'm the one that rushed into that room. You did everything right."

"No!" he cried, holding up his hands. He was looking around for an escape, somewhere to run to where he could get away from this, leave it behind. But there was no where for him to go. He was already in his sanctuary, and however hard he had tried to keep it all separate, the horror had followed him home, and was taking up residence in the one place he thought he could be safe. He backed into the wall, and used its support to slump to the ground. "Don't touch me!" he screamed at her, as she came over to him. "I'm a – monster!"

Nina sat back on her heals, watching him, desperate to comfort him, but feeling a gulf growing between them. "George I love you," she insisted. "This doesn't change that."

"It changes everything!" he spat back. "You've no idea what it's like what it does to you, Nina. I've ruined your life and condemned you to…" he broke off, maybe realizing what he had condemned her to, imagining her enduring the pain that he went through once every 28 days, seeing her lost and alone in the woods, naked, afraid. Cursed. "No!" he screamed again, his sobs coming in waves, a paroxysm of sorrow and self-hatred that washed over him, and terrified her.

She didn't even hear the key in the door behind her, nor see it open, or Mitchell come into the room. Her attention was all on him.

"What the hell's going on?" his Irish tones in her ear was the first clue she had that Mitchell was standing right next to her. She whipped round.

"I told him," she said plainly.

"He took it well, I see," Mitchell said ironically, coming over, and looking down at his sobbing friend with obvious concern.

Nina turned back to her lover. "George," she said, trying to break through the anger and pain that had grown up around him. "George, it's done," she said firmly. "You can't undo it, you can't climb your way through the guilt and go back in time and make this like it didn't happen. We have to live it, both of us. It's a fact, a fixed point. I'm a werewolf now, just like you."

George raised his head at her words. His eyes were red and swollen, his nose running. He was drawing breath in little shuddering gasps.

But he looked at her, right at her. "I'm so sorry," he whispered.

She tried to smile through her own tears. "I know," she said, and moved in to hug him.

He allowed it, hugging back with violence almost, clinging to her desperately. Mitchell, embarrassed by the intensity of their emotion, left them to it, going into the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee.

Nina stroked George's hair tenderly. "It'll be alright," she soothed.

"How will it?" he gasped out. "How will it ever be alright?"

"I don't know," she smiled a little to herself. "I just – have this - feeling. That everything's going to be alright."