"Adeline…listen to me, and listen to me very carefully. This backpack, it's yours, and I'm packing enough of your clothes for at least a week. You need to get away from here; I don't want you here when that battle knocks on our door. You remember Harry Potter, right?" he started, coaxing her into a smile, "Yeah, why?"

"This is like when James tells Lily to take Harry and run so Voldemort doesn't get them…you need to be Lily and leave for a little while, and then I can tell you when it's alright to come back."

Her eyes widened, and then she got up and walked over to him, throwing herself into his arms, crying, realizing what he meant.

"NO! No! If it's like Harry Potter, and that's who we are, we die! I'm not letting you die, William! I can't! I'm not leaving you! " she wailed, her nails just about digging into his shirt with the way she was clinging to him.

"You must." He murmured, kissing her hair, afraid to look her in her eyes.

"Well, c-can't you c-come with m-me?" she stuttered, sniffling.

"Darling I wish I could…but you have to go alone. I'll give you Brendon's cell so you can still call if you need to, but you need to leave as soon as you're ready." He said softly, gently trying to ease her out of his arms.

"I'm s-st-staying here with y-you!" She cried, wrapping her arms back around him, although he tried to protest. He knew he could always resort to forceful physical contact to get her off him, but that was the last thing on his mind.

Getting her away was the last thing he wanted to be doing, he wanted just the opposite more than anything in the world. He wanted to be holding her, singing her to sleep, cradling as she cried about nightmares, not that she was being sent away - even if it was for her own safety.

He kissed her forehead, closed his eyes for a moment and thought. Did he really need to put that wall up again, to block emotion and become like ice? He didn't want to, but, he knew it was only thing that would make her see he was serious.

Sighing mentally, William opened his eyes, seeing her hazel ones glassy, tear tracks running down her face, her lip trembling.

"D-Don't. D-Don't say you're leaving me!" she pleaded, still clinging to him. He knew if he faltered now, it'd be too late.

"Adeline Jeanette Winters, if you don't let go of me in the next five seconds, I will make decisions involving you and a certain Mike Carden that I will forever regret," he said, voice stern.

"Bu-" remembering how he said someone else besides him would have to deliver the killing blow, reluctantly she let go of him, got up and walked over toward the backpack, zipped it up, threw it over her shoulder, opened the door and then stormed downstairs.

William sat on the bed, and dropped his head into his hands, and for the first time in about three hundred years, honestly felt like crying.

'Adeline, I'll make this up to you, I swear. I know you can't understand what this is doing to me, but it's for your own good. I just hope you can see I love you...'

Brendon looked up the minute he heard AJ's footfalls. Somebody was pissed off.

"Hey, calm down alright? I know William's all…unraveling, but that doesn't mean you have to be as well." He started, noticing the backpack and then her face.

"Don't tell me to calm down. You don't know what he just told me!"

"Well, what'd he tell you?"

The only answer he got was a glare, and then he remembered. Grabbing for his cell, he handed it to her.

"Alright, I get it. William said I'm to let you borrow this, in case you need to reach us. I know you don't want to hear this, but he's doing the right thing. He's not going to let you die, Adeline. You're the only person that's ever managed to pull emotions out of him none of the rest of us have seen before." He added as she nodded, he realized she was holding back tears.

"But I don't want to leave him…or the rest of you. Since Remus died, you guys…you're my family now. I can't watch you all die like he got killed…I found his body! I'd rather die alongside you!"

She was choking up again, this entire day just wasn't going well. Ryan came in from the kitchen, at least ten bags of blood in his hands.

"What the hell?" AJ asked, trying to not believe what she knew the point was.

"Open your backpack. This'll keep you covered for a few days, and then you can hunt."

She bit her lip and shook her head.

"Does he honestly think I'm leaving? It's going against everything Remus taught me…"

"Well then he taught you well." Ryan added, knowing girls sometimes learned the most powerful life lessons from their fathers.

"I mean it, Remus always told me never leave a comrade in battle, never turn your back when surprises still lurk just the shadow's edges, and most important of all, always remember to say I love you every–"

"time you leave because you don't know if you'll ever return." AJ's head snapped up as William finished her sentence as he walked downstairs, and the realization that he knew the same saying she'd lived her life by hit her hard.

Before she could stop herself, she ran and threw herself into his arms, not caring if he was on the steps.

"You learned it too? I've lived by that saying, and so far it's worked, I've always came back! I don't know how many times I can repeat this, but I don't want to leave!"

"I know you don't, but you have to."

"You keep saying that, but I'm not sure what you really mean. Wouldn't you rather have me die with you if the battle's really going to be as bad as you think? 'I know you don't, but you have to,' you make it sound as though you want me to suffer!" she challenged, almost rolling her eyes at Ryan's snicker, she knew the others knew she was the only one that could talk back to William and get away with it.

William didn't know what to say. No matter how many times he explained it, she was going to see it as abandonment.

"Adeline..." he sighed, "I know it won't matter how many times I say this, so I'll just put this in terms you'd better understand, put a bargain at the end so you'll listen."

She nodded, crossing her arms over her chest, "Go on."

"I want you to sit down though, I don't want you fainting on me."

"Fainting? What do you mean?"

"You'll see."

She threw the backpack to Ryan and almost ran to the couch, sitting down, eagerly awaiting William to explain himself.

"So...because in Spencer's vision, it doesn't end well, I'm deciding that if I have to make the choice to keep only one of us alive, it's got to be you. That's why I'm ordering you to get out of here, I don't know how long we have until the battle comes. And on the offhand chance that we manage to defeat the demon and her friends, I'll find you. Then, we'll find a church, and a hospital so we can steal a child you so desperately want."

"William, why would we need to find a ch-"

"Close your eyes." AJ did as she was told, already having a clue as to what was happening.

"We'd need to find a church because - well, darling, open your eyes."

She did, and immediately smiled at the sight of William kneeling on one knee in front of her, a small ring box in his outstretched palm.

"Adeline, that isn't the way I wanted to do this, I had planned for it to be far earlier, but I hadn't had the mind to do it until now. I still remember wiping your memory just about six years ago, and how easily you trusted me. I realize I had wanted you dead at one point, but you've taught me more about the missing part of myself - the connection I found back to whatever remaining part of my humanity I had left, I discovered it when I found you again at Slane. And that illusion, had I not decided to play on a grander level, I would have gladly gone along with your plans. We can do all that, and more after you come back, but first I need to know..."

Here he paused and smiled at her, and AJ swore, had her heart still been beating it would have stopped dead right there.

"Adeline Jeanette Winters, will you marry me?"

She blinked, not wasting any time in nodding yes furiously, smiling like an idiot. As William opened the ring box, she realized she'd seen that ring before - he'd found pictures of him and another girl, and the girl had been wearing the ring...wait, was this Christine's ring?

It looked absolutely amazing on her. The ring itself looked old due to the flowy script around the band, but it was still shiny, obviously it had been stored to maintain its mint condition. It was a white gold band with a single princess cut diamond in the middle, and the way it reflected light managed to take AJ's breath away everytime she looked at her hand.

She didn't realize there were tears slipping down her cheeks until she felt William wipe them away, and then kiss her forehead.

He pulled back to look in her eyes, seeing all traces of confusion and anger gone, only to catch one of longing and regret.

"Now what's that look for?"

"I'm sorry," she choked out, starting to cry again, trying to calm down enough to where she could be understood.

"Of course I'll marry you, but it's just...just that this is all my fault that that damn demon and those...that we're getting ready to fight...If I hadn't gone with you, everything w-would've-"

William sat up on his knees, humming Ashokan Farewell and stroking her hair, anything to try and calm her.

"Sshhh, my dear, this is fate...this would happen no matter what, whether you were involved or not," he soothed, although this only served to make her cry harder.

"W-why do I f-feel like I-I'll never s-see you a-again?" she asked, and her saying that set his mind running.

She knew what was going to happen, that he would die. But if he told her that, confirmed it, she would make sure she died in his arms, surrounded by the family she'd came to know.

He didn't want another girl he loved to die in his arms, Christine had been enough, although the circumstances were entirely different. He knew he had to keep lying, just so she'd leave, get to safety before hell descended.

"You will. You'll see me again. I promise."

He looked at Brendon to see the younger vampire shaking his head, as if he was saying, 'just tell her the truth'. William eyes his eyes, wanting to telepathically drill a message into the other's head.

'If I tell her what is going to happen, that we're all going to die, she'll insist she stay and fight, and then she dies in my arms. I cannot, and will not let that happen.'

'Fine. But she needs to go...now. Jon's said Spencer's had another vision...they're only twenty minutes away...'

'Did you give her your phone?'

'Yeah, she's set. Just get her out of here, now.'

William nodded, looking back at AJ. She'd calmed down some, but was still looking around nervous about something.

"What's wrong?"

"I can feel it in the air...there's so much tension..." she explained, licking her lips, her lycan side already itching for a fight.

"That's your cue to go. You need to get as far away from here as possible, and if I were you I would phase, you'll cover more ground in your wolf form."

William pulled her to her feet and handed her the backpack, walked her to the front door and opened it, trying not to let his face betray his heart.

"But can't I st-" she pleaded a final time, turning as she stood on the edge of the veranda.

"Go."

"But Wi-"

"GO!"

Her face immediately fell, and he knew she was trying to not start crying again after finally having regained her composure. She turned to walk away, threw the backpack to the ground, and not two seconds later he heard the distinct 'crack' of her phasing, then her howl.

She went to spring into a run, but something made her turn back and look at him, maybe ask just a final time.

And then, the look in her eyes made everything come flooding back. William had gone so long being numb to pretty much everything - the people he thought were close to him, feelings he never knew he had that thanks to Adeline he'd been able to find, memories he thought he'd forgot - and then it was like a one two punch by nostalgia and the delay.

The way she looked at him was like the first time they'd fought in the darkened Chicago alleyways, back when she'd been sent in to kill him.

He knew if he didn't say what he wanted to in the next few seconds, he'd possibly never talk to her again.

"Adeline, wait!" Before she turned back, he ran towards her, automatically running his fingers through her fur, his face directly in front of hers as she licked him, taking the moment for all it was worth.

She stood still as William's hand moved to scratch behind the ear that Amelia had torn, although it was healed perfectly fine now. His other hand went to her muzzle to tip her snout up, and he kissed it, sighing.

"I can't let you go without following the motto you've lived by. And whatever happens, remember - I love you. Now go...I'll be here. I'll find you when this is over. I me-"

Just then Mike came running out, having been inside scanning for the group's approach.

"We've got probably five minutes, William. If Spencer's right, and this is the end, let's be ready."

William turned back to finish saying a final goodbye to Adeline, but she had already disappeared, taking the backpack with her.