2012

Hal hardly felt it as his knees hit the rough concrete floor. In front of him, propped up on the dirty wire fence in the damp and disgusting basement room, was the bloody corpse of a dark haired girl. Though he had only known the girl for a short amount of time, he had been growing to like her and the way she challenged him. In spite of this, it was not short, dark hair, a leather jacket, and unlaced boots he saw covered in blood in front of him.

Instead, Hal saw blond ringlets and a pretty dress that he had torn and bloodied, lying on a metal table as tubes he had placed so delicately drained blood from a once lovely throat into crystal decanters. In all his many years, Hal had gone through many dark cycles, killing countless innocents without regard to age or sex. He regretted all of them during his kinder cycles, but there were few he regretted as much as Rachel Cutler.

The reason Hal had killed her was standing next to him speaking, mocking the words that Hal had once used, twisting them in his nervous, desperate voice. Hal had killed Cutler's wife just as Cutler had now killed this young, innocent girl whose only crime had been a few dates with Hal Yorke. He had killed her to break Nick Cutler, to kill the shreds of humanity that clung stubbornly to the new vampire like a ghost clinging to its old home.

Cutler's kill was meant to bring Lord Harry back. It showed Hal the monster he had been, just as Rachel's death had shown Cutler the monster he could become.

The thought recalled to Hal the plan Cutler had spoken of earlier, after feeding him Alex's blood. He cut Cutler's speech off, fear spiking through his chest. "Who's the werewolf?" Hal spoke quickly, the need to know clear in his voice. A brief flash of confusion passed over Cutler's face before he understood the question.

"Does it matter?" Cutler asked, eyes shifting in discomfort at the sudden fear that Hal knew was rolling off him in waves. Hal repeated his question more desperately, and Cutler replied, confusion evident in his voice. "His name's Tom, why?"

Hal looked away. Of course it would be Tom. Without even realizing it, Cutler truly was mirroring the event that taken place so many years ago, doing his best to rip one of the few people keeping him sane and good out of his life just as he had once ripped away the person keeping Cutler kind. Clever Cutler was finally living up to the potential Hal had once seen in him. It was ironic, how the man had been so very human when Hal wanted a monster, and now that the monster stood next to him, begging for approval with his clever, insane plan, all Hal wanted was for the human Nick to come back. There was only one way to stop this, but it would be difficult. Building a human was always so much harder than breaking one.

"It won't work," Hal said, almost whispering, as he glanced back at Cutler. The other vampire looked back at him, startled.

"What d'you mean?" Cutler asked, and Hal could see his composure begin to break. He remembered, then, how desperately Nick Cutler had always sought his approval, trying so hard to please him up until the day he disappeared.

"This plan of yours, it won't work." Hal spoke softly, drawing himself up from the nervous hunch he had been in and moving imperceptibly closer to Nick Cutler. Hunger and fear burned in equal measure through his veins, but he had to be strong now.

Cutler licked his lips and drew himself farther into his hunched, uncertain posture. "Of course it will work," he said, almost pleading. "Humans may be strong when threatened and afraid, but they're also stupid. They'll be begging for us to save them, I know they will!" The slightly hysterical edge to the last few words set Hal's teeth on edge as he realized how little he had taught the one who was once supposed to be his protégé.

In that moment, Hal saw the stuttering man before him in way he had not seen since he had first recruited him. Nick Cutler was a clever man. He saw things in the world that others missed, thought of things that other vampires, stuck forever in the world they had died in, never considered. It was why he had recruited the man. Yet, for all his own cleverness, Hal had been blind. Cutler worked with information, not with death, and Hal had never bothered to teach his protégé anything about their world except the killing part. He had not wanted to hear any plans that Cutler made until he was older, had just wanted to watch the timid man tear the world apart. In other words, he had acted like an Old One who cared only for blood and screams, and never cared for the bloodless subtly that was Cutler's gift.

Hal pushed down the hunger and fear still coursing through his veins and masked the emotion in his voice when he turned to the other vampires that had come to the cellar with them. "Leave us," he commanded, and they saw the Old One in him and obeyed. Cutler shrank back from him and glanced away and down to the floor. To his surprise, Hal found that this hurt almost more than the hunger. He clearly also saw the Old One in Hal once more, and expected punishment for failing, yet again, to come up with a plan that would make his maker truly proud. Hal could see all the hopes crumble in Cutler's eyes, and he hated himself for what he had done. When he finally brought himself to speak again, he let his Old One mask fall away and spoke gently, though he could not fully keep the pain from his voice.

"The other Old Ones will not like this plan," he said softly. "That is why it will fail. They understand blood and killing, not subtlety and tricks like this. That you did not know that is my fault, not yours."

When Cutler looked up, his obvious anxiety making him twitchy and uncertain, it took him a few false tries before he could reply. "I – you – I would have known if you had stayed!" His voice rose as he gained confidence, till it was nearly a yell. "I would have known how to make a proper plan if you had ever bothered to teach me anything!" The end of his speech caught in something remarkably like a sob, and Hal had to look away.

"I know."

His whispered confession worked like an electric shock on Cutler, who surged forward and clutched at the front of Hal's coat, crying, "You know? You know? Why did you do it, then, if you knew how useless I was without you? Why did you never teach me anything else when you knew I was rubbish at killing? Why did you abandon me?" And the pain that burst through so clearly in the final question was too much for Hal. He wrenched himself away as Cutler let out a shaky, nearly sobbing breath in front of him.

The blood on the floor caught Hal's gaze momentarily as he turned his head towards the opposite wall. It called to him. The small amount he'd drunk earlier with Cutler had done nothing but make him desperate for more. In this moment, however, Cutler was more important than the hunger. He should have always been more important, the only protégé Hal had ever taken on, but there was nothing Hal could do now about his past but mourn, and this was not the time for that.

Behind him, Cutler tried to speak, but Hal cut him off. "I can never truly make up for what I have done," he said softly, "but I can promise you that I will help you from now on. I will not abandon you again." He looked back at Cutler then, and the hope in the other man's eyes hurt nearly as much as the pain had a moment ago. Hal doubted that Cutler understood what he really meant by his promise of help, but he swore to himself that he would find a way to help Cutler regain the humanity that he had long ago stolen away.

So, the general consensus (from all two reviews, so potentially with large error bars) was that I should continue this. Therefore, I am continuing it! I don't really want to get bogged down in repeating everything that happened in the show, which is why the main part of the story is set around the time that Cutler killed Alex, when things start to turn AU in my story. There will, however, be periodic flashbacks when they assist the plot, like in the show. There will also be no ghost Alex, since she doesn't really have a good place in this story, and I'm also keeping Annie around.