Disclaimer: Being not quite all-that-evil, I decided to update again 'cause of that's not even the actual climax, just a pseudo-ha-ha-I-fooled-you-all,-didn't-I climax. And, no, I don't own anything.

This is a feeling I never thought I'd have to feel again. The pull, the tug on my chest that tells me that something is missing …and that I missed all my chances. That the one person in the world I want to stay connected to is gone again.

"Guys?!" I here some stop-what-you're-doing-spidey-sense-is-tingling-there's-evil-afoot sounds in response to my cry.

"Johnny? Something wrong?" Vicki gets here first.

"Joanna?" Followed by Beth. Wow, vampires are slow. This is sad, guys.

"Hello? What happened?"

"Just, wait a second. 'Kay?" In a few seconds the other three show up.

"What is it?"

"Does it have to do with the fledgling?"

"Will this take long?" I shoot Josef a glare.

"I'm sorry, is saving lives detrimental to your personal life?"

"It has been in the past, yes." Beth puts a hand on his chest and pushes him back.

"Whose life is in danger?" All it takes is eye contact with my shiny wet sockets.

"Ohmigod. What do we do?"

"Just…" I choke back my tears. That's the easy part;

No one told me it was so hard to swallow.

I wave my arm in the direction of the forest.

"Can we find him…please?"

XXX

I'll spare you the painful details and lamentations of the past few hours. They've gone by in a bit of a haze anyway. The vampires all went to the forest and…

I don't know, chanted and held hands in a circle and used their magical all-seeing omniscient vampire powers to find Mort. Or sniffed some shit and followed some stuff, but whatever. Same difference.

Once again, so as to get you up to tempo, I'll hurry past everything that's happened: Mort somehow left a scent trail, unbeknownst to our antagonist (or perhaps beknownst by him…heh). That's what we followed, as evidently he left the motel grounds almost immediately and hurried down the side of the road, a path which we followed diligently.

Incidentally, have you ever heard the myth that vampires can't cross running water? If so, I'd really like to know how they got to North America. Just saying.

Eventually we got to a dance teaching building. That was rented out. So, this guy, who is evidently over three thousand years old, was too cheap to even bother using an abandoned building or even buy this one. Nope. He rented it.

A dance hall.

What the hell?!

The guys' got class, at least. Not too many mirrors. I hate mirrors, reflections, having to know what other people see when they look at me. It's a lot easier to say 'I don't care' when you don't know.

I've been trying to save somebody.

Mostly it's a face hiding in the cracks of my bedroom ceiling,

Mostly it's a man who only shows himself in the blood vessels of my eyelids when I squint at the sun

Most days too bright for clear vision

Mostly… it's a man.

"Where is he?"

"Why did…who uses a dance hall?"

"I sense a lot of bad jokes coming." Mick seems to be taking the lead as I've basically become a complete invalid, wandering the halls thinking about poetry. I feel like I'm looking for misplaced keys or something, like if I look in all the different rooms he'll just be in one of them.

Never a woman, I have never wished to save my own kind

A guardian angel, maybe someday for some man, maybe, mostly –

He looks like my father.

Fat and sad.

Have you ever wanted to mold dough into rosary beads just to string them from fall trees and let them be blown sideways by your own breath like forgiveness?

Forgiveness indeed, one can only hope. Why was I this stupid? Sure, let the newbie walk around all night. For fun! You're a nice gal, Johnny, why not just let him roam unsupervised in the wilderness where there are likely to be possessive and angry super-vamps waiting for you to make a mistake like this?

Great job, Jo!

I might be sick.

If you've ever dealt with a crisis that, to a certain degree, is out of your hands, you might know how I feel. My dog ran away when I was little. He was a big dog, nearly seventy pounds, and I doubted he'd get eaten by coyotes or anything…but I was the one who left the door open.

I felt so useless, so helpless, and as the hours ticked by I flickered between a futile hope – everything will be okay, it'll work itself out – and complete pessimistic despair – he got run over and it's all my fault and I'm going to have the guilt of his death hanging over me for the rest of my life.

That's basically what's happening now. Looking in these rooms is to finding Mort what standing in a room and flapping your wings is to flying.

Have you ever wanted to whiten the red eyes of a stone boy just to let him see you clear like bleach, and broken glass

Have you seen your grandfather cry?

Neither have I.

But I've seen him kneel at his dead wife's grave and sit silent mostly

I wanted to break his neck because someday I will guard somebody

Someday he will cry for me mostly because he will know the sting of my sweat on his eyes like a ripe onion being cut for stuffing on Thanksgiving day

I will cut for his safety he will look like my father the soldier I throw behind the bookshelf Sunday mornings when war decides to make the front page…

Have you seen that soldier smiling?

I have.

I've separated myself from the group. Not because I'm in pain or anything, but because I'm going to do something even I don't want to see myself do.

"I know you're here." My voice is not exceedingly loud, but I know it's loud enough.

"You don't have to show yourself. I know. But I just…" The walls may have ears, but they're not very good conversationalists.

"What do you want with them? Never mind. I don't even care. Just…" I have no idea what I'm doing. All I can do is appeal to the predator who likes to play games. If we're lucky he'll be amused enough to let them go for now.

"Just let them go for now. You won't gain anything, Mort makes a terrible prisoner. Believe me. He'll just keep making wisecracks." I give out a choked laugh, a clash of humor and sadness bundled into a wet, pitiful little sound.

"You can't be serious. It's not fun for you, can't be. Not after you'd used them up! Just let us go for now. More fun, after, if you give us a little happiness to take away. Come on. You're not telling me you're a boring villain, are you?" The silence is amused. There's really no other way of putting it: up until now it's been cold. Like I really am just talking to walls. Now…it's like there's a person. Who suddenly decided I was interesting enough to listen to.

The silence is intrigued.

"I mean, I boring, traditional captor would just be all 'muahaha, I have your friends be sad'. What, do you wear a monocle? How about a top hat? A preponderance for tuxedos, perhaps? Nah. You've already shown that you have a certain degree of originality. Renting out a dance studio. Kudos for that." The silence is starting to liiiiiiike me. The silence is going to pass me a note in fifth period.

"So, please, for the sake of stories everywhere, don't be that guy." The silence is curious. What guy? The silence asks me.

"You know, the guy that fills his evil quota by kidnapping. I mean, that is just so…clichéd. Come on! It's like, call me when you have a better villain, because kidnapping vampires? PASS." I think the silence is laughing. No, wait…wait for it…yes, that is definitely silence laughter.

"My point being, could I have back my friends until you think of something else? Heck, I'll even visit you on weekends. Help you think of better stuff, huh?" The silence is…well, silent. This is the most bizarre one-way conversation I've ever had.

I talk to fish and this is the most bizarre one-way conversation I've ever had.

There's a sound, like a creak, a door, then slamming. And…

A groan? From a person. Oh my god.

It's like a rollercoaster of emotion!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee.

"Mort?" It's a whisper…

And I don't know how he heard me.

My dog came back home. When I was little. We found him. He came back.

I have wanted to wrap his grin in paper mache and beat the fight out of it.

I have wanted to lick his wounds every particle space on his body dry until he has forgotten the sting of shrapnel and his mother's grief

Mostly she is angry like a dull steak knife who knows what it feels like to cut through skin with just her voice I am looking to save somebody

With just my voice.

He looks like that little boy who's fallen during Cops and Robbers most rounds

I have wanted to play cease fire, dinner bell, come on home or

I will be the nurse I wanted to play field nurse or medicine woman or

Mother may I wrap my skin around them.

I don't hear words, exactly, more like a wet sound – pain, confusion. But it's there. And it's coming from down the hallway.

Those convicts I see on TV they stare like they know most parts of a woman better than I,

I don't doubt their crimes…

But my favorite combination of two English words is still swaddling cloth.

And I wouldn't mind mummifying a murder with my own two arms if it meant

I could undo his father's knuckles like unstringing planets from their orbits with just a snip of a sinew

My two arms are mostly muscles but there's a little bit of shame on you stuck within me for the mothers who let their sons become what they come to be –

I would like to reroute the storks some nights.

I would like to open my wound to the wounded and restore them with my own blood.

I don't start to run. I'm tentative, because it seems like I haven't suffered for long enough. I thought angst lasted more than four hours?

But who am I to complain?

I sometimes feel I have no use for a beating heart.

Like a mutt after his own tail like my own two hands

I would give them to a handless carpenter if he could build me a house large enough in which to house my guilt for being beautiful!

And never being able to look fully in the eye to the man on the corner with the smile just like my father's and my grandfather's

And my grandfather has been mostly a poor man.

I have been mostly a crier I sometimes have to laugh at my own two faces the speak

In different languages. One of them is crying to be held the other is a hold on comfort as big as the beating heart of a broken child…

I will hold him.

My little boy he has glass eyes from too many nights made to forget me…

My memory only lets guilt in, I have enough guilt to fill oceans with

I have enough caution in my voice to make the general wary of my footsteps!

And it's true.

Pacing myself, I walk slowly, calmly, towards the sound.

I do want to take you in my ribcage and bind you inside me until you know how to breath calmly.

It is true, I am mostly calm like the second before a storm.

I am mostly safety like the moments between bombs

I am mostly a mother, sometimes I play daughter but I am mostly a sinner

Sometimes I pretend myself the saint

I am mostly an echo of your Hail Mary, never just the sound,

I am mostly the crescendo of a man's fist never the slap back across the cheek,

I have always been a broken compass spinning whenever someone steps into my circle,

I know not how to stand steady but I will someday.

I have always been the user never the pusher,

I have always been the fall never the ripple outwards,

I have always been the breath on the other line, never the breather.

I come up to the door, which I assume is where the sound is coming from. It's unlocked, and I don't know if that's good or bad. Here's hoping for good, right? I place my shaking hand on the knob.

I will breath somebody life someday, for somebody someday, I promise -

I come across a gruesome, yet hopeful, scene: Ben, crippled on the ground in the fetal position, holding his arms around himself. I can't see any wounds, but that doesn't mean there aren't any.

- I will save you.

Mort's standing in the corner, as close as possible to him, hands over his stomach. He's wearing a navy, long sleeved shirt, so I can't tell immediately if he's been hurt.

"Joanna!" His voice is surprisingly strong. More surprising still is when he somehow convinces Ben to stand up, though the boy's still clutching his abdomen.

"Come on, Ben. We can go. We can go home. Come on." Ben's breathing heavily, ragged, like there's something in his throat. Mordecai himself is looking…less than healthy. Slightly pale, tired.

"Johnny!"

"This way! Guys, I smell something!"

"Yeah, I got it too. Beth! Vicki! Left hallway!" I hear their hurried footsteps, and pay them no heed. Rushing over to Ben, I slide my shoulders under one of his arms similar to how Mort is doing, so that he hangs limply between the two of us. Evidently this building is shaped like a U, because the door we find leads us into a place overlooking a body of water in between a lake and a pond in size (otherwise known as a lake-pond) and surrounded on three sides by walls. Josef pulls around with one of the cars in the distance.

"Ben! Ben? You okay, buddy?" Ben manages to straighten up, revealing a round, wide bloodstain and a hole in his clothing.

There's a sharp intake of breath, collectively taken by both Beth and Mick. What, you two never seen a staking before?

"Get him back to the car. Now." Mort orders them. I'm more worried about him, though: he still hasn't taken his hands away from his stomach. They leave, half-carrying Ben to the car where the others are waiting, leaving only Mort and I.

"We'll walk back!" I call to them, looking to Mort for confirmation. He gives me a grateful grimace.

He hates having people worrying about him (hypocrite).

Only when they've pulled away does he takes his hands away and I see the wet, black stain that is rapidly spreading.

There's a hole in his stomach. And actual hole, to the point where I can see bone.

"Mort!" Okay, wait, what?! How is there a HOLE there? Excuse me, but you seem to have forgotten to give me back a piece of my vampire. Young man? I ordered a WHOLE vampire, you have given me 99 of a vampire. I demand a refund!

I suppose that's a valid point: he's not healing. I roll back the sleeve of my shirt, a task easier said than done because it has thumb-holes (not purposeful, but I have bad habits), from which I have to unhook my thumbs. But, nevertheless, in the end the sleeve is up near my elbow.

"Here-" I walk toward him, arm out like the offering it is. Even now, he manages to give me a Mort All-Knowing Smirk.

"Nah. I'm okay. I've learned a few things in a thousand years, Johnny." Even as he says this I hear a…ewgh…squelching…sound….(shudders). That is gross… His eyes are closed and he's making a very concentrated face. I watch as a few thin strands of tissue connect to each other, like starter threads for a spider's web, and more and more begins to fill in.

Suddenly, Mort looks down.

"Ach! Crap! Crap crap crap!"

"What?"

"It's eating my shirt!"

"What's eating your shirt?"

"It's going to heal over the fabric!" He shouts, cross his arms on either side of his body, gripping the hem of the shirt and pulling it off. He flings it on the ground and stares at it like it just spontaneously burst into flames.

But even then I continue to watch as his wound knits itself together, and where a few seconds ago there was a gaping hole there is now smooth, brown skin over flawless muscle.

Did I mention this is the first time I've seen him with his shirt off?

Fate is so sucking up to me.

I suppose that's one good thing about what happened. That realization, that I've already missed so many chances. That I don't know how many I have left.

"Joanna?" He frowns, stepping closer. I do likewise, so that we're only about a foot apart. So that I have to look up to be able to see his face (tall bastard).

"'M fine." I can't help it. I put my hands on either side of his chest and he shivers a little, closing his eyes. It's bizarre, to think I could have that affect on someone.

Very carefully, tentatively, like he's expecting me at any moment to push him away disgustedly, he puts his hands on my back.

The simple fact is, I don't know where the lines are. Or if there are any.

And I don't know who starts it, but suddenly I can feel my lips trapped in a searing kiss, deepened when one of his hands moves to the back of my head and the other to the small of my back, pulling me closer.

And I never realized that for my whole life, I'd felt something missing. Never realized it because I'd never even known I had it, even for a night.

I've closed my eyes, so I don't know how I slide my arms around his neck so easily, but I do anyways.

I don't know how long we stand there…kissing. It sounds bizarre to even use the word in context with me.

But I do know that my lips are swollen and numb for the rest of the night.

A/N: In response to SOMEBODY'S comment…play time is tomorrow, children ;).

And, if anyone is curious, the poem, 'Bear With Me', can be found on iTunes in the podcast section (meaning it's free! Yay!). Search 'Jamie Kilstein' (it's not by Jamie Kilstein, just do it), and you should come up with one result (a podcast). In that podcast look for #24 (Lily from Youth Speaks). I'm not saying necessarily DO IT, just that I should give credit where credit's due.

…Also, do it.