CH20

"I've seen you before somewhere, I just can't place where." Rick was still staring at him.

"What were you doing at the time Richard?" Hunt tried to give him a clue.

Kate, however, was having a problem with all of this. "My Lord, how do you know his name? I only ever called him Castle." She was sure of it.

"Perhaps you're mistaken Katherine, after all you have gotten old," Hunt gently mocked her.

"Old am I? This house has an exercise room. Perhaps after I throw you to the floor a few times we'll see who is old." Kate glared at him.

"Now there is the Katherine that I've missed." Hunt only smiled back at her.

"Old, …Humf." She crossed her arms and scowled at him, causing Hunt to chuckle.

Rick was still concentrating. "I was…I was." He just couldn't place him.

"Drink your water Castle before you blow a blood vessel." Kate teased. "I'll take your empty bags, with a little work we can re-use them, maybe." She took the empty blood bags along with the one she had barely touched.

"I'll come with," Sirene offered and took hold of Kate's arm and let her jump them. They found themselves in the main kitchen, alone.

"There's more in the refrigerator if you want," Kate offered and dropped the bags in the recycle bin.

"You love your human, don't you?" Sirene felt sad. Her heart had hoped…

"I was alone for over 500 years, Sirene, thanks to you. I drank an ocean of animal blood to get to this country. The war against the British gave me a few followers and the Civil War gave me even more. Do you have any idea how many people I buried myself in the ground with?

"DO YOU!?" Kate had been flailing her arms around while she talked, now she was shoving her face into Sirene's face.

Sirene scrunched her face. "A lot?" she said weakly, knowing the chance of success was almost nil.

"A lot she says, a lot! I spent so much time underground I was afraid I was going to become a bug. I've only been jumping for the last 17 years Sirene. Till then I had to do things the hard way. Scared of humans and Lycans… ALONE!"

"Because the love of my life abandoned me, and then hundreds of lonely years later she shows up and wants to know if I'm in love with a human. Well, guess what Sirene, I am. I even have a daughter. Except for a Lycan problem that have rounds that can kill our kind with one shot, I'm doing great, just great." Kate's rant had only caused her to begin crying.

"You abandoned me Sirene and I loved you." Kate jumped away to someplace she could break down and cry in peace.

Sirene simply slid down the kitchen cabinet and sat on the floor. "I'm sorry Kitty, I'm so very sorry." She curled up in on herself and started crying.

"I better go find them." Paige gave Alexis a quick kiss and stood up to walk for the door.

"You might want to give them some time; those two have a lot to work out," Hunt cautioned.

"Kate is my Mistress and Sirene has already hurt her. I'm still going to go find them. I'll be back," Paige said as she closed the door.

"That human loves you a lot. I've never seen any human love a vampire as much as she does you. It was what I fought and hoped for when I was Lord. It's nice to see at least one human who has overcome her prejudices when it comes to vampires," Hunt spoke while looking at Alexis.

"I love her a lot, too. She's determined to be a part of the death dealers and fight at my side. We're just having trouble helping her overcome her strength handicap," Alexis admitted.

"Katherine mentioned that there were Lycans in the city. Sounds like something I'll have to look into in the near future. And what about you, Richard, anything come to mind yet?" Hunt switched his attention to Castle.

"How do you know his name? I'm pretty sure mom has never used his first name; she only calls him Castle," Alexis pointed out.

"We've met before, granted it was a few years ago and it was only the one time, briefly. Still I got him in. One would think he would remember me for that. It's not every day an outsider, especially a writer, manages to get into the Agency simply because he asks." Hunt gave Rick a clue.

"Agency." Rick let that roll around in his head. "THE CIA! You were standing next to the director before i find out about the woman I was assigned to follow around for a few weeks, while some suit kept drilling me about what I saw and what would happen to me if I ever told anyone or wrote too much in my book." He finally caught on.

"You were in the CIA!?" Alexis opened her eyes wide.

"You were what, maybe 3 years old at the time. I was already divorced and still writing about Derek Storm. I came up with the idea that he got involved in a CIA case by accident. I asked to be allowed to snoop around the CIA for a few days so I could make the experience seem real. I kept getting turned down until one day I got a call and was told to come in, met you two and some motor mouth."

"That was you? Why?" Rick knew he had been rejected; why was he in suddenly? He had been too happy at the time to question it.

"You were a writer Richard, and I suspected there was a mole in the CIA, selling secrets. Granted, being a vampire, I really don't care if the United States or Russia or China rules the world. I'll simply fit in as best I can and go from there."

"I thought being in the CIA would give me access to certain things that could help me. The CIA was more set up for that than the KGB or some other agency," Hunt explained.

"Mom, you wanted to find mom." Alexis lifted her head up and looked directly at Hunt. Hunt nodded his head. "Katherine, Sirene, and others. I knew Katherine and Sirene were not home at the time so should have survived the attack. It never occurred to me that Sirene would break them up like she did. Those two were so devoted to each other."

"I found Sirene first and found out what had happened. And I gave her hell for breaking up with Katherine. I re-doubled my efforts at finding Katherine. You don't know how hard it is to find a single vampire who could be anywhere on the planet who doesn't want to be found. Hiding in plain sight in the middle of downtown Manhattan is genius."

"I eventually got a lead and gave it to Sirene to follow. I was in Kabul when she sent me word that she had found her," Hunt concluded his tale.

Rick sat there stewing over how long his Mistress and the extremely attractive Sirene had been lovers and that she never said a word about her. Still his Mistress hadn't seen her in a very long time. But 10 years was not just something you forgot about. "Why me? …I mean surely there had to be someone else. And how did you get into the CIA anyway?" Rick was sure they would do a background check, have him pee into a cup for testing, draw blood, take a vision test. Practically take him apart and put him back together again.

"By the time I wanted into the CIA I already had a secure background and with the help of a few friends, faked the CIA's tests. I used their urine, set it up so that it was their blood that was checked and made sure to only come in at night. As for why you? You were an outsider, Richard, and you wanted details. I followed you around; you seemed like the perfect choice."

"Handsome enough to get women interested in you, disarming enough that they wouldn't suspect you, naive enough to think you got in on your own. And anyone who asked you would believe you, since you believed it," Hunt explained.

"Thanks." Rick didn't think any of it sounded like a compliment.

"Don't take it personally Richard. You played your part and did it well. After you left, a few weeks later all the leaks stopped. That left me with a much smaller number of people to study to try and figure out who the mole was." To Hunt Rick had done his part. "You probably don't even know what you found. I'm betting you know who the mole is, you just can't put the pieces together."

"But you do?" Alexis questioned him.

"I think so, but since I can't find her, I don't know. She has totally gone off the grid. No phone, no email, no bills, no mortgages, doesn't seem to own any land. Not even so much as a dental visit. What irks me the most is that I was standing right behind her at one time and didn't suspect a thing. She is one cold bitch." Hunt couldn't help but admire her.

"NO, can't be. …I worked with her! The director assigned her to me. I learned all I did while I was there from her." Rick had caught on.

"Like I said Richard, cold." Hunt understood that Rick had worked it out.

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Paige walked into the main kitchen and found Sirene curled up on the floor sobbing; Kate was nowhere in sight. She got down on the floor beside her. "What happened?" When she didn't get an answer, Paige tried pulling on one of her arms and tried again. "Sirene, what happened. Where's Kate?"

Sirene looked at her. All Paige saw were the tears and one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen before suddenly didn't look all that beautiful. "I screwed up…I screwed up so big." She simply buried her face in her legs again and went back to weeping.

"You mean when you broke up with Kate long ago?" Paige hoped it wasn't recent, and watched Sirene nod her head; she was at least happy for that.

"If you loved her so much, why didn't you track her down? Find her and make it up to her?" It didn't sound so hard to Paige or was Sirene that stubborn?

"I tried, for years and years I tried. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find one vampire who doesn't want to be found!?" Sirene exclaimed, talking into her legs while sniffling.

"So where is Kate now?" Alexis was going to be pissed if she had run off to get away from Sirene.

"I don't know. We continued our argument and she jumped away, crying. …I've screwed up so badly. I don't even know where to begin to fix this." Sirene finally wiped some of her tears away along with her runny nose.

"You still love her, don't you?" Paige knew Kate was in love with Castle now, or at least that was what Alexis kept telling her. Someone was going to get hurt.

"I never stopped. Even when I told her to go, I was ripping my own heart out. It just seemed like such the right idea at the time. …One of us had to live." Sirene wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. "I should go before I screw this up any more."

"NO!" Paige leapt at her and grabbed her arm so that if Sirene jumped away she would take her with her and would have to bring her back.

"Let go of me Paige, I know you mean well. But I need to end this, for both of us." Paige knew what that meant!

"LIKE HELL! …Let you jump to someplace where the sun is out and get burnt to ashes? Kate's heart is already damaged enough! Killing yourself is only going to crush what's left of it."

"I know Kate still loves you or she wouldn't be this hurt. And I know she has Castle now instead of you. Please Sirene, give Irene a chance. She's hurting too. The boys may have been mean to her when she was an ugly duckling, but the girls were even meaner. You don't know what it's like to have your peers walk all over you. They didn't even bother to talk about her behind her back. They said horrible things right to her face."

"Please Sirene, she could use someone who is strong. So she's not Kate, but she could be. You and Irene, Kate and Castle. You could be the closest of friends even if you're not lovers anymore. You could still be a part of the family. A little weird family, humans and vampires, but it's still family. …You've lived alone long enough. It's time to come in from the cold Sirene, and Canada sounds kinda cold." Paige smiled but didn't let go of her.

"Sirene, jump us back to the bedroom and if you think I'm letting go of you, think again," Paige informed her. She soon found herself standing in the bedroom again and sat next to Sirene holding on to her.

"Sirene?" Hunt got up and leaned down to he, noticing that Paige was hanging on for dear life.

"I'm sorry my Lord, I screwed up big time." Sirene hung her head.

"You two always were a contradiction. Kate was emotional and physical while you were logical and quiet. Who you couldn't convince, Kate would bash his head in and ask questions later." Hunt chuckled. "I am however glad you two weren't there when we were attacked. You both would likely have been killed. And yes, you screwed up Sirene; I suggest you start thinking of a way to make it up to her." Hunt tapped the top of her head and went back to his chair.

"Where is Kate?" Rick asked, looking at Sirene.

"She was still mad at me and jumped away somewhere. She could be anywhere." Sirene was sorry about that too.

Rick pulled out his cell phone, stood up and started walking to the bedroom door, hoping Kate still had her phone on her. Unfortunately he heard the sound of her phone ringing on his phone and in the room. "SHIT!" Rick found it on the desk.

Suddenly Kate jumped in. "Castle!" She jumped over to him, wrapped her arms around him, and jumped away. She stayed just long enough for everyone in the room to notice that, like Sirene, she had been crying.

"You have a date tomorrow and I'm sitting on you if I have to, to make sure you are there. Irene is nice and she deserves you. …Sorry babe!" Paige called across the room to Alexis. Alexis could only smile back and feel her heart expand a little more for the human she was in love with.

"Castle?" Kate didn't know where to start as they found themselves on some company's outdoor patio area.

"So you and Sirene?" Rick asked.

"I know I didn't tell you about her Castle, but that was over 500 years ago and she was gone. I didn't see the need." Kate slumped into one of the chairs and looked down at the concrete.

He pulled out one of the chairs so he could sit down. They listened to it scrape across the concrete. "You still love her."

She looked at Castle who deserved to know. "I've loved her since the day I met her. We had 10 glorious years as vampire lovers and I didn't leave her side or her mine unless we had to. We had to be careful when we were in human towns. Lesbians back then were treated pretty much close to witches. We could only show and express our love when we were home."

"Then we came home to find it all gone, burned to the ground with dead bodies and piles of ash all over. We searched the area for days, well nights actually, and found no one. All of our animals were either still milling about or had run off. We fed off of them as we always had done. We never did take human life. Lord Hunt wanted to find a way for our kind to work and live with humans. It was his dream."

"It was actually starting to work, or so we thought. The dead humans' bodies showed us that Lycans were involved, but more than that we didn't know. Sirene, in her cold calculating way, decided that if we were to keep the vampire race and Lord Hunts dream alive, we needed to split up and take a different route."

"It instantly broke my heart; I thought she didn't really love me. I took my anger out on her and started pounding on her while screaming at her for not loving me like I loved her. She pleaded her case and left the next night. She left me crying and wishing I had been there and killed too."

"It took me years to get over her, but I never really forgot her. She had taken a piece of my heart with her when she left. Not literally like Alexis has, but you get the meaning." Kate wiped at the tears that just wouldn't go away.

"You want her back." Rick figured he was out. How did he compete with a lover that she still had feelings for that she had been with for 10 years? They had barely been together for a couple of months.

"That's just it, I don't. Seeing her made me happy that she was still alive, but I'm not in love with her anymore. I'll always love her, but I don't want her, I want you."

"I've worked too hard to make you mine and I'm keeping you Castle. And we have a daughter. She may be 19 years old, but she is yours. Maybe not by blood line anymore and I can't do anything about that, but she's alive. Your Alexis is 19 years old now and she's alive." Kate pleaded her case about them yet again.

He sat up straighter and looked at her. "You don't want her back?" Now he really was questioning her.

She shook her head. "I own you Castle, you're mine and I don't throw away things I own. Sirene threw me away and I know the pain of that and I'm not doing that to you, or to my…our daughter." Kate stood up and looked down at him.

"Who am I Castle?" She decided to test if he was still in or now out.

"You are Mistress Kate and you own me. You own my mind, body, heart and soul and you can fuck my ass anytime you want to," he recited it back to her. "And you are?" she questioned him. "I am yours Mistress, you own me."

She smiled as she wiped away any stray tears. "Do you still remember how to kiss me?" She wanted to be kissed. Sirene being here and reminded her of how broken her heart was until he came along.

Rick showed Kate that he knew just how to kiss her. She broke from the kiss to let him get some air and then she devoured his mouth.

"The next few nights or even weeks are going to be different Castle. Just don't forget, you are mine and I'm not Sirene's anymore. We are going to talk about how you know Lord Hunt." She poked him in the chest and jumped them back to their bedroom where they found everyone still there.