Taking Over Me

Dracula and Mina

Disclaimer: I don't own Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, Dracula, or Evanescence.

Song: 'Taking Over Me' by Evanescence.

Warning: some religious references, if you'd be offended, don't read. It talked about Lilith and Judas Iscariot being vampires. If that bothers you, I'm sorry. I am not trying to push any beliefs on you but this is how things work in TAAT so I'm sorry but I refuse to change it.

You don't remember me but I remember you.

I lie awake and try so hard not to think of you.

And who can decide what they dream?

And dream I do…

I believe in you.

I'll give up everything just to find you.

I have to be with you to live

To breathe.

You've taken over me.

Have you forgotten all I know and all we had?

You saw me mourning my love for you and touched my hand.

I knew you loved me then.

I believe in you.

I'll give up everything just to find you.

I have to be with you to live

To breathe.

You're taking over me.

I look in the mirror and see your face.

If I look deep enough so many things inside that are just like you are taking over.

I believe in you.

I'll give up everything just to find you.

I have to be with you to live

To breathe.

You're taking over me.

She could remember him from long ago. His soft whispers and his tender touches were clear in her memory. Yet nothing was more prominent than his promise. "I will be with you forever." It had sounded sweet and loving then especially when he kissed her soon after. Things seemed so much simpler back then.

Mina's past lives saw his promise to have drastically different meanings than the one that plagued her. Elizabeth saw it as a vow of love. Wilhelmina saw it as a threat of their eternal existence together. Neither theory is correct to what Dracula meant—at least it wasn't anymore.

"I will be with you forever." He said, again.

She looked at him with stoic features. Why did he insist on doing this? She was not dense, she understood her new position, but she needed time to accept it. After all, being blood-bound to Dracula was not something every high school junior had to deal with. He needed to back off and give her some space. Then she realized; he couldn't. He could never go away. He could never leave her alone. He wasn't just a person stalking her. He was inside her head—literally.

"You don't remember me but I remember you." He stepped closer to her. He was slow and careful not to frighten her. Yet she was already frightened. She was terrified.

She tried to wake up but found that she was very much awake. This was not a dream. She really was standing in her room at Casimir's house talking to a man who has been dead for six hundred years. He kept moving towards her and she felt her backside hit her bed. Crawling on over her covers she sat cross-legged.

Her hands went to her head and clasped it tightly. "Wake up! He isn't there! Wake up, you crazy leech!" Her fists pounded her skull with her eyes shut tight.

"You are not a leech." She flinched at his voice and started to shake when she felt an icy cold substance slip around her wrists. It was not quite solid or a draft of wind. It was a mixture. It was him trying to stop her. She shot her head up to look at him. "Never call yourself that."

"I'm crazy. I'm an insane vampire." She sobbed, studying him in her misery.

"No you are not. I have watched you grow into a strong, young woman. You are a vampire, but you are not crazy. You have an eternity's worth of a future for you." Somehow his words were making her feel better even if his ice-cold eyes were unnerving and he was not smiling in the least. Then, just as she noted that, his lips curved into a smirk. "We have so much ahead of us."

A chill went by her. She buried her face in her hands and let tears come from her eyes without a care. He may be Dracula—prince and warlord—but she did not see him as a god. He would see her tears. He would see what he was doing to her.

"What more can you do with me? You already possessed me. What are you waiting for? Just take my body and be off with it!"

He hesitated. "I am not bound with you just to steal your body."

"Then what?

"I have been attached to you since you were born. I came back from the abyss of Wilhelmina's death to see you. You were an infant at the time but I could not leave you. Since then, what you felt I felt. My blood runs through your veins." She stopped crying but her face was still wet. "I am a part of you."

"You've been there all along." She rephrased, looking up to see him nod. "Why now?"

"I cannot be sure. Only since you met the Tod boy have you been able to dream of me. You remembered more when you were turned but there was little I could do. And I swear to you there were a variety of instances in which I wished I could do something. Anything."

"You…wanted to pr—protect me?"

He nodded again. "These powers are new to me as they are new to you. I see no reasoning behind what happened in New York."

"You mean the possession." It took a lot for her to stammer out the word. It came out much like a large pill went down one's throat—with difficulty. His fists tightened and she felt another wave of fear come over her. "I can't fathom this!" She wailed and covered her face but did not bury it in her arms as she did before.

Another chill touched her cheek. She jumped. "You can, Mina." She shook her head but said nothing. "I believe in you."

"But why?"

She asked her question in a tragically sweet voice. Her wide eyes shimmered with tears but they implored him for an explanation not just of their situation but of her entire life. It nearly broke his heart to see her that way—so torn and lost. She was the perfect collision of Elizabeth and Wilhelmina and it made it hard to bear for him. Sure, he watched her grow, but with each day it hit him harder and harder. He was not meant to be the guardian angel of a child. He was an immortal warlord prince of Romania and a vampire; he was certain of only two things in the meaning of their existence. There were only two simple words to answer all her questions; blood and love.

"Because I love you." That was not what he wanted to say. He tried to reprimand himself but started to ramble. "Forgive me, there is no depths to what I would do for you. After Eliza died…" He swallowed visibly. "I gave up everything just to find you. I have to be with you to live—to breathe."

"You're taking over me." She cut in and he froze. Backing away from her he looked between them. He hadn't thought he possessed her. He did not want to possess her any time soon if it tormented her so.

"I'm sorry?" He still looked frantically and she let out a giggle. It made him even more confused.

"It is a song from a band I like." This only confused him more. "You've been here all this time and haven't heard it? You near recited the words to one of their songs." Her explanation still befuddled him. He wracked his brain for what band or song she could be thinking of but he came up short. She listened to so much music…

"I must confess that I do not always pay attention to your music and motion picture preferences." He told her, looking down at his hands.

"I never thought I would see the almighty Dracula embarrassed." He was about to glare but saw her smiling. She was teasing him and he was falling right into it. He let low chuckled and kissed her forehead.

"It is an emotion saved for only your eyes, my love."

She pulled away from him. "Don't call me that."

"Why?"

"Well, I just don't think—if you're just in my head—with Vlad and all…" It was her turn to be bashful and Dracula was amused by it.

"You mean to tell me I am not to call you 'my love' because of your infatuation with the boy?" Mina could only nod. Dracula offered his hand to her. She stared at it like she never saw the action before. "The last thing I want to do is hurt you." Taking this into consideration she decided to accept his hand. Somehow he was solid enough to help her off the bed so she stood with him. Her eyes were level with his sternum and she could feel the cold radiating off of him rather than the warmth of a living body.

She could remember reading somewhere that one of the ways ghosts reveal themselves is by scents. Somehow they would change the smells around them. Say, they died in a fire and so they were followed by the scent of smoke. Dracula wasn't a normal ghost, though. It wasn't an object or building that was haunted—it was her.

Being so close to him she could smell him easily. The flavor was strange and hard for her to place but she knew it from somewhere. Dracula was looking down at her with his eyes sparkling silver and his dark hair resembling Vlad's too much for her to think straight. He smelled like Vlad only older, more distant, and more original. She could remember courting him as Elizabeth and dancing with him as Wilhelmina. She could remember a time when his aroma was the only thing she needed. Perhaps that's why Vlad was so comforting to her.

Dracula squeezed her hand. Meeting his eyes she found them melting with affection and not steely with blocked carelessness. "You do love me."

The words shocked her as much as him. He blinked and was ready to deny it when he smiled. She could never before imagine Dracula smiling but now she saw that it suited him. His smirks were professional, his grins were wicked, and his frowns were fearsome. But his smile made him look human, real, and happy. It was endearing. Gone was the murderous vampire she both admired and feared in novels and movies.

He brought her hands to his lips and kissed her fingers. "I do."

"How come I got your blood from Wilhelmina if I'm not related to her?" The shift in topic seemed to ease him back to normal and he used her hand still trapped with his to bring her around the bed.

"Now, that, I have absolutely no clue about." Mina laughed outright.

"At least you're honest!" Dracula smirked but she could see the smile itching to show through. "Do you at least know what's so special about your blood?"

"Our blood." He corrected.

"Yes, our blood. Casimir, Dorian, and everyone else seem to think it's some big deal and I just don't get it. You must know something about it. I mean, sure, you did some questionable things in your life and Elysian existence but that hardly seems like a good reason for everyone to treat me like some rare oddity."

"You are unequivocally correct." Dracula moved to sit on the settee that was kept to the right of her bed.

She waited for him to explain but he didn't. With her hands at her hips she stood in front of him. "Am I not to know?" Dracula chuckled at her quick frustration. "If I can't keep things from you, you shouldn't be able to hide stuff from me."

"If you were to shut that pretty loud mouth of yours, I would."

The room filled with his laughter when he received a glare along with the asked-for silence.

"It is quite simple, really. Our blood is the original blood." He didn't look at her as he said that, keeping his eyes surfacing the room or on himself. He was fixing his clothes in the first half and Mina wondered for a moment if those were the clothes he died in. Near the end, he was draping his arm across the back of the settee and flashing a grin.

"Original blood?"

Dracula bobbed his head.

"Like the original vampire blood?" She got another confirmation. "So are you trying to tell me that you are the first vampire? I'm supposed to believe you're older than the Council of Elders? And Em?"

"No, my love." She scoffed and was about to reprimand him for not telling her what she asked for. Before she could though, he vanished in a puff of black mist and appeared behind her at the food of the bed again. "The vampire you describe would be my maker. My brother and I only inherited his blood during our transformation."

"And where is your maker now?"

Dracula shrugged. "The last I saw of him was a year after my turn. He left me in Casimir's care."

"Does that make you related to Em?"

"No." From his snap and narrowed eyes she assumed he took that as an insult. She couldn't blame him for not liking Em.

"If she is believed to be the oldest vampire I just assumed…" Dracula leaned on her bedpost and she took the seat before her desk. It was right across from her bed and functioned as her dress-up counter and her work desk. "Who is your maker then? I think I should know the history of your lineage."

Dracula evaluated her but spoke to cover up his stare. "I know the McMillan's haven't raised you with the Bible but you are aware of it, yes?" It was hardly a question and she knew that he didn't really need an answer. "The first demon mentioned to have a fetish for blood was Lilith. This would have made her the first vampire after she turned her back on Adam and the whole Garden of Eden."

"So Lilith is your maker?"

"Not quite." Dracula crossed his arms and sighed. "It is thought that she survived at least up to the death of Christ."

"Now she's dead?"

"Assumedly, yes. That is what my maker told us. Before her true death she changed another and it is he who is my maker. She wanted to choose someone who suffered from God as she felt she did. By then, Judas Iscariot betrayed Christ. Feeling remorse for the actions of his greed he tried to hang himself. God refused to allow him to die, believing he should be immortal to suffer his guilt for eternity."

"Please don't say you're secretly Judas going by the name Dracula like that movie that had Gerard Butler in it. Because if that's what really went down I think I'd rather not be bound to you."

It was meant to be humorous the way she shook her arms and head like she was shaking off a spider. When she met his eyes again he didn't seem to find it as silly as she thought it was. He understood it, but she wanted answers and he did not want her to forget a word of the explanation.

"Lilith was a blood-sucking demon, once human. Not technically a vampire but close in a strict sense. When she came across Judas—human, immortal, greedy, and disloyal—she chose to add to his curse with promises that it will help him pass eternity. That was when Judas was made a vampire; she simply changed him just as D'Ablo changed you. This made him the first vampire to not be a demon and also gave our kind our weaknesses." Mina slowly nodded as she processed it all. "This is why it is controversial about who exactly was the first of our kind: Lilith or Judas."

"And the weaknesses? How did that come about?"

"The tree that Judas tried to hang himself by inspired the use of stakes. His partiality to his neck made beheading one of our fragile spots. He betrayed Christ for silver coins and thus our allergy to silver."

"But we aren't allergic to silver. Only garlic and sunlight."

"Sunlight was Lilith's curse. We were once weakened by silver but the younger vampires have developed an immunity to it." Mina accepted that and Dracula cleared his throat and went on. "Skip ahead several centuries and Judas found our Casimir. Only about a lifetime after his turn they came across my Eliza alone in our castle. Judas turned me after I lost her. Lilith's blood, Judas's blood, the Original blood is what makes us so rare. My brother and I are the only offspring of Judas. Though, at the time, he went by Jude."

"Well, I heard about Jude I just didn't think he would be Judas. They seemed like two completely different people." Mina looked off to the side.

"Jude changed over time from the man who betrayed Christ. He hasn't been seen since he left my brother and I."

"Which means Elysia believes him dead as well." Mina and Dracula nodded their heads simultaneously before she spun around on her chair to face her desk. With her elbows resting on the fine wood and her head being supported by her hands, she groaned. "So it's like I'm from the first vampire family. All other vampires are…related to me—to us?"

"Does that clear up any confusions?"

"Not all of them." She lifted her head. Dracula was behind her when she looked over her shoulder but he wasn't in the mirror ahead of her. "What does it all have to do with me?"

Mina could feel him running his hands over her shoulders. In the mirror she could see he was toying with her necklace and adjusting her hair to fall behind her back. Again she could smell his closeness and his lips at her ear. "You are meant to change the fate of Elysia. For that, your own fate had to be set out right down to the origin of your blood."

"What do you mean 'change the fate of Elysia'?" She fought the shivers she got from his breath at her ear. "I'm not the Pravus and other than this blood thing I don't see how I'm important at all."

Dracula chuckled and instantly she was wary of him again. "Do you trust me, Mina?"

Now that got her mind churning. Did she trust him? He possessed her and that still scared her out of her wits. But he told her every moment he could since then that it was a mistake he would never make again. He was drunk on his new power and promised her he would only exercise it if there were a need to.

If she were trapped in an endless black void for centuries and come back just to haunt a baby, would she have acted the same? As herself, probably not. But seeing as the man in question was Vlad Dracula Tepes III the Impaler she could somewhat understand.

Just because she understood did not mean it was acceptable. He has practically begged her forgiveness and she still hasn't forgiven him and that in itself is weird for her.

He was also a ruthless murderer. To protect his religion and country, the other half of her mind tried to tell her. He was a cold-hearted killer whose only soft spot seemed to be for her. So that changed things, didn't it? "Mina?" He asked again, his voice soft in her ear.

"Yes."

Dracula smirked at her answer. "Good. You will have to for our plans to be carried out successfully."

"What plans?" She turned her head to face him. Since he was still standing behind her it made him seem far taller than he already was. The sweet Dracula she was learning to trust was gone and the mean one returned. If it were possible his entire being radiated of evil and she knew that's what he wanted. Whatever his plans were, she doubted they were truly evil.

He tenderly pushed her cheek so she was looking into the mirror again. And like always, he wasn't there. As she stared at her reflection she could just barely, faintly, see a resemblance of a washed-out form that could have been him.

That wasn't what nerved her. Being able to see ghosts in mirrors in one thing. Seeing that same ghost's behavior, thoughts, looks, and very existence starting to grown on you…now that was terrifying. Mina hated to admit it but her skin was closer akin to his. Her expressions mimicked his. Everything right down to the way he held himself above all other vampires was started to show in herself. She was becoming more like him.

"We have so much ahead of us."

Creeped out yet?

Mina is.

Yeah, I can totally see why this should be in TAAT…but it won't be. I always wanted it to be but honestly Mina is already acceptant of Dracula's blood so it would be pointless to have this in randomly.

There are some random allusions to TrueBlood and Dracula 2000 if you can catch 'em! Thought they'd be good for a laugh! ;)

Review?

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Broken