Moonlight doesn't belong to me. It's just a place I go to play.
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Mick clears the gate and the car comes to a sliding stop in front of the house. As soon as he enters the house, he smells blood emanating from Josef's study. He flies through the door and the first thing he sees are Josef and Beth laying face to face. Josef is licking the wounds on Beth's neck to seal them and stop the blood flow. Mick listens for her heartbeat and hears it still pumping blood through her body. It's not as strong as he would like, but considering she donated, it's not bad. Mick takes a whiff of the air and sees what she did; what she did to save Josef.
Josef rolls over on his back, still too weak to move much. He took enough from her to keep himself from dying, but he didn't dare take much more. He sees Mick's face looming in the distance. Mick picks Beth up, lays her on the couch and puts a blanket over her. He grabs for his phone and calls Dr. Stanton. He explains the emergency and growls into the phone for him to get to Josef's fast.
Mick makes one more call to Victoria, "I'm at Josef's and I've got at least one body. You'll be glad to hear it's Lola, but I suspect there are a few more."
Victoria snorts. "I just finished with Denton. We're on our way."
Mick goes over to Josef's small fridge in the corner and pulls out a bottle. Beth must have panicked and forgotten it was even in here. Her only genuine experience with hurt vampires is letting them feed from her. He pours Josef a glass. He sits Josef up and pours some of the liquid down his throat. Josef gratefully gulps it down. He sees that Josef needs a second glass and gives him that one also. Josef manages to croak out to Mick. "Silver bullets in my shoulder." Mick nods.
He checks on Beth, and then goes out to the car to get a pair of needle nose pliers. He finds the entry holes in Josef's shoulder, "This is going to hurt." Josef closes his eyes and nods for Mick to continue and Mick manages to get the bullets out. He watches as Josef's eyes start to clear and he finally starts to heal.
Mick goes over to check on Beth again. He hears the doctor pull up outside. Stanton has a cooler with several packets of O negative. He checks on Beth and sets up a drip of O negative into her arm. He turns to Mick and Josef. "After I saw her the last time, I thought I would stock up on some O negative. I figured if she was going to hang out with you two, she might need it. I'm glad I did. I take it she donated to keep one of you alive." Josef is still sitting on the floor drinking from the bottle of blood on his own now. He nods. "Me."
Stanton sees Lola's legs sticking out from behind his desk. "I'm guessing I don't have to worry about whoever is back there."
Josef snorts. "I hope to God not."
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Josef sits in his office staring out at the night. He thinks about how close he came to the end of it. Crazy human. He hates to think of what would have happened if Beth hadn't been there to force him to take her blood. He remembers what he said in what he thought were the last minutes of his life and telling Beth he loves her. Hopefully, she's chalked it up to silver poisoning. It wouldn't do any of them any good for her to know the truth. With all the craziness that was happening in the moment, it probably didn't even register. She was too busy worrying that she'd killed him.
Then there was Lola, who she used to be and how much he cared for her before she went over the edge into madness. When it was all said and done, she killed two humans, almost three, and fifteen vampires. His security people, including Charlie are dead, even young Tyler who was afraid to drive Denton to the hotel. What a waste. It makes him sick to think about it.
It's only been a day since Beth saved his life, but of course he's good as new. He calls Mick "How's she doing?"
"Beth wants to see you." Mick says. "You need to come over and see for yourself."
Josef hesitates. "Maybe later."
Mick smiles. "You aren't avoiding her, are you?"
Josef growls at him and hangs up the phone.
On his way home that morning, Josef decides he can't wait any longer. He needs to see Beth, and make sure for himself that she is fine. Hopefully, she will be asleep when he gets there since it's still early morning.
Josef calls Mick from the car and Mick tells him "I'm still up. Come on over." Mick goes upstairs and wakes Beth. "Hey, you asked me to call you if Josef was coming over."
Beth sits up and rubs the sleep from her eyes. "Thanks. I'd like to talk to him for a little bit."
Mick nods and smiles at her. "I'll send him up when he gets here. I think Josef needs to make sure you're fine after what happened. You make vampires concerned about you when you save our lives. It freaks us out a little."
Beth smiles and watches Mick go back downstairs. She goes back over in her mind the last few minutes in Josef's study and the fear that she had killed him. She knows that Lola had done a great deal of damage to Josef with her silver nails. It still felt like Beth was the one that had almost killed him when she shot him. He must have had a terrible amount of poison in his system. She wonders if he was delusional from all that silver in his system and if that was why he said he loved her. She decides that must be it, and not to mention it. He probably doesn't even remember saying it.
Josef clicks the door with his electronic key, and it opens. Mick is on the other side. Josef tosses him the key. "It's time you kept this."
Mick looks startled. "No way. Your being able to get in and help Beth is too important for you to not have a key. What would have happened if you couldn't get in and help her when this all started? No, please keep it for emergencies if nothing else."
Josef nods and puts it back in his pocket. "How is she doing?"
Mick smiles. "You're supposed to go see her, no matter when you showed up. I woke her when you called." Mick smiles at him "Go on."
Josef walks up the stairs to Mick's spare bedroom. He taps on the closed door and hears Beth say, "Come in, Josef."
He opens the door and sees her sitting up in bed, her eyes a little puffy from not being awake long. It occurs to him again that she's so incredibly beautiful. "How are you?"
She smiles at him. "I'm fine. Josef, we got her. The miserable witch is dead. You and me, we got her."
He smiles at her. "We did, at that, and everybody's safe because you're one hell of a shot."
She snorts at him. "Yea, except for the two that Mick had to dig out of your shoulder."
He waves his hand dismissively. "Flesh wound. No big deal. I'm more thankful for that little blond blood bank that kept me alive, until Mick could pour some blood down my throat."
She laughs. "Yea, that's me, blood bank to my wounded vamps."
He sits on the side of the bed and takes her hands in his. "Beth. thank you. for everything. Without your help." He's looking down at her hands.
"Hey now. none of that. You're not going all softy on me, are you? You stop that or I'm going to cry."
He looks at her and brushes a tear from her cheek "Please don't cry." and suddenly they are both remembering the last time he said those words and all that followed. For a second time stands still. Josef clears his throat and the spell is broken.
He looks at her a little sadly, she thinks, and kisser her hand. "No, no more softy. I'm glad your all right and I didn't."
"You didn't, and I knew you wouldn't. I trust you." She looks at him. "You and Mick, mean too much to me to lose either of you."
Josef shakes his head trying to clear her out of it. "I'm going on a trip. I'll be gone for a while. You and Mick be happy. I'll see you when I get back". He leans towards her and kisses her on the cheek. Be safe and happy." He stands up smiles down at her and leaves.
Josef goes downstairs to the kitchen where Mick is. He braces his hands on the kitchen table and puts his head down shaking it back and forth. "Man, you've got to watch out for her. She's too trusting, I might have, I could have." He trails off.
Mick watches his friend having the same struggle with what she did for him. "Pretty tough to take when she does something like that. I know."
Josef gives his head a good shake. He looks up at Mick. "I'm leaving town for a while. I need a change of scenery. I told Robert to stop the preparations. I told him all was well but to stay put, as I would bring the girls along and join him and the staff there. He puts out his hand to Mick. "You take care of yourself and Beth. I'll call you when I get back."
Mick watches Josef leave and suddenly he's glad he met Beth first.
The End, or is it?
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Comments are always welcome. I'll try to get the next installment up by next weekend.
