Claire fell to her knees the second the portal shut behind her, Myrnin looked at her sadly for a moment then turned to close and lock the portal door.

"I can't do this." Claire muttered, burying her face in her hands. "I can't be a vampire, I can't."

"Stop talking such nonsense." Myrnin snapped, not seeing Claire's flinch as he still faced the heavy portal door. He turned to face her and sighed. "What just happened is not your fault, it is that of the infantile Collins boy, out of everyone he should know not to upset a new vampire in such a way as he did."

"But I-"

"Acted perfectly instinctually and normally." Myrnin interrupted, softening his tone slightly and coming round to sit on the couch in front of Claire. "You had no problems with Eve, did you?"

Claire slowly took her face from her hands and looked up at him, shaking her head when he raised an eyebrow to indicate that he was waiting for an actual answer.

"I do believe that your Mr. Collins was merely trying to entice such a reaction from myself, not from you."

Claire opened her mouth to say something, before changing her mind and shutting it again. Myrnin sat for a few moments, waiting to see if Claire would talk. When she didn't, he nodded and stood up swiftly, offering her a hand.

"Why don't we run some tests to distract you?"

Claire stared up at him for a few moments longer, her dark eyes glistening with tears, before she sighed and took his hand to stand up.

"Why do we need to run these tests?" Claire moaned as Myrnin moved on to drawing his second bag of blood from her arm. "I'm a vampire, whoop-dee-doo."

Myrnin rolled his eyes as he attached the blood bag and made sure the blood was flowing into it fully. Using his feet as anchors, he pushed his wheeled stool – his new favourite – in front of Claire and raised her face to meet his with a finger under her chin.

"Have you thought much about our…skirmish this morning?"

Well that was not what Claire expected.

"I thought the whole point of tests was to take my mind off of this morning." She said pointedly, raising an eyebrow at him.

He chuckled, taking his hand away from her face around running it through his hair. "You threw me across the room."

"Are you fishing for an apology?" Claire asked, confused as to what Myrnin was trying to get at.

"Fishing?" He asked, his brow furrowed. "Why would I be fishing?"

"It's an expression," Claire sighed, "do you want an apology?"

"No, no, no, don't be silly." Myrnin waved a hand in the air, shaking his head. "Honestly, little Claire, I'm not upset, it's remarkable that you managed it."

"I shouldn't be able to do that?"

"You've been a vampire for a day, fy annwyl, did you ever see Michael throwing around vampires much older than him?"

Claire thought for a few moments before letting out a frustrated sigh. "Great, so I'm not just a vampire, I'm a freak of nature vampire."

Myrnin rolled his eyes. "That's a tad dramatic. Besides, we were expecting this."

Claire stared at him, confused. "We? Oh." She deflated at his raised eyebrow. "Amelie, Bishop turned her too."

The older vampire nodded, glancing down at the hardly quarter filled bag of blood. "She told me to expect a slightly peculiar transition, but she did not wish to cloud my observations with her experiences."

"You have no idea what to expect either." Claire breathed, bringing her free hand up to her brow. "Does this mean I should expect physical tests at some point as well?"

Myrnin nodded, smiling slightly. "Yes, although, we may have to enlist Michael, it has been rather a long time since I had any dealings with a new vampire, and I fear the disease may have eradicated some of the finer details."

"Wait, if I was strong enough to overpower you, then why could Oliver stop me so easily? You're older than him."

"That's rather rude." Myrnin remarked dryly, making it Claire's turn to roll her eyes. "You were starved, cariad, and hardly a few hours old, you had nowhere near as much strength and potential as you do now."

"Is Amelie scared of what I could become?" Claire asked slowly, as she took in what Myrnin was saying to her.

He scoffed and rolled his stool away to one of the benches, avoiding looking at her as he slowly set up a microscope.

"Myrnin."

"I cannot comment on Amelie's state of mind, Claire." He muttered, looking at her finally. "But I feel that is a question better kept to yourself, understood?" There was a sudden intensity in his voice and his gaze that made Claire want to look away, but she held his gaze and nodded slowly.

"I understand."

"Fantastic!" Myrnin grinned, jumping up from his stool and dashing back and forth across the lab to grab other equipment.

Claire watched his movements, entranced. He was moving at vampire speed, she knew he was, but she could actually see him! He wasn't just a blur of movement, she could see him running, see what he grabbed and see him put it back down. She could see his long, dramatic coat flapping behind him as he moved. It was amazing.

He stopped whipping around the lab after a few rounds, and sat back on his stool, carefully prepping a microscope slide, with Claire's blood on it.

"What are we looking for?" Claire asked, noting that the blood bag attached to her arm was full and carefully starting to take apart Myrnin's set-up.

"We?" Myrnin asked, looking round at her and appearing by her side an instant later, crouched on the floor and covering her hands with his own. She drew her hands away into her lap quickly and he paused for a moment, seemingly assessing something before he took the tubing out of her arm, cleaning her up and packing the equipment away, scribbling something on the blood bag with a sharpie.

"Did you expect me to just sit around and do nothing?" Claire asked, raising an eyebrow at him, surely he knew her better than that by now.

"No, I suppose not." He murmured softly, staring at her as his mind drifted off elsewhere. He snapped out of his reverie a few moments later with a shake of his head that sent his long curls bouncing in his face. "We're not looking for anything in particular, my dear, you've seen enough vampire blood to know what is normal and what is not, we're looking for anything that's not."

Claire nodded and stood up with a soft sigh, eager for something to distract her, she'd been sat idle for too long. She swayed slightly and Myrnin was there instantly, steading her with soft hands on her arms.

"Are you alright?" His voice was so soft that Claire was hardly sure he actually spoke, but she nodded regardless.

"I'll be fine." She murmured, equally as quietly, with a soft quirk of her lips.

Her phrasing didn't escape his notice, but he refrained from calling her out on it. Instead, he led her over to his stool.

Her eyes widened comically when she realised where he'd sat her and she shook her head furiously, trying to stand up but being held in place by his hands on her shoulders.

"Myr it's your favourite chair! I can't!"

"Oh, nonsense!" Myrnin rolled his eyes. "You can and you will!" Claire sighed, recognising that there was no point in arguing with him. "Now, get to work analysing that slide while I set up some more slides."

He moved round the other side of the bench, sitting on the wooden stool and creating a variety of slides to test different aspects of Claire's blood, ignoring, or not noticing, the pair of eyes watching him intently for a few long minutes.