The Crow and The Falcon

by redcognito

Stefan and Damon move onto a new life... and straight into trouble.

7.

The Crow and the Falcon. (Seven)

"Vampires?" Adam laughed. "Great joke. Maybe you guys are psychos after all." The rest of them laughed with him, finding it highly amusing. Again, except for Cookie.

"Prove it." She demanded.

Stefan looked at Damon, inviting him to do the honours. He shrugged slightly, then faced the group again. He waited a moment to get their attention. Then, when his eye-teeth had lengthened, he pulled back his lips, bared his fangs and hissed. Silence from the guests.

"You can get dentures that do that." Zia suggested uneasily.

"No. These are most definitely real." Damon said, voice low, intense, and /dangerous/. "Feel them if you don't believe me."

"Uh, I think I'll pass." She said. All of the group were pale, and tension was running high. They didn't know what to believe.

"She's right, though. You can get fangs made up - they do it in the movies." Jess commented.

"What else do you want me to do to prove it?"

"Fry in sunlight?" Mike suggested.

"No thank you. Being burned is /not/ very pleasant."

"He has a point." Cookie said. "We've seen you in sunlight quite a bit. Okay you wear sunglasses, but so do a lot of people."

"Talisman." Stefan said simply, holding up his hand and displaying his ring. "Lapis Lazuli..."

"The Night Stone." Cookie nodded, finishing for him. "That means we can't prove or disprove it that way. Frying you would defeat the object."

"Indeed." Damon said, looking lazily around the room. His eyes fell on a baseball bat Stefan had bought over the weekend. "Pass me that, would you?" He asked Adam, who passed it wordlessly to him. He hefted it in his hand a moment. Sturdy. Strong. "You'd agree that it's a solid piece of wood?" He asked Adam, who nodded. "Good." He said, and promptly snapped it in half with one hand. A moment of stunned silence.

"Some people are very strong." Cookie commented. "Although I have to admit that's pretty convincing."

"You want more proof?" Damon asked. "You want me to drain one of you here and now to prove it?" They looked shocked. "Oh, don't worry. You're safe from me. I promise not to harm /you/. Perhaps you'd like me to jump from the top of the building and survive, or run a hundred metres in a second? Or maybe turn into a bat?"

"The last might clinch it." Jess said in a strangled voice.

"Sorry. No can do." He smiled savagely, and looked straight at Cookie. "It's a crow that I can do, and frankly I don't want to do it in front of you. It would make me feel a little too naked."

Cookie stared at him. Pale, but intense. Frightened, but not giving into her fear. Oh yes, she was right. She had to earn his trust by trusting him. And she was doing it, and earning his respect along the way.

"Prove it to me." She said earnestly. "Let me in."

"I can't." He said simply.

"/Why not/?"

"Because what you would see there would defeat the purpose of trusting you with this little secret. Although you have a good idea there. Perhaps Stefan would oblige you with that and let his shields down?" He asked his brother. "You haven't got any dirty little secrets to hi..." He opened his eyes wide with shock, then collapsed to his knees, grasping his head in pain. "Then again," He rasped, "Why bother when it appears it's my head she wants to get into. Cookie blacked out, and he followed seconds later, only vaguely aware that Stefan had rushed to his side in concern.

~*~

Blackness. He was floating in blackness. Lost, confused, and angry. Where most people would have been afraid, Damon Salvatore was angry. He reached out into the dark, and found the intruder.

"I said no." He spat. "I didn't want you in my mind. I didn't want you knowing my past."

"Well I'm here now. You might as well show me." Cookie's voice was shaky.

"No." He growled.

"Fine. I'll find out myself."

"Don't you /dare/." He snapped.

"Why?"

"I said that I didn't want you in my mind." He repeated.

"I don't see why. You make this big show to let everyone know you don't give a damn, that you don't care what they think of you, yet when it comes to the crunch...well, you're hiding. Why?"

"I've got nothing to hide from."

"Yourself, maybe."

Damon laughed loudly. "Myself? Oh, no. The one thing I /am/ sure of is myself. I have no need to hide from me."

"Really?" Cookie's tone was mocking. "The few times I've sensed your feelings, you've been confused. Mostly about yourself."

"I /know/ myself." He growled. He could feel the situation slipping away from him. "I know my past, and I do /not/ need to hide from it."

"Maybe /you/ don't need to, but it seems you need to hide it from everyone else. Perhaps you're ashamed of it."

/That/ amused him. He started laughing uncontrollably. "I regret /nothing/ of my past. It's the only /stable/ thing I have to cling on to. I'm not ashamed."

"Aren't you?"

"No." He said viciously. "Have you finished psycho-analysing me?"

"No. You see, you might /think/ you're not ashamed, but I hear this little voice. You try and hide it, you try and ignore it, but it's still there. And it worries about Stefan. What he thinks of you. You try and show him that you don't care, but in little ways you change yourself, you try and alienate Stefan a little less. Because you /do/ care. You've changed, you have to have done. Because you say your past is bad, yet you won't let me see it. Why?"

"I have a feeling you're going to tell me." He said dryly.

"Because if you were the bad person from back then, you wouldn't think twice about showing it to me. You'd probably have gotten a perverse amount of pleasure from it, in fact. You say you don't care about your past - that may be. But you still want to protect others from it. You've developed a conscience."

Damon snorted. "A conscience. How quaint. And how did I acquire this...conscience?"

"I think Stefan has a lot to do with that."

"You really think I listen to my brother's constant preaching about morals and honour?" He grinned at Cookie's silence. "Oh yes, didn't you realise? Stefan is /hardly/ a bloodsucking monster. He has all these silly little vows of how he won't touch human blood, how he won't kill humans. All because they're weaker than him, all because they need protecting. That's why I suggested you asked /him/ to open up himself to you. Nothing bad there. Just an abundance of sickening, sanctimonious goodness."

"I think you've just given away more than you intended to. If you didn't care, why tell me you'd have preferred it to be Stefan rather than you?"

"Out." He ordered.

"Maybe you don't care about what everyone else thinks."

"Get. Out. Of. My. Mind."

"But I really believe you care what Stefan thinks."

"Stop it. Shut up." Damon growled.

"No matter how you try to hide it from yourself and others, you care about your brother's opinion." Cookie spoke ruthlessly over him.

"No."

"That's why you want to keep your past from me. You don't give a damn what I think - although I've yet to persuaded of that."

"There's no truth to is." He'd lost his control of the situation entirely now, and was nearing breaking point.

"You're doing this for Stefan."

"Please /stop it/."

"It matters to Stefan to fit in, and if your past will hinder that, then you'll keep it hidden. For Stefan."

Damon was silent for a while. "Why are you doing this?" He asked finally, bitterly. "Why are you invading my mind, cross examining me, forcing me to listen to opinions I'm happier not knowing. Why are you insisting on confusing me?"

"Because I want to know. I /need/ to know what your past is. Something big is going to happen, something bad, and I need you. /We/ need you. We need you and Stefan. How can I trust you if you keep something from me, if you keep /yourself/ from me? How am I supposed to trust and rely on someone who won't trust me?"

Damon was numb. He couldn't muster the strength for anger, he couldn't hate her for this. He was past that. He sighed, and resigned himself to his fate. "I'll show you." He said finally.

"Everything."

A twinge of pain. "Not everything." He could tell she was about to protest. "Nearly everything. Some things hurt. Some things I have to keep private - things that Stefan doesn't know, that I'm not ready to tell him yet, if I ever am. Believe me, anything I keep from you isn't bad. It might even enamour you to me, but I don't want to share." He smiled whimsically. "You'll have to trust me on that."

"I'll wait and see about the trust. But I'll respect your wishes." She said softly.

And he showed her. From the beginning.

The images flashed by. His mothers death, his pain. The blame he placed on Stefan, even though he knew deep down that it wasn't his brother's fault. His animosity towards his brother, the rivalry, the hatred. His wild days at university, his gambling, his father's shame. And of Katherine; the desire to steal her from Stefan, to make him hurt. Then the eventual love, and the loss of that love when Katherine died, a loss he blamed not only Stefan for, but himself. The sword fight, his brother's death and his own. The change, the confusion. The Power. Oh yes, the Power. A revelation to his senses. The blood lust, and the killings to sate that blood lust. And perhaps Cookie was right, because looking back, there /was/ some shame. Not regret, but definitely a little shame. He was ashamed that she was seeing what he'd done. The savage cruelty he'd inflicted during his time with mercenary groups. The twisted enjoyment from bloody wars, terrifying battles.

She was struck dumb. She was appalled, horrified. What he'd done went against her own spiritual beliefs. *Stefan, I'm sorry. This isn't going to work.* Damon thought to himself sadly. But still he showed her everything.

Then came the events of Fell's Church, Katherine's return, Elena's death, an uneasy alliance with his brother. Their return, Elena's rebirth. And the night Stefan almost died, his fear that he would lose his brother, a realisation deep down that he did care. He showed her the year following, how Elena and Stefan drew apart, and how he and Stefan had grown closer. And he realised things about himself. He didn't remember killing of late. He hadn't done it. Of course, there was Tanner, but he had to admit to himself that was out of self defence. He had to admit to himself that he hadn't really been doing much in the way of evil in the past few years. He'd grown bored with it. Matured. Finally he showed her their arrival in Redditch, he showed her how he'd reacted in the clearing, how her dream had affected him. How this was affecting him.

Then he pulled away, drained, miserable. And used. He felt used and even a little abused. Vulnerable, lost and lonely. He hated himself for it, berating himself, pulling up mental barriers.

Yet still she probed, for something. He knew what. A dark part of his heart, a part he kept in shadows, an event that he blocked from memory. She pushed harder. It was the reason that he'd gone to Fell's Church those few years later, and attempted to become what he once was. /That/ had blown up in his face, he noted bitterly. He reinforced the barriers, stubbornly refusing to let her in, refusing to let himself go there. It was still too raw. It would always be too raw. He didn't want to remember. But Cookie still pushed, and she had strength where he was now lacking. And she pushed through.

~*~

Light. She found light. It was the last thing she expected, but it was there. Light and love. But also an incredible amount of pain. The pain that she'd sensed in Jess's room. It came from here. His pain came from loving. *No wonder he's so afraid to care, to admit he cares. There's all this hurt that he's got from loving. His Mom, Katherine, Elena...* And someone else, but whoever it was was just out of reach. *Stefan's in here. He wasn't before, but he's let him in. That's helped his heart a little. But it won't matter if he can't help himself.*

He sat there. She could see him. Small and vulnerable.

*I did this?* She thought with a twinge of guilt.

"Yes. No." He sighed. "It was all here, all inside me. I've done it to myself. You just made me see it."

"Why do you keep this locked away?" She asked in awe.

"You were right before. It hurts. Love hurts." He looked up then, a hint of the Damon she knew tingeing his smile. "Besides, out there is more me. It's my character, the way I am."

"So you ignore love?"

"I'm afraid of this part of me. Love is something tied in with goodness. I'm not good. I never could be. I could never be like Stefan - hell, I don't /want/ to be like Stefan. Ever." He grimaced.

"Love is also tied in with passion - something which you have a lot of. I can't say that what you did wasn't evil. It was, it was pure evil. But you did whatever you did with a passion. You put your being into it. You've changed, now. You've grown. Why, I don't know. Stefan's influence, perhaps, but I think it's more you. You know there reason - that's what you're not showing me. That's up to you.

"You have a passion for life, whatever form it happens to be in. You have strength, you have willpower, you have a determination, and a /drive/ that few people have. You get what you want. No compromises. And all of that is fuelled from the heart. You should unlock the door, even if you don't want to open it."

"And change?" He said bitterly. "I don't /want/ to change."

"You already have. You still are. Except locking your feelings away is taking /away/ any control you might have over that change. You'd still be you - nothing can change that. You'd still be an arrogant, pig headed, selfish bastard if you wanted to be. You'd have the choice."

"If I love, if I care, it all comes crashing down. I have no morals."

"Yes you do. You proved that already. You stood against Katherine, you stood against Klaus. You're prepared to stop whoever the hell it is that killed Tatum. You have morals. You have standards."

"Fine. So I start caring, looking out for the entire human race. Oh, how satisfying. My reward will surely be in heaven." He said sarcastically. "I can't change my views. No matter what you say, I still see the majority of humans as weak, pathetic creatures, who are just /begging/ to be preyed upon."

"You're not impressing me, and that's not what I meant."

"And what exactly did you mean?" He sneered.

"Aren't you tired of relying on just yourself? Don't you want to put your trust in someone? Don't bother denying it, because I know one person straight away you would want to. If you learn to love, you can learn to trust, and being able to put your trust in just one person makes life bearable. You trust that person, you love that person, you can lean on that person. You're never alone. You open your heart to Stefan, you bridge the last bit of the gap between you, and you won't be alone again. Do yourself a favour. Whatever happens after now, if you leave tomorrow, you open up to Stefan. Let him know your feelings, trust him. You don't have to love or trust anyone else ever. You can go on hating the human race, you can go on killing them. But you'll at least have Stefan to turn to."

Damon laughed. "Wonderful speech. But you see, Stefan doesn't share my views. They disgust him. If I went back to my old ways, he'd be off like a shot. And that might not be a bad idea. But I'll tell you, he would /not/ appreciate me killing off hapless mortals, and I for one couldn't stand him complaining about it and trying to make me change my ways for the rest of eternity."

"You are so dumb."

"So you've been pointing out to me."

"Why the hell do you /think/ he keeps nagging at you?"

"To make my life a misery and to convert yet another to the path of sickening goodness."

"You dumb-ass!" Cookie exploded. "The reason Stefan nags on at you is because he actually cares. Unlike /some/ people, he's actually admitted to himself he cares about you. He's admitted it to you, too."

"No he hasn't."

"Actions speak louder than words." She retorted. "Just sticking by you proves he cares."

"He made a promise to Elena." He said softly.

"And no-one makes a promise like that unless a part of them /wants/ to. He wouldn't make a promise he couldn't keep. He /knew/ that he was prepared to make the effort. And he forgave you. That takes a lot - especially after a lot of the stuff you've done."

The look of defiance left Damon's face, and he slumped again, staring at the ground. "Fine. I admit I care. I care about my brother. So what now. I put my trust in him. I open my soul to him. I let myself get close." He stood up and leaned towards Cookie, his face inches from hers. "So what happens when /he/ leaves. What happens when I can't protect him, when he dies. What good would Stefan's love do me then? All that love would turn to pain. The more I love, the more it damn well hurts." He turned his face away sharply, his breath was ragged, voice hoarse. "You see, a part of me already knows what you're telling me has some truth. But the voice of experience knows what happens when you open your heart, when you rely on others."

Cookie stared at him warily. She was treading on dangerous ground here. "At least you would have known love." She said. "What's the saying? One year of love is better than a lifetime alone?" What happened next was something totally unexpected. She flinched back from the Power that erupted from him. He screamed in anguish, and hung his head.

"I've known love." He said bitterly, finally looking up again. "And I know the pain it caused. If I had the choice, I'd do without that love just to make the pain go away." He swallowed heavily before continuing. "Would you like to see? Do you want to see what hurts so much?" He stepped back a little. "You think it was Stefan that changed me? Perhaps a little. But it happened before then."

"How?" Cookie asked. She wasn't sure she should ask. She wasn't sure he should be going there himself.

"Rebecca." He said mournfully. And the tears spilled over as he forced her out of his mind.

~*~

Stefan felt an intense amount of relief as Damon whispered 'Rebecca' and roused himself from oblivion, curling up into a ball where he'd collapsed on the floor. His breathing was eratic, and his face damp from tears, but at least he was conscious. Cookie pulled herself up into a sitting position, and he glared at her, furious.

"What the hell did you do to him?" He demanded.

"I...I had to know." Cookie said thickly.

"You had no right." Stefan snapped. He was close to breaking point. The pair of them had been out cold for an hour. It had taken fifteen minutes before everyone else was calm again, and Stefan had had a hard time convincing everyone they were safe. He had to give them credit. They were wary - rightly so. But they were also giving him the benefit of the doubt. He'd used the remaining time that Damon was unconscious to explain to them about vampires. They'd taken it well. They even half trusted him now, especially after Jess had pointed out the trust he was putting in them with this secret. He was grateful to her for that.

"I'm sorry." Cookie said finally. She lifted her head to meet his gaze.

"I only hope it was worth it." He snarled.

"I don't know." She shrugged sadly. "I know you can be trusted now. I should have gone with my gut instinct. All this did was prove me right. I'm so sorry." She looked downright miserable, and sick with herself.

Stefan softened a little and looked down at his brother. "I'll forgive you if he pulls out of this."

She nodded. "We'll leave you to it, then." She rose unsteadily to her feet, Mike and Zia moving to help her. The group left silently, and the door clicked shut behind them. Stefan began to shudder uncontrollably. *My fault. I should never have insisted.* He thought bitterly.

"Uh, I thought you might need someone to stay with you." The voice was nervous. Stefan's head whipped up in surprise. He'd not been aware that anyone had stayed behind. Jess stood there awkwardly, a look of concern on her face.

He mustered a smile. "There's not much you can do. /I/ don't know what to do. But thanks anyway."

She knelt down next to him. "That's not what I meant. I thought you might want some company." She smiled.

He nodded, touched. "Thanks." He considered asking her to leave, but his heart wouldn't let him. It was clinging onto the warmth she was offering. The fact that she was offering this friendship despite knowing what he was made it all the more special. "I'm going to get Damon into his bed. I'll be out soon. You can make yourself a drink or whatever while you wait, if you want." He picked his brother up gently, and moved through into his room.

It was dark in Damon's room. Stefan sat on the desk chair which he'd pulled closer to the bed. It was nearly three in the morning. Mike had picked Jess up just before midnight. They'd spent the evening watching TV and playing cards, Stefan keeping his senses fixed on Damon for any change. She'd been pleasant company, even if she wasn't /entirely/ relaxed. But that hadn't hurt. It had taken guts to stay with him, and even more so to stay with him /alone/. It showed trust, and that was a great tonic to Stefan's heavy heart.

Damon stirred. "You been here long?" He muttered, visibly surprised that Stefan was there.

"Since midnight." He replied. Damon fumbled for the alarm clock by the bed. "A few hours, then."

"I would have been in sooner, except Jess stayed to keep me company."

"That's unexpected."

Stefan nodded. "You want to talk about it?"

Damon shook his head. "Not at the moment." He replied. Stefan was surprised. It was far more than the outright 'no' he's been expecting. Damon continued. "What I actually need is to go out and hunt. I feel so shitty that I'd even settle for rat blood right now." He moved to get up, only to have Stefan push him back down.

"You're not going anywhere." He said firmly. Damon began to protest. "If you need blood, I can spare a little." He said, offering his wrist. Damon looked at him oddly. He didn't blame him. He was a little surprised at this himself.

"You're sure?" Damon asked, hesitating before biting gently at Stefan's nod. Stefan wasn't sure what Cookie had done, but whatever it was had left Damon famished. He felt moved not to remove the source of nourishment away from Damon, but to let him finish himself. Finally, Damon pushed his wrist away, and curled back up under his blanket. Stefan stayed silent. He could sense that barriers between them were open, but he was unsure how to proceed, afraid that if he spoke, he would say the wrong thing, and Damon would retreat behind his cold mask once again. So silence was the best option. It paid off after a while.

"Can I tell you something?" Damon asked. His voice was desolate, lost.

Stefan frowned, concerned. "I told you I was here if you needed to talk." He replied carefully.

"I want to tell you about Rebecca." He said sadly. And Stefan listened.

~*~

"I met Rebecca in the early 1980s in England. For some reason I thought that it would be a good idea to wreak my own personal havoc on a student population, so I enrolled myself into London University. Rebecca had come to university from Suffolk with a group of friends. I ran into her my first day there, a witness to one of her pranks. She was fast like that, never wasted time waiting to do things. She was wild, a nature unto herself. Her hair was a chestnut brown that had a habit of tangling itself up - wild like herself. For that reason she kept it short, to her chin. An attempt to look a little more respectable, she said. It didn't work. She looked like a pixie, acted like an imp. Her mouth was a little too big for her face, but it didn't matter. It made her already pretty face radiant when she smiled. It lit the room.

"It was her eyes I noticed first. I was trying to find my room, and she ran into me, tiny feet bare, making an escape from the scene of the 'crime'. She managed to squeak out an apology through her laughter, and looked up at me, grin plastered over her face, eyes wide with excitement. She had amazing eyes. A strange grey-blue, the colour of storm clouds waiting to unleash the tempest. Her soul shone through those eyes, and it captured mine. She ran off quickly, and I headed towards the commotion.

"Someone had been hard at work during the night and early morning moving shoes from bedrooms into the dining room. The university owned house had enough rooms for twenty people, so the shoe feat wasn't entirely impossible. Having only just arrived that morning, I had my boots attached to my feet, a small fact that led to the finger being pointed at me. It took a while to get over to them that it wasn't me, that I'd only just moved out of my hotel room this morning, and that there was no way I could have done it. The whole thing amused me more than anything. I wouldn't have been so stupid to make my shoes the only ones not missing if it /had/ been me, and so I went in search of the person that I was sure was the real culprit. The barefooted sprite Rebecca.

"I had intended to teach her a little 'lesson' for dropping me in it, but when I finally caught up with her lounging on a blanket on the front lawns, I lost heart. There was something about her. It didn't matter what she did, you couldn't help forgiving her. She made you laugh, made you forget your troubles. Everyone forgave her for her pranks, and looking back on them, they always found them funny. Including the shoe incident when she finally admitted to it. When I told her what had happened, her eyes widened apologetically, and after making me promise not to rat on her, she offered to by me a drink for my troubles. I accepted, deciding that I might as well get to know people, and she was as good as any. Besides which I was already growing to like her.

"We stayed in a nearby pub all afternoon, and into the evening. We talked mainly, about music, books, the courses we were doing. And as the alcohol loosened her up, we talked more about personal things. That was more her than me, I think she needed to talk to someone. I happened to be there.

"She had no illusions about life; she'd lost her brother and sister in a drowning accident a few years before, her mother had turned to the bottle to deal with her pains, and her father had drawn into himself, attempted to ignore the hurt. Rebecca had gone through the pain, and come out of it. 'Live life to the fullest,' she said, 'Today might be your last day, why waste it with sadness and woe'. She always lived by that. Never let a moment go to waste, never let a chance for a prank go by.

"As it turned out we were on the same history course; Britain and Europe, the Dark Ages to the Middle Ages. I'd chosen it because it was history that was genuine history to me. Studying things I've lived through is always a little tedious. She'd chosen it because she had a passion for the subject. She wanted to be a field archaeologist. She would have fitted in perfectly; a little weird with plenty of passion.

"As the months wore on we did a lot together, became good friends. I fell in a little with her group, messed around with them. I was always the stranger though. I didn't want to get /too/ close. I wasn't really bothered about friendship with them. Just with Rebecca. We studied together, pulled pranks together, made lectures a riot, went out at night together. We were best friends, the Trouble Twins. I don't know what it was that kept us together like that, I guess our souls were just compatible. Soul Mates, perhaps.

"I told her what I was towards the end of our first year. She didn't believe me at first, and when she did, she wasn't afraid. Far from it. She thought my abilities 'opened up some interesting avenues of investigation'. That turned out to mean the pranks in the second year became wilder. Her plans incorporated my abilities, and we ended up baffling even the most intelligent students. They couldn't work out how we'd done half the stuff we did. It wasn't humanly possible, they'd said. Which it wasn't. They never worked out how all the girls' bras ended up hung neatly and artistically by the straps from a hundred foot horse- chestnut. That had involved me climbing to the top of the tree with a back pack filled with underwear, balancing on fragile limbs to drape the items on the end twigs. I spent half an hour up there at four in the morning and I almost fell out at least five times, which goes to show just /how/ inhumanly possible it was. I drew the line at the clothing pegs clipping the straps to the branches. By the time I'd finished I felt like pegging /her/ at the top of that damned tree.

"She had a problem with relationships the whole time I knew her. I lost count of the break ups she had with various guys, and the resulting nights getting drunk in her room to get over it. I told her she was better off leaving the personal parts out of the picture, that one night stands were the best way to do it. Satisfaction with no strings attached. She never took that advice, and she knew exactly why I had the reputation of having the most romantic flings on campus. If the girls wanted a night of fun, it was to me they came. She pointed out to me that she hadn't got a weird diet to stick to whenever I mentioned short flings were easiest. Easy meal ticket, I told her. One night stands weren't for her, she said. She needed someone to be intimate with in that way. She needed to be able to share her feelings with her sexual partners. I couldn't give her that, and we both knew it. It wouldn't be right, our friendship meant to much to destroy it with a love affair that wouldn't last.

"We had an invite to a Christmas party during our third year, along with a good number of our house. Olly, one of Rebecca's old friends who'd come up with her to uni lived with his parents out of term time, and they owned a huge house in a village in the middle of the Suffolk countryside. They normally held a huge family party, but that year they were spending christmas in Paris, and so the house was left for us 'young' people to use for our own wild party. It was held a few days before Christmas so those who wanted to spend the actual day with their families could do.

"I travelled up there with Rebecca, her current boyfriend, Jas, and three other friends from our history course. Ryan, one of the guys, drove, while his girlfriend sat in the passenger seat. That left me, Jas and Carl sat in the back. Rebecca took it upon herself to sprawl across our laps, a blanket over her to hide under if the police looked to closely. Ryan was paranoid about losing his license - he wasn't the world's best driver, and had been pulled on numerous occasions for something illegal about his car.

"The party was one of those one in a million smashes that linger in your mind for years. Olly's parties were always something to talk about back at uni, and on his own turf he'd surpassed even our wildest expectations. Olly always said that a party was truly a success when the police came banging on the door. Which they did at three in the morning, declaring that they'd had several complaints from the villagers that it was far to noisy. We were told to wind the party down, and we did. Olly's place was big enough for everyone to crash, and that was the original plan. Then Ryan told us that he had to be back for a job interview at eleven that morning. He was our only ride home, and so we had to go with him.

"We were all still out of it when we got up to leave at nine, but Ryan was especially drunk. Jas had taken the keys from him and said he'd drive himself, and we all thought that was best. Jas was pretty sober, and more together than the rest of us, bar me, and I wasn't about to offer to drive. I didn't want the responsibility of driving five vulnerable and very mortal humans back to London. Rebecca sat in the front this time, keeping Jas company.

"The roads were icy that morning, and driving was difficult. Jas handled it well, avoiding the bad spots that could have been potential accidents. What happened wasn't his fault. It wasn't really anyone's fault, except perhaps nature's.

"We were involved in a pile up on the M1 heading towards London. A lorry driver had slammed his breaks on too quickly, and skidded. He lost control of the vehicle in his panic. Seven cars in all were near destroyed in the accident, ours included.

"Ryan's girlfriend had been in the position Rebecca had on the way to the party, and she'd been flung against the front seats. She escaped with a broken arm and mild concussion. Carl had broken his leg somehow, and Ryan had come through with only bruises and a nosebleed. I managed to get out of the car easily, not even suffering a scratch. In the front, Jas was trapped, but, apart from a severe case of shock, was unharmed. He didn't even question how I'd managed to free him from the wreckage.

"Rebecca was a different story. There was no way I could free her. She'd been impaled in the stomach by a broken shard of metal from one of the other cars smashing through the windscreen. She lost consciousness with me reaching across to her, holding her hand tightly, telling her, /pleading/ with her to hang on.

"She woke up again once in the ambulance to the hospital. She told me she loved me, and that I wasn't to let this get to me. That I still had to go on living my life to the fullest. I promised her that I would, but I still told her to hang on, told her that I didn't want to live without her, that I couldn't go on without my soul mate. I almost considered changing her there, making her into a vampire. Almost. But I didn't. I loved her too much. If she'd wanted it, I would have, but I knew she didn't. I knew that it wasn't for her, and I couldn't do it. Even though she'd have forgiven me, I couldn't do it. I knew she'd rather die and so I let her.

"Rebecca died a week later in Intensive Care. She hadn't woken up since the ambulance. It was her parents' decision as the next of kin to turn the machines off. I knew she'd gone, that the machines were just keeping her body alive, I'd known after she faded again in the ambulance.

"And so I lost all that mattered to me. I lost a part of my own soul. I snapped after that, went mad, lost myself. I locked it all away inside, and refused to let it out. I went part way back to being my old self, the blood, the hunt, and even the killing. Hate is always so much easier than love, so much less painful.

"But once it's touched you, there's no way of escaping that pain. You have to live with it. You have to face it at some point. My running from it stops here. It stops now."