Anne: Don't worry, you're not a stalker. Stalkers sit next to you on the bus and grab your boob when you've told him you don't want a relationship, thank you very much. The Kill the Beast lyric is actually a line from Macbeth, one of my favorite plays, so I couldn`t resist adding it in. I hope you aren`t disappointed with their relationship as it grows! This chapter`s song is Afterward by Mute Math.

Nine

Time flies, death urges, knells call, Heaven invites, Hell threatens – Edward Young

Faith came back to reality when the blaze in her hand made her scream aloud. She pulled away from Chance, who was by her side and gently rubbing her hand with both of his own.

"I know, it burns." He growled softly, "But it'll get the circulation back faster."

Faith was sitting on the couch in his living room, armrest to her back, her legs sticking out in front of her. She was covered with a blanked and her feet stuck out from beneath it, still in their boots. Chance was kneeling beside her, his clawed fingers splayed in a sign of truce. He moved to take her hand again, his eyes asking for consent.

"Mmm." Faith replied, biting her lip.

She let him take her hand and tried to endure the fire in her fingers. Tears squeezed from her eyes, running down her wind-burnt cheeks. She could feel similar burning all over her body, but Chance's warm touch made it a thousand times worse, the course fur that covered his hands agitating the chapped flesh. He worked in silence, stopping only when she could bear it no longer and a sob would escape her lips.

"I'm sorry." Chance murmured, switching to her other hand. "I shouldn't have made you leave in this weather. I was an asshole."

Faith said nothing. When she was sure he was finished with her other hand, she raised it to look at the red, chapped skin. It still hurt, but not as badly. She felt her split lips and burning cheeks, stopping at her ears. They burned at her touch, but she could feel everything. She wasn't going to loose any limbs for her misadventure.

"Ow," she hissed.

"I'm sorry." Chance said again.

"I know." Faith replied, her voice clipped. "Still hurts."

"I know."

Faith glanced at him. His head was lowered, his eyes on his task. "Why did you come after me?" she demanded.

He paused. "Would you rather be frozen alive out there?"

"No."

"Then why does it matter?"

"Because." She muttered, pulling her hand away from him. Chance raised his head so that his eyes met hers. She didn't blink. He sighed, reaching for her hand again. She pulled away once more, muttering, "You aren't touching me until you answer."

"Because I care about you. Now give me your fucking hand." He snapped.

"Fine." Faith muttered, relinquishing the limb in question.

"How are your feet?" Chance asked, changing his tone.

"Fine."

"Can you move your toes?"

She did so. "Yes."

"Okay." He went back to his silent contemplation of her cold hands.

"So..." Faith cleared her throat. "How did you know you would find me?"

"I didn't." He replied.

She shivered, but not from the cold. "How did you know that you'd be able to find your way back afterwards?"

Again, he replied, "I didn't."

"Then you must have been just as scared as I was." Faith murmured. "I mean, it was so cold, and with the snow it was impossible to see where you were going."

"I have a good sense of direction." He replied without looking at her.

"Still," she replied, "In weather like that, its easy to get lost. And no one would find you until the snow melted."

"I was... too worried to be scared." Chance murmured, clearing his throat. He didn't mention that, after finding her, he had been lost for about thirty seconds, panic stricken, before he finally found the house.

"Well... thank you." Faith said. "If you hadn't come after me... I'd be dead now."

"I'm not so sure you should be thanking me." He replied. "I'm the one who sent you out there, remember? If I hadn't done that, you wouldn't have been outside."

"... I think my hand is okay," Faith muttered, changing the subject. Chance released her and got to his feet, moving to leave the room. "I... um... did you want some tea?"

He stopped. "Tea?"

"Yes, I brought some from work. Its in my purse."

"Oh." Chance realized that she was trying to ask for something warm as politely as possible, without demanding it. "Sure." He brought the purse from where he had dropped it at the front door, holding it out to her. Faith retrieved a small plain box with her aching fingers and handed a tea bag to her strange companion, feeling a little embarrassed.

"Its... white kiwi tea." She offered.

"Sounds good."


Chance went to the kitchen, holding the little tea bag awkwardly. He`d never tasted the stuff, even when he was human. He`d always drunk coffee, black. Lattes and tea and other frilly drinks were for girls. Flavored tea even more so.

He`d once dated an English model. She`d had tea with every single meal, and she used to offer him cups of the putrid stuff every single time. Every once and a while he'd accept and poor the sickly stuff down the drain when she wasn't looking. She used to carry loose leaves in her purse and... boil them? Chance wasn't positive. He hadn't exactly dated her for her culinary expertise.

She'd left a teapot behind. After a brief search he found it and dropped the little bag into it. The kettle was a little more difficult. He didn't know why he had one, but he knew that it was somewhere under the stove.


Faith listened to Chance rattle around in the kitchen. When she was sure that he wasn't coming back for some time, she took off her boots and socks, inspecting her poor red feet. She drew them under the blanket and went through her purse, looking for her little mirror. She didn't usually care about her looks, but she was curious to see what the cold had done to her.

One glance at her swollen red face was enough. She threw the mirror into her purse and dropped it on the ground, next to a discarded novel.

The Gargoyle. She lifted it, opening to a random page. She'd read three times since it was finally available in bookstores earlier that year, but it was still stimulating... and it made her forget about how cold she was.

She was still reading when Chance came back about ten minutes later, a large mug in his equally large hands. He was silent, unwilling to disturb her, but Faith smelled the sweet tea and looked up.

"Oh, sorry." She closed the book and put it back on the ground. "That's my favorite book."

"I'm about halfway through." Chance replied, offering the tea. She took it in eager hands, thanking him. "I... think I made it wrong."

Faith looked into the light golden liquid. "Um... it's impossible to make tea wrong." When she glance back up at him she was smiling. Her voice had not been unkind. "It can be strong, or weak, but you can't make it so it's not tea."

"But... tea is supposed to be dark brown." Chance said. "All the tea I've ever seen is dark."

"Oh. That's black tea, silly." Faith laughed. "Black tea is dark brown. Green tea is lighter brown, somewhat greenish. Herbal tea is usually bright red or pink, and white tea, like this, is light yellow."

"... Oh." Chance replied, feeling like an idiot.

Faith took a long sip of the hot liquid, sighing afterwards. "Perfect."

"... What's the difference?" Chance asked.

"What, between the teas? Black tea is just a drink. You may as well be drinking coffee if you`re drinking that. Herbal, Green and White tea usually have some sort of health benefits. She took another sip. "Green tea is the best for you. It speeds up metabolism and it filters toxins out."

"Oh," Chance said. To make conversation he added, "I like coffee."

"Most men do." Faith replied.

Chance wondered how they could be having a perfectly candid conversation about hot beverages when he had almost killed her. He had imagined her reaction to seeing his ugly mug again upon waking up and so far nothing was going as he had thought it would. She was supposed to be afraid of him. She was supposed to hate him. Why was she just sitting there, talking about tea?

"Why aren't you afraid of me?" he asked.

Faith paused, stalling for time. She adjusted her fingers on the sides of the cup, making them symmetrical. "I thought we were talking about tea."

"How can you come into a dark house, meet a terrible monster, nearly freeze to death in a blizzard and still be concerned about what tea's the best?" Chance asked, bewildered. He let himself sit at the end of the couch where her feet had rested earlier, his feet moving her discarded boots aside. Faith noticed claws exending from his toes and nearly touching from the floor. "How can you just act like this is all... normal?"

"Well... you said you wouldn`t hurt me." She replied.

"And you believe that, coming from something like me?" Chance asked.

"Well... if you wanted to hurt me, you would have done it already." Faith murmured. She studied his animal features, finding them a little less strange than before. "You saved my life, too. That makes it a little hard for me to think you're going to hurt me."

"So, my being a monster doesn`t matter?" he insisted.

"Well, I'm trying to be polite and overlook that." Faith mumbled.

"You shouldn't be trying to overlook it!" Chance bellowed. Faith glanced at him, unafraid and unamused by his outburst and he calmed down, running his clawed hand over his face. "Sorry."

"Did you want me to be afraid of you?" Faith asked.

The question made him feel like an idiot. "No. Of course not. But you're..."

"I don't really see what being afraid is supposed to get me." Faith tried to explain. "When things are hopeless... like when I was outside... then I'll be afraid. But you aren't going to hurt me and you seem to care about my well being, so... what's to be afraid of?"

"Everything." Chance muttered. He stared at the book on the ground, unwilling to meet her eyes.

"... Are you... pouting?" Faith asked, a smile seeping into her voice.

"No. I just don't understand it." He muttered.

Faith smiled down at her tea. She must be going crazy, but at least it was a nice ride. She reached foreward and took one of his beastly hands into her own. He looked at her accusingly, but said nothing. "You can't understand everything. Sometimes you just have to take things at face value without trying to explain everything to yourself."

He said nothing. Faith released his hand and went back to her tea.

"You should have some of this." She offered. "Might put you in a better mood."

"I'm fine with my mood right now."

"Whatever you say." She replied.

They sat in silence. After a minute, Chance left the room and came back with a huge cup of tea. He sat down and gave Faith a look that said that she could keep all of her comments to herself. Then, he took a sip. "There. Happy?"

"Extremely," she replied, trying not to laugh.


The storm was still raging by the time night fell. Chance was standing off to the side of the livingroom, watching Faith. She was still laying on the couch, fast asleep. The Gargoyle was open on her lap. Chance didn't want to wake her, but he knew she should be in bed.

Quietly, he went to her and pulled back the blanket. He lifted her gently, listening for any changes in breathing that would alert him to her waking, and took her to her room. He laid her on the bed for the second time, this time taking the time to remove her winter jacket and cover her with the blankets. He glanced at her face, relieved to find that the worst of her windburn was gone. Redness remained on her cheeks and across the bridge of her nose, a blush on her pale skin.

Chance wondered if she had been speaking truthfully about her lack of fear. He had often heard people claim that animals could smell fear, but he wasn't able to scent any emotions coming from her. His mind basted in his thoughts until Chance forced himself to leavethe room. Why was he being so obsessiveve?


In the middle of the night, Faith woke up with tears running down her face.

Since her mother's diagnosis with breast cancer, Faith had had recurring dreams in which her mother was dead. Sometimes she would be at the hospital, sometimes she would be at her funeral, but most of the time she would go into her mother's room herself and find her lifelessly sprawled across the bed.

Faith knew when she woke up that her mom was okay, but that didn`t make the dreams less scary. Sitting up in the bed, Faith cried silently, an art she had long since mastered. Her mother didn`t like to hear her cry, knowing that she was the source of the tears, and so Faith had found a way to swallow the sobs. She would breath in quickly and close her eyes, the sob expanding in her chest until it finally ended.

To comfort herself, Faith hugged her pillow, waiting for the aching sadness in her chest to melt away. Eventually it did, as it always had in the past, and Faith was able to get back to sleep, stears still wet on her cheeks.


From his own room, Chance had heard Faith sit up in bed. He hadn't fallen asleep yet. He couldn't, knowing how close she was to him.

He couldn't hear her, but somehow he knew that she was crying. He didn't know the source of her tears and wished he could comfort her, but he couldn't bring himself to invade her privacy. He listened until she finally laid back down, feeling helpless.

If he had been handsome, he could have gone in and comforted her. She would have fallen asleep in his arms with his heartbeat as her lullaby. He could have felt her against him, the curve of her breast under his arms, her soft flesh beneath his own. As a beast, he could only sit and listen to her pain.


AN: Sorry it took me a bit. Life has turned crazy lately...