AN: Thank you to everyone who left me feedback on this. I know I said it was a one-shot, but it seems I lied. rijane finally pushed me into posting further chapters. So blame her.

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"Everything I am is not what I was before."

He said it half-mockingly, but it sounded like a prophecy of the sort Beth imagined resounding in catacombs and cellars. Basement cults that spoke in riddles... but this was Mick St John, ex-for-the-moment-Vampire PI.

"Everything I was, I should say. Because now I'm somebody else again."

He was scaring her with those fixed eyes. "Everything you were, what?"

And that finally broke the spell. Mick laughed, raising his glass to her.

"To...?"

Beth gaped. She was never asked to propose toasts. It was funny because, while she spent all her time choosing words for an audience, it was silently agreed upon by friends and family that Beth was the not the best person when it came to heartfelt wishes.

She watched sunlight flashing off the crystal, spilling rainbows across the tablecloth. Crystal for lunch on the balcony with her. Crystal was out of her price-range. This was out of her league, she was out of her element. And that was a man sitting across from her. Beth was terrified.

Mick was beginning to feel slightly foolish with his glass hanging in the air. She was staring at him wide-eyed. Had he pushed too much? Was it too soon to celebrate anything? Oh god, had he just reminded her that two months ago they were lining up round the block to read condolences to her?

"Beth?"

"Uh, I'm not good with..." She raised the glass instinctively, flustered and stumbling over her thoughts. "I don't –"

"To brighter days then," Mick announced gently.

He was tanned, relaxed, smiling and there was a faint sheen of sweat on his nose. Something lurched inside her.

"And new memories," she suggested in return.

She'd forgotten how much she missed his eyebrows. Mick could have a whole conversation with just his face. Maybe she could get him to show her how.

But right now, the eyebrows were the last thing she was focused on. "Did you ever want to pierce your ears?" she asked, a glimmer of impishness sealing his fate. "Get a tattoo maybe?"

"Uh."The fork was halfway to his mouth, loaded with capers and salmon and funny white sauce. He really wanted to know what this highly-recommended funny white sauce tasted like. "No."

Beth watched him virtually inhale the mouthful. Eyes closed, hair slipping down over his forehead, even in the sunshine with the cure pounding through his veins in a two-step, he was Vampire. She wondered if he knew that he breathed in just before he bit; as though he were feeding both the man and the immortal. The fork slipped damply from between his lips; Beth reached for her glass and her nerves.

"Why?" Mick asked. She was nervous, but she was here. The rest didn't matter. As long as she stayed, he didn't care what he had to say to keep her with him.

Evidently he ate faster than she did. She was still spearing her morsel. "I don't know. Be a rebel, maybe? I was thinking of getting one."

"A tattoo?" On that skin. Bright colours flaring around an ankle or a bicep? Shoulder blade? Something that would remain hidden under a dress?

"Yeah, I thought it might be fun. A present to myself."

Mick looked out over L.A. "Beth, tattoos are permanent. This needs to be something you want on your body potentially for the rest of your life. I mean, in ten years you might be really sorry. You can get them removed, but it's expensive, it takes a while and it scars." Brilliant. He sounded exactly like a concerned parent. "It could be painful."

Beth rolled her eyes over the top of her wineglass, her lipstick printed lightly over the rim. "It's just a bunch of sharp needles sliding into your skin for a little while. And besides-" she waved her fork at him, "- I hear that after the first ten minutes it gets a lot better. Apparently, when something fine pierces through the skin, the endorphins kick in and the pain can turn to pleasure."

He remembered what that felt like, even as a human.

"Why are you blushing, Mick?" She noticed how fervently he was studying his plate. More eating. The man certainly loved food - that was clear.

He ignored her and concentrated on the tangy burst of fish, white sauce and citrus in his mouth. And just where did she want this tattoo? His palms started to sweat.