The older the love, the stronger.

"I have to get her back." Josef Kostan gripped Mick St. Johns shoulders. Fangs bare and eyes still feral white. "I can't lose her too."

Beth placed her hand on his arm gently. She spoke quietly and with tears in her eyes. "You love her." He knew it wasn't a question. He dropped his head. Beth ducked under the arm beneath her hand, placing herself between him and Mick, and lifted his head to see his eyes. They were a human shade of brown, clouded in tears. Throwing her arms around his neck, she hugged Josef as tight as her human arms could hold.

Josef pulled his hands off Mick and wrapped his arms around Beth carefully, and buried his face in her neck where his tears left him and hers on him. Mick stood back in astonishment, bruises already forming under his shirt.

"Did you see the way she looked at me?" Mick saw it. Disgust, fear, deafening heartbreak. Beth had looked at him that way when he refused to save Josh by turning him. "The way she turned from me?"

"She didn't mean it." Beth told him, lifting his face to look at her. "Trust me; she didn't know...she couldn't have meant it."

"How could you know, Beth?" Josef fell to a chair.

"Because, Josef. I know what it's like to fear and love what I fear. She can't know what she's feeling, because...because she has never felt it." Josef and Mick stared at her in open shock. Her eyes flicked for a second to Mick, and Josef knew exactly what she was trying to tell him.

"Thank you, Beth." His face became full of pain. "This is wrong."

"Yes, the way she was pulled into our world was wrong." Mick sat with him.

"No, not that. I love Sarah. But now I'm falling for Kat."

"Sarah Whitley?" Beth sat on the desk. "Josef, I'm sure Sarah, if she knew how you felt, what you're going through, would tell you its okay. If she loved you as much as the journal said, she'd want you to be happy, even if it can't be with her."

"Beth, I know you're trying to help. But, humans and vampires can't be together. Bad things happen. Things go wrong."

"Get your mind off of that for a moment." Mick had to stop this talk of emotions. He knew that it would somehow come back to him. "First thing we have to do is find where Lance is holding her."

"Wait, who else is missing? Lance might be involved in everything." Beth mused over this as she spoke.

"Corraline, Jessica, Kat, and..." Mick met Beth's eyes. "...and Sarah. I think I know what everything leads to."

"What?" Beth could be so dense.

"Me." Josef was calm, cool, and all but collected. "I knew Corraline before Mick, Lance is her brother. Jessica and Kathleen both work for me at Heart and Time. And Sarah."

"Oh, Josef." Beth jumped forward to hug him again

"You're Corraline!" Kathleen nearly screeched. "Mick will be so happy to hear you're safe!" She took a crawling step toward her.

"No!" Corraline stopped her with an up raised hand. "Don't come any closer. It's not safe."

"What do you mean?"

"If I hurt you, Josef will never forgive me. Neither would Mick. So just stay over there." Corraline flashed her frosted eyes at Kat. "But Lance was right." Fangs poked out as she spoke. "You smell good, even from over here."

Kat scooted back again. "You're a vampire too?"

"Yes." Corraline flinched in pain.

"Are you alright?

"Lance, my brother, has starved me. I have wronged him and now he tortures me...with you."

Kat thought for a moment. The only thing was that when Kat thought very deeply (as she did now) she did so out loud. "Could a feral vampire feed from a human without killing it? Or would it lose control? The smell of blood must be intoxicating. What worse...the taste of it after starvation." Kat looked up to find Corraline smiling, not cruelly as Lance had. "What?"

"Yes, a feral vampire could feed without killing, and it is possible to lose control, and no I wont risk you so put it out of your head."

"But..." Her voice was a little louder than she had wished to have started, she tried again. "But, if you go completely feral, you might just kill me anyway without knowing what you're doing." Corraline was amazed that this human, whom had only just been dragged into the shadow, would be so casually talking about vampire feed and her own death. "So, with that, Corraline, I offer my brachial artery to you, as a friend." Kat held out her arm out to her, presenting the strong pulse in her left bicep. "When I start to feel faint, I'll give you a good thwack in ye'r skull." A grin spread across both their faces.

"So technical, how would I refuse?"

"Don't. Just allow me to hit you." They laughed before Corraline took her blood into herself and became replenished.

Kat awoke with her head in Corraline's lap. "what happened?"

"You fainted. For a second there, I thought I had killed you. Then I heard your heart beating." Corraline smiled down at her.

"So. I'm alive. Are you stable?" She nodded. "Next time, we'll have to do it before you get feral."

"I thank you, but I won't do it again."

"we don't know how long we'll be here. You could be here for several hundred years."

"Let's not talk about that now. We'll talk about later, later."

Josef begun throwing heavy things around the room an hour ago. The couch almost made it out the window. Beth had inched herself out of the room and to Mick's apartment, per his instructions, she locked the door.

"Josef! You need to calm down." Mick ducked under his flying desk, aimed by Josef for his head.

Beth stuck her head out the door to listen.

"Turn me back." Beth gasped, Josef halted in throwing the desk chairs. "I'll help you get Sarah and Kat."

"But...what about your humanity? What about Beth?" Josef had heard her...Mick couldn't have.

"I know you would do the same for me if it was Beth. We're vampires Josef. It is our duty and priveledge to protect the ones we love when they can't help themselves. You love them both, Kat and Sarah. You cannot face Lance alone, and I'm useless as a human."

Both man and vampire had tears in their eyes.

"You love me?" Mick turned quickly, Beth stood in the damaged doorway. "is that what you're saying?"

"Yes."

She stepped toward him. "say it." She climbed over the desk, not wasting time with going around, to get to him.

She was within arms reach of him when Josef saw her tears.

"I love you." She tackled him with a crushing kiss.

"I love you, Mick." She said before crushing her lips to his again. And another kiss, softer, shorter. Mick lowered her to her own feet. "Now let's help Josef." She took his hand and turned to the vampire. "Turn him, I'll feed him, then we can go."

"We?" Mick looked at her with wide eyes. "you're staying here."

"The hell I am." She yelled at him. "If you haven't been paying attention, let me fill you in." she poked him in the chest. "the second Kat was taken, Josef was an emotional wreak. I, not you, was the one to bring comfort to him. You tried, I was successive. I am willing to give you up to help him, because the two of you are adamant that vampires and humans can't be together."

"What are you saying?" Mick looked hurt.

"She means that we, her and I, are connected, closely." Beth motioned with a flat hand that Josef had caught her point. "She's safer with us. Lance will come for Beth next. Better she's with us when we face him than for her to face him alone."

Her index finger was suddenly in Mick's face. "I told you." Her voice broke. "I love you. I'm coming with you. I'd die with you."