A/N: Hey guys! The story is drawing to a close now, so if you have stuck with it this far, thank you very much, it will finish in three chapters, I promise. Let me know who your favourite characters are by reviewing or sending me a message, and sorry that I got a bit deep and depressing in this chapter.

Monster

Adam stood beside the grave. He knew the epitaph by heart, yet he read through it again.

Lavinia van Helsing

Beloved wife and mother

And her son, Robert van Helsing

A good and brave man.

Adam came here every day, no matter the weather. He laid flowers sometimes, but usually he just came to talk to Robert.

Often he was alone, but today he had brought his father with him. Abraham was still stricken with grief, but he was slowly mending. Adam hoped that, with time, he would heal. Not completely, of course, you never fully healed. But enough to be able to carry on with his life.

That day, they were discussing why Robert left so suddenly.

"The letter must have arrived just as he was starting to get ready to go. I imagine he hid it from me and set off on one final quest," Abraham was saying.

"This is all my fault," Adam whispered, "if he had not met me, then he would not have been so eager to attack the Count. He might have survived without me."

"Indeed, you are the cause of most of these events, my son. Frankenstein chased you to Transylvania, where you met Robert and spurred him into action. Frankenstein's brother travelled to Transylvania to be near his last remaining relative, and so you caused him to be there too. But do not feel ashamed of causing these things, for many of them created new friendships. You led Robert to his fate. He was destined to die young, I always knew.

Without you he might have gained a few more years, but in the end you did what you were destined to do. You are not the villain. You are the hero, for you brought our story through from the beginning to it's conclusion."

Adam looked at his father as he finished his wise speech, and nodded. He supposed he was probably right.

The grave looked sad and alone, as it was quite far from the nearest headstone. In its solitude, the monument to death seemed to show the very nature of life: that of being alone, always.

For although you could surround yourself with other living things, and spend every moment in company, you alone were trapped inside your body, with no companion save loneliness.

And despite the fact that Adam knew his father loved him, he felt desolate and, more importantly, useless.

He had caused only death and misery, and felt as if his very existence was pointless.

Lavinia and Robert lay deep beneath the earth now, rotting and returning to the dust from which they had been formed. For the first time in his short life, Adam considered the many people whose graves Victor had plundered in his search for body parts he could use to create him.

He wondered how many people had gained new life through him, and realised that he did have a purpose after all.

To live for the dead. For those who had died young, who had died fighting, who had died before saying goodbye. For those who had slipped easily away, and for those who had gone kicking and screaming.

Adam turned, and with his father, walked back towards the horses that would return them home to Tilburg.

There was no use in dwelling on things lost, for it would not bring them back. It was better simply to remember them with affection, and learn to carry on without them.