"It's so odd for it to be this quiet."
Mark frowns at the vampire lounging on the low couch facing a wall of windows overlooking a pool and the hazy city. "Sorry?"
Mick points at a glass on the coffee table. Mark gratefully takes it and sits, with just a little discomfort, at the end of the sofa. "Just that Josef likes company. But he also likes secrets."
"Andy's a secret?" Mark downs half the glass of whiskey without a sputter.
Mick lifts an eyebrow.
"I guess that was a stupid question." A little more whiskey, then, "I can feel her."
The vampire goes still, "Different? Than before?"
"I didn't know what I was feeling then. But, yeah, different."
They both stare out the window, silent except for the clinks of ice cubes against crystal.
Mark takes a breath, "I feel like I should be angry. But I'm not. It doesn't make any sense."
"Angry because she lied to you?" Mick looks sideways at him, "Or because she left?"
Chuckling, "Both, neither; because she could've died, I guess a hundred different times since I've known her, and I wouldn't have known. She'd just have been gone." Mark sighs, "Didn't she think I deserved to know?"
"She was afraid." Ice clinks.
"She told you?" Mark chokes.
"No." Mick reaches for the whiskey bottle and slides it closer to Mark. "No. I...just...I know why she wouldn't have been able to tell you." Hazel eyes flick towards him, "It's pretty hard to watch somebody you care about figure out that you're a monster."
Mark closes his eyes and nods, "I think I can see that." He takes a deep breath, and pours himself another drink, not bothering to refresh the ice. "But it ends up that the one you care about doesn't hate you because of what you are. They hate what you've done to them. The lies."
Mick flinches and stares until Mark can't take the discomfort, "What?"
He shakes his head, "Sorry. It's just...you're right. Exactly right."
Cold wound through her mind, cutting, undiminished by the years. Like the memory it carried.
Half of the platoon lay as broken as the ancient rocks they hid behind. The rest gaped at her, her hands bloodied to the elbow from dragging those she could back from death. He whispered,"Go. This is bigger than even you can handle, and I'll slow you down by half."
His face flickered, changing; the memory shifting, Not him too. Why? Eyes grey then blue, hair fading to brown, his gaze meeting hers exactly then frowning down from a foot above. Not him, too, damn it!
"Go!" She spun away, flight impossible in the darkness, a path in her head and all of hell behind her.
Pine and hemlock, snow and a hint of woodsmoke. Sweat freezing even as it trickled down her neck; her breath burned from her nostrils to her overburdened lungs. Evergreen needles weren't really...at least the ones muffling her frantic footfalls were brown. The trunks of ancient trees a shade blacker than the air seemed to deliberately block her path; there was no moon tonight. Bastards. They knew somehow. Why else take out the communications, but not bother with the rest?
Lights ahead, blinding, she stumbled, recovered, pushing harder. Frozen dirt and pine needles gave way to asphalt and the border gate loomed in front of her. Explanations and secrecy be damned; she pounded up the road as spotlights swept over her, then raised voices, a clang of metal on metal.
Green-clothed bodies poured out, the scent of oiled steel and brass casings, coffee and moldy canvas. She skidded to a stop, head high, fighting down the panic. "Men come. Army." Frustrated by her inability to sort thoughts into words, she snapped her teeth together, "Fight now."
Slow, too slow, shouts, milling confusion, radios crackled and guns pointed aimlessly.
Now!
Boot heels echoed on the frozen pavement, darker green, bright ribbons on his breast. She trembled as he approached, the two parts warring, both on the edge of breaking. His hand steady as he raised it to her cheek, his dark eyes calm, "Easy now."
She let the terrifying image of the endless columns of men streaming into the valley, gathering at the foot of the mountain pass below the tiny ragged remains of her brother's platoon fill the man's mind.
His face sagged and his fingers slid down the plane of her face. His palm smelled of ink and whiskey. He blinked as she cut the vision off, and he pulled his hand from her muzzle, his fingers stained with the blood from her nostrils. He barked commands; the chaos rapidly disintegrated. He turned back to her, "Brave one, where did you come from? What are you?"
She shook her head, backing away from his kindness, mistrusting it. "Mountains. Sunrise." Would he understand where? No time. It had begun.
She spun, leaping from black to black, ice to ice, back to where she'd left her brother (Or was is Mark, now? She can't be sure.) in the path of death.
They huddled below her, suicidal staccato gunfire temporarily slowing the massive metal river at the base of the pass. "They come. Hold." She landed, shifting. A moment on her knees, sharp rocks digging at her palms, shaking her head to clear away the other; she stood.
Grey eyes met blue in welcome, "You did it."
Stay grey...I can't lose him, too. "It's not over yet." She reached below, there's power there, too much, in fact. "Stay down, stay behind me, no matter what."
"Andy..." Bass, not baritone.
No. I only lose one. "Stay there, all of you." Bullets cut off any additional arguments, flashing on her shields. Even her brother stared, jaw slack.
Her world narrowed to the flow of power through her bones, channeled through her mind, burning. Target, attack, try to forget that the shrieking lumps below her were men, no different than the ones behind her. Try to ignore the overwhelming pain, the sharp stones digging into her knees. When had she fallen?
"Andy!" Whose voice this time?
It didn't matter, "No!"
Too late, bullets tore through him, and he crumpled just inches from where she knelt. A moment only, stunned, his pain tearing through her, then darkness.
Pulling him to her chest, she let go. The power poured through her; she twisted it into the shape she needed to heal him, unable to acknowledge there was nothing for her gifts to take purchase on. He was gone.
What had seemed so small a thing, the simple presence in the back of her head, the touch of his soul to hers, gone.
The power crawled over the both of them, tendrils of fire. Voices behind her, fear. Fear seared her; they had nothing to fear from her, there was nothing left of her to burn.
There was nothing left for her, but she could follow.
The power rejoiced as she loosed it. Retaining just enough sense to hammer a touch of it into a protective barrier between her and those behind, she whimpered, "Don't leave me alone."
"I won't."
She bolts upright, her brother's arms around her, soothing her with murmurs, his voice too low. "Mark?"
"I'm here, you're gonna be okay, it was just a dream." Blue eyes, not grey. Why did he feel the same?
"Oh, God." She pulls away from him, grabs his wrists. He frowns as she turns his hands palm up.
"No." Feeling as if her heart is going to be crushed from her chest, she runs her thumb along the thin scar marring his skin, "No."
"Shh. It's okay, everything is okay." His blue eyes fill a little and a line creases between his eyebrows. He leaves his hands in hers; she can feel them tremble. Fear, confusion, hurt. Why is she saying that?
Andy jerks away, gritting her teeth against the unwanted intimacy. Shield him out. Stop hurting him.
"You aren't hurting me." Mark lies, reaching up and brushing some hair out of her eyes.
She winces from his touch, "I'm sorry." She tries to blank her mind, shove all of the pain somewhere, anywhere he couldn't feel it.
His face twists; he can feel her withdrawal, "Andy?"
"I can't." She half-falls out of the bed, away from him, but dizziness and a deep ache across her ribs forces her to catch herself against a bureau.
Strong arms circle her, lifting. She's back on the bed, against his chest, his face buried in her hair, rocking slightly.
"Mark," She's losing the ability to separate herself from him, "Please..."
He shakes his head a little. "No." Not this time. I will have answers.
"You don't want to know." You married a monster. Now you don't even have a choice.
"What are you?" I won't acknowledge that. There's a lot I don't know, but I know you aren't a monster.
"I don't know." Bastard. "They call me a guardian."
He smiles. There's my girl. "Sounds like they've got it right."
Andy lifts her head from his chest, looks up, "What?"
"Listen to yourself. You are a guardian. You watch over others, protect them."
A short bark of humorless laughter cuts him off, "Sometimes."
Mark runs his eyes over Andy's still-bruised face, trails his fingers down the edge of a wing. You are inconceivable to me. "Why are you afraid to be alone?"
The question is like a blow, "Because I know what it's like to be whole." I can't. I don't have the strength left. But I can't hurt him, either. Why won't they let me die?
Mark recoils from her, then crushes her to his chest, "Don't."
"I won't." No matter how tired I am. "I told you you didn't want to know."
"You did." He touches her wing again, "You are afraid of something. Why did you say 'no' when you saw my hand?" He rolls his palm up, then clenches his fist closed.
"Because my brother did the same thing." She takes shallow breaths against the freshened memories.
Mark goes still, "He died. When you were seventeen. Right?"
And I'd have given everything I've ever had to give to have died with him. Souls don't stretch that far. "Yes. How do you know that?"
"Since you wouldn't say anything, I asked your mom." He kisses the top of her head, "It seemed important."
Andy can't force herself to speak.
A few moments pass, "Look, I can't say that I know how you feel..."
You will.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That doesn't work anymore." He frowns.
You have no idea. "I guess not."
"Something to do with the, 'No'?"
"Yeah." Andy pushes against Mark a little. He releases her and she straightens, "I think I'm beginning to actually wake up. Can we start this again? Where are we, how'd you end up here, and did the kids end up all right?"
"You're at Josef's, he had him flown here, and the kids are fine." Andy's head snaps around at the welcome sound of Mick's voice.
"Sorry, I heard voices." He steps into the room, "Good to see you finally awake. You okay?"
"Will be." Andy looks sideways at Mark, "How long was I out?"
"Thirty-three hours." His voice catches a little.
Andy startles, "Really?" Shit.
It was bad, Andy. "Yeah." Mark coughs a little at the lump in his throat.
She closes her eyes, I am so sorry.
Stop that. "Do you need anything? Hungry, thirsty?" He reaches for a plastic bottle on the side table.
Suddenly aware of her body's screaming need for water, she nods and accepts the bottle. She tries not to choke as she gulps it down. Mick eases himself onto the foot of the bed, "Slow down."
She sputters, "I know. Doesn't mean I can."
He laughs and takes the bottle from her.
"Thanks." Andy leans against Mark, letting the water and her thoughts settle. "So Josef?"
"His name is still a question, then?" Mick bites the corner of his lip, clearly uncomfortable.
She just raises an eyebrow at him.
"He brought you back, after. Got a friend to patch you up a little, keep you with us until Mark could get here." Mick nods towards Andy's husband. "He remembered how to fix you, I mean guardians, you know, since a hospital was way out of the question..." He shrugs.
Andy shakes her head a little against Mark's chest. He smooths her hair away from her face, and she glances up. It feels like her heart is webbed with fine cracks throughout, waiting for just a little tap. Not him, too. "But why? When I...He...Why'd he even think to do it?" And, why Mark? Why'd he have to do this to him? I'd rather have...She cuts off the thought before it could hurt her husband and she closes her eyes. The background of him begs to soothe her, the surety that she wasn't alone a sharpening reminder of the transient nature of the promise. Loneliness was the only reality, the rest, mere illusion. Temporary.
"Because I promised Mick to take care of you." Josef's slightly mocking voice precedes him into the room.
Andy startles and opens her eyes, "Josef."
Brown eyes flash, "And the dead awakes. Hope you realize how like a vampire you are."
"Surely. But waking this dead hurts both the fledgling and the sire." Andy throttles down a surge of anger, "Two lives when it could have been just one. Thanks ever so much."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Josef turns to Mick, "Maybe it didn't work. Her crazy used to make sense."
Andy sits up, pushing Mark's hands away, "What would have made sense was for you to have kept running when I told you to. Why did you go back?"
"I didn't expect you to be alive!" Josef snaps, "I might not have if I thought you were. Had to erase evidence. That was it. But your heart was still beating."
"Stop it!"
Andy flinches from her husband and Mick's angry tones together.
Mick continues with a hand on Mark's shoulder, "I know where this is going and it's stupid. So stop, both of you."
Andy glares at him, "Just one answer, first?"
Mick sighs and shakes his head.
She looks up at Josef, "Why Mark, Josef?"
He frowns, "He's your husband."
"Who didn't deserve this."
"His wife surviving? Really?" Josef coughs, "Remind me never to ask what he does deserve, then."
"Not that." Andy clenches her jaw at Josef's deliberate goading.
"I did what I had to."
"So, the ends justify the means. Again." She whispers, "I thought vampires kept their souls."
"Fuck you!"
"You've already done worse."
A moment of appalled silence, then cacophony. Andy holds Josef's angry stare with her own, her lip curled, ignoring the two other's voices.
Josef also remains still, but his thoughts are like daggers, What, then, would make you happy? You are alive!
Andy bites back a sob, Did it ever occur to you that I'd have rather died?
She ignores Mark's strangled objection and continues, I'm done, Josef. Done. But no one will let me fucking GO!
Josef flinches away, closing his mind to her. Andy lunges at him, frustration and fear twisting into rage. Hands clamp on an arm and a wing, she's pulled into a cool chest, struggling. Pain lances across her ribs and wing. Instinct sends her reaching for energy but half-healed channels burn at the touch of it. The hands loosen, she twists and is on her knees inches from the crystal sword. It's warmth in her hands, she's spinning, the vibration of a deflected blow down her arms. Gutteral snarls punctuate her feint, a panicked human voice adds to the din. A warm body between her and the two cold ones, a warm touch on her soul, she winces from the reminder of loss; the insistent pressure of conscience, the plea to stop, to think, to live.
Cold hands, dead hands, living soul, vibrant mind. He holds her, implacable. The hands twist the bloody sword from her fist, the mind reaches to touch hers. Despair struggles against empathy, fading in the merciless light of acceptance. Another mind, shadowed with hurt, and fear, but courageous, steadfast. Warm hands replace the cold, resistance crumbles and darkness floods her mind.