A/N: It's really been a while since I updated. After the first two chapters I got a bad case of writers block. Hopefully I'm over it. Also, I just wanted to thank everyone for the reviews. They were much appreciated!
Part III
He gets why he saved her from the daimons. Understands why he took her to the hospital. He just can't reason out why he went back and checked on her. Why he can't seem to get past those damn perfect green eyes.
It had been five months since he'd been back to that bar. He'd avoided it like the plague. There was a truth emerging, one he wasn't willing to acknowledge. He was only barely hanging on as it was.
He'd found excuses to stay busy, extra training, bars that were closer, other women.
Tonight though he just couldn't seem to find the strength to stay away. He really hoped that it was her night off, or that maybe she didn't even work here any longer. But that was so obviously not the case he realized, as she placed down a glass of bourbon in front of him, without his having ordered it.
She smiled and looked genuinely happy to see him, and he couldn't remember the last time someone had been happy to see him.
He smiled in return to her, and hers grew even bigger. She didn't say anything as she moved on to the next table.
He took a swallow, and promised himself he'd only stay for the one drink.
He stayed for two more before he finally left to go patrolling.
The night soon turned extremely long, and didn't really give him much satisfaction, especially not from the couple of damions he'd found and taken care of.
It was ten to four when he realized that he was a block away from that bar again, and knew she would be getting off soon. Knowing he should just leave her alone he pulled into a parking space to wait on her.
He waited about fifteen minutes, and the whole time he asked himself what he was doing. Why he didn't just go home. It would be easier on them both. He'd only attract trouble for her, and that wasn't what he wanted. He didn't understand why he couldn't just forget her.
One of the dancers came out of the door followed by her, and he thought about just letting them drive away in the tired purple Honda they were heading for, but he got out of his car anyway.
Her friend noticed him first, then she did, both looked surprised, but shelooked happy to see him none the less.
"Hey! I thought you'd gone home." she said to him.
He shook his head "Nah. I just had a few things to do, I was gonna get some breakfast, you want to join me?" Straight and to the point he asked her.
"Uh…" She looked at her friend; he thought he'd heard someone call her Amber.
"Go ahead. My place is only a few blocks over, I don't mind walking." Amber gave a knowing smile.
"Well, no, wait." She turned up at him. "Would you mind just driving me home afterwards?"
"Not at all." Glad that she didn't ask to bring her friend along.
"Here. Just drop it off tomorrow okay?" She said as she handed Amber her car keys.
"Yea, thanks." Amber said. "Have fun." He noticed the wink Amber gave her.
Amber sauntered off to the Honda a few spaces down as he opened the passenger door to his Jag. She slipped in then waited on him to get in.
"I haven't seen you in months. I was starting to think something had happened to you, or that I scared you off last time with all my babbling." She said as he pulled out on to the street.
He smirked. "I've just been busy." No reason to give her any details.
"Oh." She sounded disappointed. That caught him a little off guard, but she didn't give him much time to dwell on it. "I like your car. It's really nice. How long have you had it?" She said in rapid fire.
"Thanks. For a while I guess."
"So where are we heading to?"
"You'll see." He flashed her his most charming smile.
"Still being as vague as ever, I see." She raised an eyebrow with a smile.
He chuckled lightly, and she grinned brightly at him. The sight made his breath catch.
The rest of the ride was spent in comfortable silence, and he noticed that he wasn't the only one stealing glances.
They ended up at a dinner he'd been to a million times where he knew the food was decent even if it was four thirty in the morning.
They found a corner booth to sit in and a surprisingly chipper waitress took their orders.
"You come here a lot?" she asked him after the waitress left.
He just shrugged then took a sip of his coffee. When he looked back up at her she had that same look she'd had the first time she'd seen him, before he'd even opened his mouth to give her his order, the same look she had given him while she sat in her hospital bed questioning him. Her head titled to the side, dark brown hair spilling over her shoulders, and green eyes focused on him like she was reading a book. It made him feel exposed. Like she could see straight through him to what he was hiding from everyone.
"What?" He asked, because he wanted her to stop looking at him like she could see past his bluff.
"Is it possible to get a straight answer out of you? Even just a simple, little one?"
He flashed his best panty-dropping smile. "Maybe."
She narrowed her eyes, then smiled back. "Come on. There's something you can answer straight, there must be"
"Guess you won't know until you ask the right question."
She frown with thought. Then she looked worried for a split second, and opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the waitress with their food.
He frowned, wondering what she had been about to say.
"What's your favorite color?" She asked as the waitress left.
His frowned lighten, even though he knew that wasn't what she was about to say. Probably better if she didn't ask about the more important stuff anyway. He shrugged, "Don't have one."
She rolled her eyes. "Who doesn't have a favorite color?"
He took a bit of food and shrugged.
"Okay…do you have a color you don't like?"
He thought for a moment. "Orange."
She gasped mockingly. "Did you just give me an actual answer?"
It was his turn to roll his eyes. "Do you have a favorite color?" Why he even asked that ridiculous question he couldn't fathom.
"Yep. Two actually. Red and purple." She took a bite of food and thought up another question for him. "Birthday. When's that?"
"September twelfth." He answered.
"Oh, wow. We are on a roll now."
He smirked at her sarcasm.
The two of them finished their breakfast, while she kept thinking up random questions for him, some she got answers to and others she didn't . The sky was being to lighten when they got back into his car. She gave him the directions to her apartment, it was a good twenty minutes away.
The first ten of them were spent in silence and he seemed to get the feeling that something was weighing heavily on her mind. "Something wrong?"
She looked at him with a sober expression, then straight ahead. "If I tell please don't be angry. I was just curious…and you hadn't been back by in months I thought something was wrong."
He glanced at her, thinking there really couldn't be anything that she could have done to have made him angry. "What is it?"
"I googled your name."
He felt his stomach drop. He put on a neutral face, wondering what the hell she had found. Did she know about what the daimons really were? Did she figure out anything about the Dark-Hunters? "And what did you find?" It came out cold sounding even to him.
"There were a few articles about this woman who had been murdered, and who's son had gone missing. He was the only suspect in the case, and no one really knows what happened."
He felt his blood turn cold. With a clenched jaw he asked, "What else?"
"There was a picture of the son. It was you, different but you."
Was she accusing him of killing his mother? Anger burned through him, along with other emotions that he pushed back, like he usually did, focusing on the one that had never failed him.
"Did those things that attacked me, kill your mother?" She said it so quietly that he barely heard her.
It took a moment for him to realize what she had said, but when he did the anger left as quickly as it had come.
Minutes ticked passed and he didn't answer. She hadn't asked if he'd been the one to hurt his mother. She hadn't accused him of that, when even he blamed himself. He didn't know what to respond with.
They were coming up to the turn off for her street when she finally broke the silence. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to… I was just worried that something had happened to you and I found that… I'm sorry if I upset you or offended you…or something…" She licked her lips and looked out of her window.
He pulled up to the curb in front of her apartment building, and she immediately went for the door handle, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.
"Yes, and there called daimons." He leveled her with a look. "What if I told you I share in some of the blame though?" Maybe she'd be the smart one out of the two of them and tell him she never wanted to see him again.
She looked down at his hand on her arm then back out the windshield in front of her, before she meet his hard stare. "Do you know what I see when I look at you, Nick?"
He didn't answer.
"I see someone who has the potential to be either really good or something dreadfully awful, but you just haven't figured out what to be yet." She shook her head. "But which ever you do end up being, I'm sure you'll never be completely one or the other. No matter how much good you do you'll never be perfect and no matter how far gone you go the other way your still gonna have a heart, even when you wished you didn't."
Definitely not the kind of answer he had been excepting. "Your not afraid of me?"
She shook her head. "Good or bad, Nick, I trust you not to hurt me." Then she hesitantly leaned forward and gave him a chaste kiss on the check, shocking him into silence.
She gave him a sad smile. "I'll understand if you don't come back." Then she slipped out the car.
A/N: Now leave a review telling me your thoughts!!!
