A/N There's some cussing below, but no worse than you'd get on the show. Enjoy. Than you for the reviews for chapter one. The whole Ethan having been married is down to a clip I saw on the PD youtube channel where it shows two seconds from every day they were filming; there was a close up of Ethan in a frame with a bride and he looked like the groom...

Chapter 2

My ass is still sore from the ride across half the states to the port and my ribs ache from both a brawl in a bar and laughter, of which there was much. The full moon has passed so the other passengers on the boat have no reason to fear me and I have the luxury of a few days with only those that take the half life to look out for, and thankfully they are far and few between.

The crossing will be around a week if the weather is good to us. I feel worry starting to rise about how I will be received back in London, by more than just Miss Ives. Her appearances in my dreams have increased since leaving my childhood home; now it seems that she is in every one in many guises, and I wake frequently imagining that she is next to me or nearby, in danger or in anger and sometimes in love. Tak woke me one night during the journey to the port, trying to stop me from shouting her name, but he would not tell me what else I said. The expression on his face suggested it would only cause me pain to know.

I can see the ocean all around us, as if we are sailing through a sapphire. This passage is already much more pleasant than the journey with Rusk, the lack of a cage and chains an immediate improvement. Ela was correct in her words, some atonement is already done so the lightness can be viewed without fear.

Rusk is already back in London, probably content with himself and satisfied now he had seen at first hand the demon he had been seeking. He handed me over to my father at the port, not expecting the brush off he was given, not expecting a man like my father. I don't recall much else; my thoughts had turned inwards, filled only with Sembene's blood and thoughts of Vanessa without me. At what I had become and the terror that I was lost to it, without even death to look forward to. I recalled in a moment of clarity Vanessa begging me to take her life, to give her that release and my refusal. She called me cruel at one point and that first night travelling across the states to New Mexico I understood why.

We returned to the house where I was brought up after my mother died and I was left alone in a secured room. I didn't care. Whichever fucking god was on duty had abandoned me and I had no reason to keep hold of my sanity. There was a freedom in giving in to the madness, of letting myself sink underneath that wilder ocean than the one I sail across now.

And then the full moon arrived in its timely manner and I changed. Locks on doors were not strong enough to keep me prisoner and I broke free, watched by my father and his man, Rusk in attendance and I fled to my brother's grave, which was where Ela found me the following morning, as if she knew I'd be there. There was no hunger to sate or words to say. Not at that point. She read the hatred for myself in my eyes and never tried to persuade me from it.

According to the captain, the ship is making good time and our journey should take us no more than eight days in total. We've been at sea for one already so there's just a week until I'm on English soil. The captain's pleased as his wife has just had a little girl and he's anxious to be home to see how she's grown. I smile, say something appropriate and he invites me to eat with him this evening. I thank him, all the time looking behind his shoulder to check that there is no curly haired woman standing there, just one of the demons I'm unable to run from.

My father had me extradited, not needing the controversy that either my hanging or imprisonment would cause. He had become a political man; in the time since I'd seen him had developed his contacts in Washington and although didn't wish to become president, he had a desire to gain more power that way, now he had no sons left. I'd never been what he wished; I was the opposite of Thomas, my brother. I learned easily, quickly but would rather be out shooting or riding. Thomas lingered over his lessons and would try to engage father in intellectual conversations, failing miserably but increasing my father's power over us both. I ran wild, wanting to impress him in my own way and it was then I found the reservation and Tak.

I still remember that almost carefree part of my childhood. Running barefoot across the fields, climbing trees and fashioning our own bows and arrows. And then there was the magic; the superstition and rituals that dominated Tak's tribe. Not everyone was good. Not everyone tried to be good.

At first, father ignored our friendship, but when I became vocal about the treatment the Indians were receiving he stopped me from walking through the woods, or going anywhere and I was sent away to school. I didn't last there. It was too easy to escape so time and time again I was picked up by father's men and taken back to school or to home, to face the wrath of daddy who had been burying himself in whisky and whores.

I was beaten to within an inch of my life and saw the sadism in every nightmare since. Giving in to what he required was the only option and I learned to keep my mouth shut when he was around, say my prayers and do as I was asked. I married his business partner's daughter when I was eighteen, a sweet girl called Laura, who I wasn't in love with, but it meant I no longer lived under the same roof as my devil of a father. Laura was older than me and had a simplicity younger than her years. She was beautiful in a way that men noticed, a beauty made all the more when she failed to pick up on their flirtations and comments. In a bar one evening I heard the local white men discussing her, what they would do to her or let their sons do, how they would teach her. I felt the rage burn deep within my belly and a fire thunder through me. I ended up in a police cell that night, my brother dragging me home the following morning, chiding me in a way worse than my father.

"You were upset by what they were saying about her?" my father said. "Upset?" he spat the words.

"And you aren't? The daughter of your friend to be spoken about in such a way?" It once would've pained me to speak back, but by this time I was braver, more stupid maybe.

"She's just a quim without a thought in her head. She'll be good for two things…"

He didn't continue, just shuffled papers and looked at me in a way that suggested I was good for nothing.

"She's going to get hurt."

"You're not some white knight, Ethan. Unless you want her for a wife I suggest you learn that not everyone can be protected."

"Fine. I'll marry her." The words were out before I had thought about them. I was eighteen. I'd had girls before, discretely away from my father's ears and eyes, and I'd found I enjoyed their company. But there had been nobody serious, an older girl maybe, Charlotte or Lottie as she was known. But I was merely her plaything for a few months before she left me with an almost broken heart.

My father looked up and pushed his papers to one side. "That could suit us both. If she'll take you I'll have it arranged."

That night as I walked back from stabling the horses a group of men set upon me, leaving me for the night bloodied and bruised in the bushes. I had known who they were: my father's men. I was too tall and too broad for him to take his fists to himself, but he could live vicariously through men from the shadows.

I didn't go home until the bruises had cleared, instead making my way to the reservation and Ela's healing tinctures. By the time I returned my wedding was planned. Laura had always liked me and for her a wedding was the chance to dress up and look pretty, which she did. My father took great pleasure in arranging the wedding night, understanding full well that I would never force Laura to do something she couldn't understand.

Rusk never saw that side to the old man he met. The three years had not been kind. There was a weakness down his left side and his voice was sometimes slurred, no longer by alcohol. The house had been emptied of ornaments, as if someone had taken away the woman's touch and I wondered if my father had given up fucking his regular prostitutes. I didn't ask. Even when I returned after the full moon, after I had spent three weeks in Ela's house, lying by a constant fire, listening to her chants and incantations while Tak watched with his cat-like stare.

"Your father loves you," Ela said, when I was cognizant enough to understand.

"No," I replied. "He loved the idea of me. Not who I was, who I am now. And especially not after I killed Thomas." I was sitting up by this point, sipping at a potion Tak had made that tasted of bitter wood with added honey.

"He knows that you saved us," Ela said, an old book in front of her, written in a language I couldn't understand.

I looked away. She knew of the atrocities I'd committed.

After I married Laura I joined the army, my last attempt at freedom away from my father. He wasn't pleased, but Thomas was demanding more of his time as he struggled with father's business deals and his own vices, namely younger girls who weren't that interested. And Laura, his brother's wife.

I killed my first man on Thomas' birthday in a massacre of a tribe of Apaches. It wasn't an Apache, but an American by the name of Tobias Youngman. I found him about to rape one of their women so shot him in the head and told the woman to run. Lying had always come easy so I confessed to missing a shot, then killed an Apache outright to prove my loyalty.

The third kill I don't remember. They all blur into one eventually.

Around my neck I wear two tokens on a chain. One is of St Jude, patron saint of lost causes, given to me by Brona. The other is a piece of silver with an etching on, made by Ela and Tak, with a symbol I don't understand. I touch them frequently, reminding myself that I have survived extradition and my father, the only thing that has damaged my soul is myself.

Ela talked to me about walking the line between light and dark and how easy it is to step into the shadows but to keep sight of the light, even if it's in the distance. Even before I became what I am, I walked in those shadows and was proud of it even. Now am I no longer proud for I have nothing left to prove.

On the journey from England I would've gladly cast myself into the ocean, the rope having been denied me, but Rusk's cage prevented such a final act. Now the waves that surround the ship no longer call; instead I urge them to draw me closer to England so that I can use this lingering darkness to cushion anothers'.