AN: The music used in each chapter will be posted at the top, in case you want to look the songs up on youtube. I have an eclectic taste in music, from Barry Manilow and Dolly Parton, to P!nk and Muse, and almost everything in between. For obvious reasons, music features heavily in this fic and I hope you will look up some of the songs. You never know, might find a hidden gem among them.

Love of My Life by Queen

Crazy by Patsy Cline

Blood by My Chemical Romance

Passacaglia by Handel, a piano four hands duet.

Chapter Two

Lilith appreciated Eve's desire to make sure she was all right, but she almost felt as if she was being watched, or maybe guarded. She felt guilty for ascribing such motives to Eve but she couldn't help it. Maybe Eve did just want to make sure she was okay but Lilith sensed that there was more to this, to everything that had happened.

Why didn't Eve tell her Adam was coming? Even if she had forgotten to mention it that night, she must have known a few days in advance, right? And why leave a note on her fridge telling her? That was where Lilith left shopping lists and sometimes, notes, but Eve preferred to speak in person and on more than one occasion, had awoken Lilith to let her know she was going out and would be back until nightfall, when a note would have been more than sufficient.

Did she mean for last night to happen? Could she have predicted that? She had known Adam for what? Over 400 years, so she could predict his behaviour better than anyone.

But assuming that she had known what would happen, why? She couldn't believe that Eve wished her harm.

Perhaps Eve had planned their meeting, but it hadn't gone at all how she expected. That was believable. So now, was Eve watching Lilith because she still feared what Adam would do to her? Or maybe because she feared that Lilith would reveal their secret? Or was she being paranoid and Eve simply wanted to look after her?

No, something was going on here, she just didn't know how bad it was and she needed to be on her own for a while to sort through her thoughts. Eve stayed in the room as she bathed, making sure she didn't get dizzy. Unable to get the bandage on her arm wet, Eve helped her to wash her hair but when she tried to help her out, Lilith assure her she was fine. Eve simply retreated to the bedroom and picked some clothes out for her.

Lilith felt a little like a child, being allowed a certain amount of autonomy, but only to a degree. Eve knew her style well though, so Lilith didn't argue with her choices of a black jeans and a red shirt. Lilith loved bold colours, even the ones that people told her clashed with her red hair.

"I wonder how late The Bed Factory is open?" she said as she dressed. She had little in the way of modesty with Eve, it seemed pointless.

"We'll get you a new mattress, darling, but I don't think we should do it tonight, you need to rest and recover."

"I need somewhere to sleep."

"You can sleep with us. I'd feel better with you in there with me, in case you need me."

"That's kind but you and Adam need time alone."

"Nonsense, our love is about far more than sex."

Lilith gave her a look which asked 'How dumb do you think I am?'

Eve laughed. "I haven't seen Adam in almost two years, and I'm as in love with him now as I was the day I met him."

"All the more reason you need privacy."

"Lili, stop worrying about me. Let me worry about you for a change. If it makes you feel any better, I'll order you a new mattress online this evening."

Lilith recognised that her emotions were being manipulated and if it were anyone else, she would tell them where to shove it and kick them out now but this wasn't anyone else, this was Eve. She owed her life to Eve, twice now, so how could she say no to her request, especially when it was couched in such caring sentiment.

"You know, you're ruining the vampire image of evil, mysterious, blood thirsty and sex crazed predators."

"I know," Eve smiled kindly. "So?"

"All right, just…" How did she tactfully say 'keep your maniac boyfriend away from me'?

"Don't you worry about Adam, he truly doesn't mean you any harm and I'll be there."

At the first opportunity, she would have to furnish at least one other of her spare rooms, then if it was ever necessary again, she could sleep in there.

Downstairs she went into the living room and sat at her grand piano. Eve didn't seem inclined to leave her alone, but she could escape in her music.

Having been built in the Victorian era, the reception rooms were all massive and this parlour was easily able to hold the baby grand piano and two sofa's. The instrument was placed so the player sat facing the French windows, and could look out into the garden. She tinkered for a few moments, playing scales as she decided what to play, something beautiful and soothing, something that would calm and comfort her. She eventually settled on an old, and slightly melancholy favourite.


Although he hadn't tried cooking anything yet, Adam was fairing reasonably well in the kitchen, when the sound of a piano distracted him. He guessed it was Lilith and pricked up his ears, pleased to realise she was actually quite talented. The scales and runs finished and she began playing a new piece. After seven bars, a voice joined the music.

'Love of my life, you've hurt me. You've broken my heart and now you leave me. Love of my life can't you see, bring it back, bring it back, don't take it away from me, because you don't know, what it means to me.'

The voice was not powerful, although from the demo Eve had sent him all those years ago, she clearly had a powerful voice but for this song, she had adopted an ethereal and haunting tone.

He found himself drawn to the performance and watched from the doorway while she played. Eve came and stood with him, wrapping an arm around his waist and leaning against him.

"She's amazing," he whispered.

"You haven't heard anything yet," she answered, equally softly.

"Does she play often?"

"Every day. Not always here, she has a studio in the basement but even with the sound proofing, I can hear everything."

'You will remember, when this is blown over, and everything's all by the way. When I grow older, I will be there at your side to remind you, how I still love you. I still love you.'

If that last line didn't sum up his relationship with Eve, he didn't know what did. He tightened his grip on his love as Lilith continued playing.

She moved onto another song, Crazy by Patsy Cline. Her voice was stronger on this song but still not as powerful as he knew she could be. It fit the song though.

When the song came to an end, without turning around she said, "It's rude to listen to someone playing without announcing yourself."

He realised that since it was dark out, she could see his reflection in the windows.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to disturb you. That was amazing." He and Eve stepped into the room, rounding the piano until she could see them. "Will you play something else?"

A small, he might almost say wicked, smile graced her lips and she began to play something with a decidedly different feel, almost vaudeville.

Eve was smiling, so clearly she had heard this before.

'Well they encourage your complete cooperation. Send you roses when they think you need to smile. The doctors and the nurses they adore you so, but it's really quite alarming, cause you're such an awful fuck! I gave you blood, blood, gallons of the stuff, I gave you all that you can drink and it has never been enough. I gave you blood, blood, blo-od! I'm the kind of human wreckage that you love!'

She finished with a flourish and a satisfied smile.

"I get the feeling you're trying to tell me something." His answer was obviously the right one, since her smile widened.

"Oh, my darling," Eve laughed, rubbing his shoulder. "I have a wonderful idea! Lili, why don't you play that piece you taught me, Passacaglia by Handel, the one you've been teaching me."

"Okay." It was a four hand tune, so Lilith moved down on the bench but Eve didn't take a seat, instead she prodded Adam to move.

"The piano isn't my instrument," he argued.

"Rubbish, everything is your instrument." Eve was gently pushing him closer to Lilith.

"I'd rather hear you two play, he tried again."

"Please darling, I love to hear you play."

He looked to Lilith, who seemed surprised and a little wary, but she wasn't refusing.

"Do you want to be the first or second?" she asked him.

"Second," he answered. "I haven't played a piano in twenty years."

"Don't exaggerate," Eve chided him as he sat to her right.

"We don't have to do this," she said.

"No, no, I think I remember it, my part is fairly simple."

"Okay, ready?"

Adam nodded, so she began. It wasn't a long piece, not the way she played it, but he was able to anticipate her.

Eve clapped when they finished. "Brilliant," she beamed at them.

"You're very good," Lilith told him. "Especially if you're telling the truth about not having played for so long."

"Why would I lie?"

"You haven't given me a reason to believe you."

"Do you distrust everyone?"

"No but you have to admit, you've given me good reason to distrust you."

"And for that, I am truly sorry." He nodded, acknowledging the truth of her words. "I have no excuses and it won't happen again."

"Thank you." She didn't exactly sound enthusiastic.

"You must be hungry," he said, remembering that while he had prepared it, he hadn't actually cooked her meal.

"Is that your way of telling me you're hungry?"

"No, I wouldn't accept your blood right now, even if you offered it."

"Because I'm contaminated?" She looked offended.

"No, because you're still healing. If you must know, your blood is some of the sweetest I've ever tasted."

"Wow, okay, that's… really creepy."

"It was meant as a compliment." He gave a frustrated sigh. "There's no pleasing you is there? You don't like it when you think I don't want your blood, and you don't like it when I tell you that I enjoy it. This is why we gave up feeding from familiars."

Her eyes narrowed in anger. "You seriously need to brush up on your social skills," she told him. "Believe it or not, there is a happy medium between basically calling someone diseased, as you did with your contamination talk last night, and making them feel like a Happy Meal on legs!"

"What's a happy meal?"

"My God, what rock have you been living under?" she asked rhetorically. "It's a fast food meal for kids."

"Well forgive me if I'm not up in the disgusting eating habits of zombies," he snipped at her.

"No, I won't forgive you, because the meaning behind my words was clear, even if you didn't understand one term. And forgive me, but a zombie is a reanimated corpse, which of the two of us, makes you the brain dead zombie!"

"You've got some gall, calling me-"

"Calling you what?" she interrupted, she anger reaching boiling point. "A name? The same insulting name that you've been calling me since you got here? Oh, I'm so fucking sorry, please accept my most insincere apologies, Adam!"

Adam watched her. She had no make-up on, her damp hair was slicked back from her face and she still looked tired, but he couldn't help but admire how beautiful she looked when she was angry. He could well see what Eve saw in her.

"You're right."

"What?" She sounded truly shocked by his words. He wondered if she was trying to provoke a fight, perhaps testing him to see if he would hurt her again. Fortunately, for all his faults, temper wasn't one. Moody and sullen perhaps, but not angry.

"You're right, I've been behaving like a hypocrite." He answered calmly, he was too captivated by the pink hue in her cheeks and the quick rise and fall of her chest to still be irritated. "I wish I could tell you that it won't happen again, but that would be a lie."

"So you're a hypocrite but not a liar?"

"Precisely."

Lilith looked at him for a long moment, before asking, "What does she see in you?"

"I might ask the same of you, except I think I'm beginning to have an inkling."

Lilith stood up so quickly that she almost stumbled. "I… I'm going to get something to eat."

She scurried off towards the kitchen and Adam looked at Eve, wondering what she was up to. It wasn't like her not to step into a fight like that. Over the years, she had mediated many a disagreement between him and her sister, who was better able to defend herself (at least physically) than Lilith.

"What game are you playing?" he asked.

"No game, darling, I just want you to get to know her, without my interference. Go after her."

"She ran away from me, I don't think she wants my company."

"You might be surprised. Now go."

Rolling his eyes, he followed Lilith through to the kitchen and found her standing in the middle of the floor, staring at the chopping board.

"Something wrong?" he asked, approaching her slowly lest he spooked her.

"Where did that food come from?" she gestured to the chopped ham and vegetables on the cutting board.

"Your refrigerator."

"And who prepared them?"

"I did. Are you hungry?" He approached the food and picked up his phone, which had the recipe on it. According to the next instruction, he broke three eggs into a bowl. "I hope you like omelettes, I'm not exactly a proficient cook so I thought it best to start with something easy. It should be good for you though, there's kale, peppers, ham and spinach, all of which should aid blood production. And before you get angry and say that your blood is the only reason I'm doing this, it isn't. I did it because Eve told me to."

He seasoned the eggs, then whisked them together with a fork.

"Do you do everything Eve tells you to?"

"Usually." He turned and offered her a wry smile. "Don't you?"

Lilith stepped closer to him. "I guess I do. She's like a force of nature, bending everyone to her will."

Adam's smile widened slightly, in appreciation of her analogy. He on turned the heat under the frying pan, after consulting his phone, added a knob of butter.

"So, how long have you and Eve been together?" Adam asked, just to make conversation. If he was going to get along with her, he did need to brush up on his social skills.

"She moved in about four years ago?"

"Were you together before that?"

"You mean, like a couple?"

Adam nodded. "You should be honoured, Eve doesn't take many women into her bed, it must be a hundred years or more since she had a female lover."

"Adam, I'm not gay," she told him.

"Bi then. Don't worry about upsetting me, it doesn't bother me; we've been together for hundreds of years, our love isn't based on monogamy." He added the eggs to the pan.

"Gay, bi, queer, call it what you will, I'm not. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I'm just not into girls, not in that way."

Now it was Adam's turn to look confused as he turned to her. "You're not?"

"No."

"Then why is she so protective of you?"

Lilith laughed. "Because sex is the only reason to care about someone, right? Well, to care about zombies."

"You've got me." He admitted.

"Do you ever think that maybe your depression isn't caused by people, but because you're so disconnected from people? Solitary confinement has been proven to make people susceptible to anxiety, depression, self-mutilation and suicide."

"I'm not 'people'," he answered, adding the chopped vegetables and ham to the frying pan.

"No, of course, I forget that you're some special snowflake who is above the experiences of us mere mortals."

"Are you always this sarcastic?" he asked.

"Pretty much. Why, does it bother you?"

"No actually. I like it."

"Good for you."

Adam tipped the omelette onto a plate, where it broke up into a few pieces. "Oh. I don't think it was supposed to do that," he said, checking the picture of the finished dish on his phone. "I'll try again."

He reached for the plate to throw his failed attempt out but Lilith slapped his hand away.

"Don't you dare! I'm too hungry to care what it looks like."

"Seems like I'm not the only one who gets violent when hungry," he noted but judging from the glare he received, she didn't realise he was trying to tease her.

She held the plate in one hand and cut the eggs to pieces with the side of her fork. "This is actually not bad," she told him after a few mouthfuls. "I don't think Egon Ronay would rate it, but then I doubt you care."

"Who is Egon Ronay?"

"He was a really famous food critic." She put her plate down to pour herself a glass of apple juice. "I'm going to take this into the basement; I have some work to finish and I'm sure you and Eve want some time alone."

"We-"

"Its fine," she held a hand up to stop him. "I don't want to know what you get up to, it's totally soundproof down there, so knock yourselves out."

She collected her plate and headed out of the kitchen, pausing in the doorway.

"And Adam?"

"Hmm?"

"Thanks for the food."