The chapter title is more to do with Mitchell's state of mind more than anything else. Thoughts appreciated. Errors are my own.
Abrasive.
Elizabeth unlocks the front door of her little flat and opens it. She looks at them both over her shoulder.
"Please forgive the mess" she apologises with a quick smile and goes inside. George steps over the threshold but Mitchell pauses. Elizabeth frowns at him.
"Umm…I need to be…invited" he stumbles and her expression lightens.
"Of course. Please, come in" she invites and he steps over.
It's a small flat. Both men take in their surroundings.
"It's tidier than the house" George mutters as they go into a small square shaped living room.
There's a sofa, an armchair, a coffee table and a television. All around is the sign of her occupation, newspapers, magazines and books are scattered here and there. They watch her gather them up.
"I don't usually have…guests" she admits with a shy smile.
"It's fine" George murmurs. He watches her go out of a door before turning to look at Mitchell.
"You'll be okay here?" Mitchell looks at him but doesn't immediately reply.
"What other choice do I have?" he eventually mutters.
"You could start by being nice to her, she doesn't have to do this but she offered"
"I don't need a fucking babysitter George" he hisses back.
"Right now you do because you took it on yourself to take an overdose, hoping to make a quiet exit but you didn't think about the consequences and you're just pissed off because now you have to face up to it" George retaliates under his breath.
"Because you said you'd get me out of there"
"And I would have if you'd let me sort something out!" he hisses back and his conversation is cut short by Elizabeth's return. She looks at them.
"Your room is through here" she tells Mitchell and he follows her.
The room is tiny, there's barely enough room for the single bed that occupies it. There's also a cheap looking bookcase that is crammed full of a wide variety of reading material.
"The bathroom is back that way" she points back across the living room "and my room is next door" she tilts her head to her left and he slowly nods. His eyes scan the interior. It's cosy despite its size. There's a single window that looks out onto the street below. The sky is beginning to lighten and he suddenly feels very very tired. Elizabeth seems to realise this and she looks at George.
"I'll give you my contact information" George exchanges a look with Mitchell and then follows her out.
He watches her write her contact information on a notepad and rip the page out. She hands it to him. He takes it and looks at it.
"Will you be okay?" he asks her in a low voice.
"I'll be fine" she responds and George frowns.
"This isn't the ward Elizabeth; there isn't a lock on his door. Just…be careful" he warns her. She just nods. She walks with him to the door.
"Call me at any time, okay?" She nods for a second time and watches him open the door.
"Thanks for this Elizabeth" he whispers and he's gone.
She returns to the living room and nerves are trembling a little in her stomach. Her head comes up when she sees Mitchell standing in the doorway of his room. She briefly pauses and regards him. There's a frown on his face, as if he's trying to figure her out.
"I won't hurt you" he tells her in a silky smooth voice that she doesn't quite trust.
"Good to know" she replies with a calmness that she doesn't feel and is sure that he can pick up on. He's in front of her in an instant and she blinks at the speed in which he moves at. He's right there, in her personal space and she resists the urge to back up a step. So he wants to put her ill at ease? She lifts her head and she looks into his eyes.
"I won't hurt you…today" he whispers. Her eyes widen slightly and her heart rate accelerates.
"You're upset and you're pissed off because I called George and he came to you when you didn't want him to. You're angry because your plans were thwarted and you know what, that's fine, be angry, be pissed off but you have a good friend in George, whether you think you deserve that or not, you do" she tells him in a deceptively calm voice. He doesn't respond. She takes a silent deep breath and puts her hand in the centre of his chest and pushes him gently backwards a step.
"Now I'm exhausted and I want to go to sleep. I'd advise you to do the same" his hand comes up and wraps around her wrist.
"You don't scare me Mitchell. I saw you on the ward remember? I saw those black eyes and those fangs, I've heard you scream, I don't doubt what you're capable of but right now I really am not in the mood to be intimidated"
"You have no idea of what I'm capable of, or what I've done" he growls quietly, his eyes intent on her face.
"And maybe one day you'll tell me. Now let go of me please?" He does and takes another step back. She looks into his eyes again.
"Thank you. The doors and windows are locked, you're not going anywhere tonight so I suggest you try and get some sleep too" she advises. He watches her walk across the living room and through the door next to his room. It closes quietly behind her. He lets his shoulders sag.
How fucking stupid am I? I thought I'd been clever, hoarding those pills, pretending to take them but hiding them behind my wisdom teeth, spitting them out once I got back into my room and finding somewhere to hide them. Nobody had suspected a thing. I had been figuring out when to choose my moment and Nina kind of tipped the balance there. I never thought to wait until Elizabeth was off shift, the situation just overwhelmed me and I made my decision there and then. I didn't mean for her to be the one to find me but in that moment of madness, I forgot that she'd gotten into the habit of making tea for us both. Like I said, fucking stupid.
She surprises me, she's warm and sympathetic at work, a balm for the tortured souls there but once she found out what I am, she's all ice cold and fearless and I have to kind of admire her for that. She isn't afraid of me and I need her to be terrified. Fear I can deal with and it's what I'm comfortable with, not this.
She leans against her door and briefly closes her eyes. He's here, in her flat and under these circumstances, he unnerves her but she'll die before she'll admit it. She extended the invitation more for George's sake than anything else but she is glad that he's here. She straightens up and walks towards her bed. She's beyond exhausted but she can't settle, she feels over wound.
Mitchell walks slowly into the other bedroom. He's tired; his stomach is still on the sensitive side and his head aches. He stares at the bed. It looks inviting. Maybe just a brief nap, it might help. He lowers himself down and then lies down and closes his eyes.
Sleep quickly claims him.
At first she doesn't know what the hell it is that wakes her from a sound sleep but as the sound penetrates the thick fog, she jolts viciously awake when she realises that it's screaming. She sits up, her eyes wide.
Mitchell is screaming.
She bolts from her room and into his. Her eyes widen when she sees her bookcase being pulled over with a heavy crash as the books spill out and scatter. His eyes are open but she recognises the nightmare for what it is. She goes towards him, climbing over the upturned book case. He throws himself up against the wall as if trying to escape. She grabs his arms and tries to turn him around to face her.
"Mitchell…" she yelps as he pushes her away and she's thrown across the room. She lands against the book case and she falls to the floor. She scrambles to her feet again, ignoring the pain exploding in her ribs.
"Hey" she grabs his arms again
"Mitchell!" her hands slip up to his shoulders and she shakes him hard.
The effect is instant. He's awake and staring at her with wide, scared brown eyes. His breathing is ragged and hard. For a moment he just stares into her eyes as if trying to remember where he is or how he got there. Then he sees the devastation of the room.
"Oh my God" he whispers. He looks back at her.
"Oh God…I'm so sorry" She leads him back to the bed and slowly he sits down. He begins to shake.
"It's okay, I should've expected this" she tells him. He looks at her again.
"Maybe I should leave…"
"And maybe you just had another nightmare" she replies.
"I'll help to tidy up…"
"Can you remember what it was you were dreaming about?" she asks and he seems to freeze. His eyes are teary, traces dampening his cheeks. He shakes his head.
"It's…disjointed…bits of this and…that" he confesses in a whisper. She touches his face, pushing errant curls away.
"Come on, I'll make us some tea" she offers. He looks at her and then he slowly nods. She gets up and looks at him. She holds out a hand and he takes it, following her almost meekly.
She watches him slowly lower himself onto the sofa. The shaking has abated a little bit. He wraps his arms around himself and suppresses a shiver. She pulls the throw off the back of the chair and she wraps it around his shoulders. He pulls it tighter around him.
"I'm just through here" she tells him and he nods, watching her go through into what he assumes is the kitchen. He hears her fill a kettle with water and switch it on. She comes back into the living room and she sits down beside him. She just regards him.
"It was a bad one yeah?" she asks and after a second he slowly nods. The shadows of it are still poking around the corners of his mind, present enough to scare him but far enough away that he can't quite remember.
"You're safe here" she tells him, placing a hand on his shoulder and he looks at her.
"I'm sorry" he whispers.
"You don't have to keep apologising Mitchell" she tells him. She scans his face.
"Once you've had some tea, you can talk to me if you feel up to it, or not, there's no pressure and later you can tidy up your room" her eyes warm with a smile and he can't help but respond in kind. He watches her stand up and head back into the kitchen.
She returns a few minutes later carrying two cups. He hasn't moved but his colour is a little better and she wonders about that. He's pale but she wonders whether that's down to what he is or not.
"Here" he looks up when he hears her voice and she's holding a cup out to him. He takes it and takes a sip of the hot liquid. He has to admit it; she makes a good cup of tea. Again she sits down beside him. He looks at her.
"I'm sorry…about last night…" he begins.
"Mitchell…it was a hell of a night" she begins to shake her head.
"In which you discovered the existence of vampires to go with the werewolves" he reminds her and she rolls her eyes as if to say, oh yeah, that. She takes a sip of her tea instead. She then lowers her cup and regards him.
"Will you hurt me?" she asks. He sighs raggedly.
"Right now, no but I can't guarantee the future" he answers with brutal honesty. It makes her blink.
"You've been kind to me, more than I deserve" he continues
"More than you deserve? What is that supposed to mean?" She watches his expression darken.
"I'm not good news Elizabeth. I try to be a good person but bad things tend to…happen instead and I don't want anything to happen to you…because of me" he confesses.
"I can take care of myself Mitchell"
"You've had your eyes opened to a whole different world and I don't know whether you can"
"Then let me decide for myself, okay?" she touches his shoulder again.
"I don't want you to regret it" He puts his tea mug on the coffee table and she watches him pull his fingers through his hair.
"I've done some awful things in the past…" he begins.
"And they're in the past" she reminds him. He looks at her.
"Not too far past" he whispers. Again she frowns.
"How far back?" His eyes widen slightly.
"If I tell you…and you decide that you can't…deal with it…then I'll leave and you'll never see me, or have anything to…fear from me again" he begins. The desperate tone of his voice sends alarm bells ringing and she puts her cup down beside his.
"Mitchell" she whispers. She can sense that he's getting upset again and she's not sure whether she can cope with it but she can also see that he needs to get whatever it is out of his system.
"Please" he whispers and after a moment, she nods. He looks at her for a long moment and the silence is unbearable.
"Back in Bristol, last year I did something…depraved…purely evil and I was…found out" he begins. She frowns.
"What did you do?"
"I'm a vampire Elizabeth, what do you think?" he replies. He looks away, concentrates on his hands instead.
"There was a train carriage…twenty people, we killed them all"
"We?" her voice rises slightly and he looks at her.
"Yeah, her name was Daisy, she's a vampire too, i don't know where she is now" She's gone pale again as she digests what he's told her.
"Why?" she asks him. He looks away and he frowns.
"I reacted to what was going on at the time, I've spent so long trying to be like…them…like you and after being punched and kicked by humanity for so long, I just…gave up" he confesses.
"I remember reading about the train" She remembers feeling utterly horrified and she looks at him with new eyes. He's being honest with her, he doesn't have to be. She sighs shakily.
"And it was because of that that you ended up on the ward?" she asks eventually. He looks at her again.
"Guilt, rejection, self hatred, you name it and I felt it"
"You still do" she tells him and his eyes widen slightly at her observation.
"I always will. If I could take back what I did back in Bristol then I would, in an instant" he replies. She stares at him. She believes him.
"But you did it, you and your companion. Why weren't you arrested?" she asks curiously.
"People like you aren't supposed to know about people like me, as far as I'm aware, it just…went away" he answers.
"The nightmares, they're your punishment" he just nods. There's a brief silence.
"George believes in you. He seems to think that you're worth saving otherwise he wouldn't have admitted you, he wouldn't have got you from the morgue last night…"
"He wasn't supposed to. I was trying to do the right thing" And failing again.
"He sees the good in you Mitchell, isn't that worth something?" she asks him.
"There is nothing good about what I am" he replies in a harder voice.
"Some may beg to differ"
"You don't know me at all Elizabeth"
"I'm not talking about me" A memory clicks in her brain.
"There was an explosion at an old funeral parlour back in Bristol, not long before the train event…"
"That's what started it. The press said there was nobody inside but what they didn't mention that the bodies in there weren't human"
"They were vampires" it's not a question and Mitchell nods.
"I had been trying to get them off blood, get clean like I was but there were…people…always humans trying to jeopardise things and it got out of control"
"It was arson?" Mitchell nods again.
"A bomb" his voice tightens. Her eyes widen as she remembers something George said to her in the cafeteria the morning after she'd saved Mitchell from Daniel
Some people just take a dislike to other people; mostly it's down to prejudice.
"And that's when you gave up on humanity?" she asks him.
"Humanity had long since given up on me, it doesn't excuse what I did but that was how I felt at the time" he admits in a low voice. She regards him.
"You said you were getting your friends off blood and that you were clean?"
"I've been clean for close to a year now, after what I did…" he tells her and watches her reaction, her shoulders relax.
"But it's an addiction, you have to be aware of that and like all addictions there are slips" he warns her.
"But you get right back on that horse again when you do, right?" he shrugs restlessly at her query.
"Sometimes" he admits. He watches her face.
"What are you thinking?" he asks her when she doesn't immediately speak.
"That you've been brutally honest with me" she tells him. She picks her cup up again and holds it between her hands.
"Just say the word and I'll leave" he tells her and she fixes him with a steady look.
"You'd like that wouldn't you, for me to give you permission to walk out of here and disappear? What would you do and where would you go Mitchell?" she looks into his eyes.
"You're still very vulnerable. You're scarred and you need help because you can't do this by yourself"
"You have no idea what you're letting yourself in for"
"Maybe not but I'm willing to find out" she tells him.