Secrets, fears and dreams.

Tanith wanted to cook something for Ghastly, over the past couple of weeks he had helped her get over her nightmares. They had spent countless nights talking about why the dreams could never happen and telling each other their deepest and darkest secrets, fears and dreams.

He told her about when his mother had died, even though he had told her a lot about his mother before, this time was different; he told her how much her death had affected him and his father - who later died of a broken heart. Apparently when his mother died, he didn't know what to do with his life. She trained him to be the fighter he is today. Gave him his first pair of boxing gloves. She was special to him and he told Tanith all the embarrassing moments he had when she was alive.

One of Tanith's favorite stories was the one he told her recently. She couldn't sleep so she sat on his sofa in front of the TV, the volume low because she didn't want to wake him. But she did when she started to pace the ceiling, for some reason over the past couple of weeks she had an abundance of energy and could sit still for more than a few minutes.

Ghastly walked into his sitting room and she was sat upside down on the ceiling.

"Hey" he mumbled sleepily

"Hi, did I wake you?"

"No, I woke you first started moving about down here" he stretched and made his way to the kitchen "Tea?"

"Yes please" she followed him to the kitchen, and opened the biscuit box delighted to see it full of chocolate bourbons and custard creams.

"Judging by the fact that we are both down here at two in the morning, I'm guessing something is wrong" he said with his back to her, putting the kettle on to boil.

"I don't know" she answered "I want to sleep but I can't, it feels like I have too much energy"

"Do more in the day burn up the energy" he finally turned around to face her, god he looked tired.

"Busy day?" She already knew the answer.

"Yeah, we've got new field agents coming in over the next couple of days" he put his face in his hands "but it isn't working out how Ravel thought it would, anyway I don't want to talk about it"

"Okay" the kettle finished boiling and he turned back around to finish the tea.

"Come on" he picked up her cup and his while she carried the biscuits, and they settled on the sofa. "you know this is comfier than the ceiling" she mused as she sank into his side.

"Who would have guessed?" He joked. "did I ever tell you about the time the rest of the dead men met my mother?"

"No" she looked up to see his face, staring at the tv, the light played with his scars on his face, making the ones closest to her look deeper than they do during the day. And the ones on the opposite side of his face look like silver strips. "what was she like with them?"

"You know I don't think she spoke about them after they left" he looked at her face "she made a surprise visit and the men were in the kitchen" he pointed towards his kitchen. "and she just seemed to appear out of nowhere" he chuckled "I think she was the only woman alive to terrify Shudder"

She started to laugh at the thought of Shudder terrified.

"They were all in awe of her, it was like Skulduggery had met Grace Kelly the way he treated her, he immediately jumped up and asked if she wanted tea. Admittedly he recovered first, then Saracen, Vex, Ravel, Larakin, me then Shudder"

"Why did you need to recover?"

"Well I was about a hundred at the time and it was the first time I had really moved away from home, before here I lived in County Clare down the road from the rest of my family, so for her to just appear out of nowhere it was a bit of a shock"

"They had tea when you were a hundred?" She giggled at Ghastly's offended look.

"I'm not that old" he mock fainted

"You are"

"Not"

"Old fart" she continued to laugh

"I have no comeback to that" this made het laugh even more. He smiled at the fact he pit that smile on her face. "and yes we did have tea"

"Sorry old wise one, carry on with your story"

"My mother did everything she could to try and embarrass me."

"Like what?"

"Awkward pictures of me growing up, comparing me to Skulduggery and asking why I wasn't more like him, y'know the usual"

"Photos? Or portraits? are they here?" she jumped up and started looking for a photo album on the shelf's.

"What if I said no"

"I would think you were lying" she grinned, continuing to look through his book shelf. When she started pulling random books off the shelf, she felt Ghastly move to stand behind her and start trying to stop her from pulling even more books off the shelf.

"If I had baby photos they would be in museum now."

"So when you said awkward photos of you growing up you meant what?"

"From about 1895 onwards"

"Where are they?" She turned and started looking through books again.

"If I had them why would I keep them on the book shelf where Valkyrie could find them?"

"Good point" she grinned moving past him and in to the hall to the stairs, Ghastly followed her at a distance,

"Where are you going?"

"The one place Val wouldn't go!"

"Where's that?" She puzzled him at times.

"Your room" she said simply and running off to his room. He stood frozen for a couple of seconds until what she said hit him in full force.

"Crap" he muttered, his room was a mess. He raced up the stairs to the upstairs landing and slowly made his way to his room.

"Ghastly? Why is your room such a mess" Tanith called

"Because I don't like cleaning" he said plainly. He pushed the door open.

"But the rest of your house is flawless" she was looking through his bookshelf in the corner.

"Well no one but me really comes in here" he muttered walking over to the book shelf. He started moving books out of the way, revealing a big leather bound book at the back of the top shelf. He thought he might as well show her because she was going to find it anyway at some point.

"Come on" he pulled the book of the shelf and started making his way back down stairs. Running to keep up, Tanith was excited to see the old pictures of Ghastly.

"Do you still have your hair in any of them?" she questioned

"Some of the early ones I do" he smiled.

"Ohh, them I have to see" she jumped on the sofa, moving over so he could sit next to her. The first page of the book was picture of Ghastly, a woman and a man.

"Are they your parents?" she asked, marveling at the similarities between Ghastly and his father.

"Yes" he answered around a lump in his throat, it had been awhile since he looked at some of these photos. Tanith took the book out of his lap and started studying each page.

"So what else did your mother do to embarrass you that day?"

"You know I can't remember, I think I spent the rest of her visit hidden in my sewing room while she talked with the guys"

"I can't imagine my parents doing anything like that" she said sadly.

"Why?" he was generally puzzled, he had never really heard her talk about her parents before.

"Well when I was eight I was taken to be trained to be an assassin, so I didn't see them again till I was nineteen" she paused looking at a picture of Ghastly with a full head of hair, at the bottom of the picture was the date and year. "This was taken the day I got out of the hell hole" Ghastly put his arm around her shoulders pulling her closer.

"I never really knew them after, it was like going to live in a house with two people who claimed to be my parents" she put her head on his shoulder "My brother went through the same thing, years before me"

"How old is he?"

"Around a hundred and fifty"

"So he's not that old then" he chuckled

"Compared to you, you old fart"

"Oh are we starting that again are we" he leant over and started tickling her in the side.

"No No No, sorry" she gasped through her laughter.

Eventually he stopped tickling her, the book discarded on the floor.

"I'm really tired now" she yawned.

"You could do with the sleep, you've got horrible bags under your eyes" he teased making her smile.

"You can talk I didn't recognize you the other morning, I thought someone had let Scapegrace in" she giggled again, leaning back on the sofa nearing the edge of sleep "tomorrow I might make something for dinner"

"Ummm" Ghastly said leaning back on the sofa.

"Y'know instead of a takeaway again"

"There is nothing wrong with sweet and sour chicken" he yawned

"My hips say different" she said as sleep took over her and Ghastly joining her.


Thank you for reading so far. :) Reviews welcome