Tom drifted over to the house and scanned the grounds to see if Chris' car sitting in the front yard. The only one there was Genevieve's rusting relic. "Well, at least she's here," he mumbled as he floated to the earth. It had been months since he had seen his former lover and he felt as ready as ever to see her again. Yet, he didn't know if he'd feel comfortable in her presence. Although he had never been the smooth charmer, he realized that his current state would seem horrible to Genevieve. So before he attempted to enter the house, Tom tried to calm his body, attempting to normalize body movements and push his growing thirst away. He couldn't reunite with Genevieve just to harm her.

Once he believed that he looked "normal" enough for Genevieve, Tom wandered around to the back door and tried to open it. To his surprise, the knob gave to pressure and the door swung open. He immediately felt that something was amiss; neither he nor Genevieve would ever leave the doors unlocked after dark. 'But that was only done to make sure no one came for Amy,' he remembered. With the young girl gone, he figured that Genevieve might not be as worried about the safety of either their things or her life.

"Of course she could be hurt," whispered Tom. He had spent so much time away for her protection; he didn't think he'd be able to stand it if their reunion was over her wounded body. If she were in danger, he had to help her.

Tom walked into the house, quietly slipping through the back hallway until he found himself facing the kitchen. He was shocked by its cleared, deserted condition. The last time he had seen it, the room had still been filled with the boxes that held most of their worldly possessions. It was bare now, clean of dust, dirt, and appliances. He checked many of the other rooms and each one was stripped down.

Yet, as he moved closer to the living area, he began to sense that a living thing was in the house. He leaned back against the wall and sniffed at the air. 'It's Gene!' he thought. How could he have not realized that the moment he walked inside? The more he recognized it, the more he realized that he was surrounded by her smell. He should have recognized her scent sooner.

Tom walked further, glancing into each room before stopping in the living room doorway. Genevieve sat on a weathered leather suitcase in the middle of the floor. She was completely oblivious to Tom as he stared at her. Her eyes were focused solely on her watch, letting her brows crease her forehead while occasionally letting out a wayward sigh. "It's been two hours," she groaned. "What's taking him so long?"

Genevieve shot up from her seat, causing Tom to slip further into the hallway, hiding in the shadows as he watched her pace the floor. "It can't take two hours for Chris to question Blair. God, I hope I didn't send another Jennings boy to his death. I should've just met him at the Collinsport Inn. It would've been easier than sitting around in the house of memories. I'm so glad I'm leaving!

"Even with everything gone, I can't help but see Tom everywhere I look. He's in the doorway, he's in the kitchen, and he's in the fucking bedroom! I can't deal with it. I can't . . . who's there?" she asked cautiously. Genevieve moved closer to the doorway, constantly asking, "Who are you? What are you doing here? This is private property! Leave now!"

Tom could barely stand feeling Genevieve approach him. The smell of both her skin and blood inched toward him, warming the air around him and raising the blood thirst back into his mind. She would find him in a few moments; why should he hide any further? Tom took a deep breath and slipped into the light. Genevieve gawked at first, staring intensely on the man who had just revealed himself. But after a few minutes, she released an uneasy breath and began to laugh. "Jesus, Chris! You scared me to death. I was worried sick for you and then you go and do something like this. You probably heard everything I said." She paused for a moment, seemingly in wait for his response. "Well, aren't you going to say something?"

Tom tried to find the words to say, but nothing initially came out. "Cat got your tongue?" asked Genevieve.

"You could say that," Tom finally murmured.

Genevieve paused again, staring at Tom with new eyes. "You okay, Chris?" He shook his head. Genevieve smiled and began to walk up to him. However, she stopped once they were within a foot of one another. She looked more intently at his face, and, upon putting the images together in her head, started to back away. Tom moved to follow her, only to be stopped by Genevieve's up turned palm. "Stay back," she warned, "please stay where you are!"

Tom did as he was asked, watching on while Genevieve retreated. She slowly slid to the floor upon hitting it wall. She pulled her knees to chest and looked ahead, eyes going glassy as she stared at Tom. "It can't be," she spoke tearfully. "You can't be alive. I . . . I saw them bury you."

"I'm sure you did."

"But you're dead! You can't be here if you're dead."

Tom shook his head. Cautiously, he walked up to Genevieve and stood in front of her. Tom extended his hand to her and said, "Take it. Feel it and believe."

She looked at the hand idly for a few seconds before she decided to touch it. At first, she would only run a finger up and down the contours of his fingers. Soon, the look of disgust evaporated from her face and she took his hand into both of hers, caressing at first with her fingers and then with her lips. Tom cupped the side of her face with his free hand as he knelt down to her level. "Do you believe?"

"I do, I do!" she wept. She wrapped her hands around his face. She cringed slightly when his frigid hands slipped onto her thighs, but she soon calmed into a steady panic. "You're so cold, darling. What's happened to you? Tom, what's going on?"

"I understand it as well as you do, Gene. It's beyond anything I've ever dealt with."

"Okay . . . but do you know who did this to you?" Genevieve paused, crunching her lips into a painful purse before snarling, "Was it Nicholas Blair?"

"Yes . . . and this woman that he kept in his basement. I know that it sounds silly, but when I was working at his house, I found a coffin there. When I left the house, a blonde woman in a flimsy nightgown attacked me. She attacked me again in the hospital; I come to the next day to find out that . . . well, you know."

Genevieve nodded. "Have you been at his house for all these months?"

"No. Listen, there's a story to go along with all of this. I'm not proud of any of the things I've done or attempted to do and I really don't want to go into the details right now. I don't think I have much time."

"Are you in trouble," she asked.

"I'm in deep trouble. I was supposed to kill someone for Blair tonight."

"Were you going to do it?" Tom nodded. "You didn't have a choice did you?"

"No, but . . . it's more than what you think it is, Gene. I'm a much different person than the one you knew."

"I don't doubt it," said Genevieve through a strained chuckle. She shuddered but continued to hold Tom's face. "He's going to kill you for not killing whomever you were supposed to do away with, right?"

"I believe so."

"Do you know that your brother went to see Blair tonight?"

"I saw him in the house. Chris was trying to find out what Blair knew."

"Do you think he'd hurt Chris to get to you?" asked Genevieve.

Tom shook his head quickly. "I don't think he'd go that route. Then again, I don't understand why he did what he did to me. I saw a coffin. Big deal! I thought it was strange and I might have told the police about it. But I would have talk to you before hand, and you would have told me to forget about it. You'd say that he was Collins related and that you'd heard a trillion stories about how eccentric they were. (Might I add that you're absolutely right!) I wasn't a threat. Nothing would have happened to him."

"Shh . . . you can't worry about that now," insisted Genevieve. "What's done has been done. What we have to focus on now is making sure Blair gets his and that he doesn't hurt you."

"We don't have anything to hold over Blair! Whose going to believe that I came to you and told you that Blair is responsible for my murder?"

"We'll go to the station tomorrow morning with both you and Chris just so they can see that you're two different people. They'll check your fingerprints or your blood type or something so that they'll know that you are Tom Jennings. Believe me, tomorrow morning will be the beginning of the end of Mr. Nicholas Blair."

Tom hated to tell her that her plan wouldn't work, but he knew that it had to be done. She had no way of knowing that her boyfriend would fry in the morning sun. She didn't know what he was. "Forget about Blair for now," said Tom. "We need to leave town. By we, I mean all of us . . . you, Chris, Amy, and me. None of us needs to be here tomorrow morning; we can't leave anyone behind."

"Okay, we'll leave once Chris returns. But what about Amy?" she asked.

"I'll break her out of Windcliff."

"But they'll catch you. It's too dangerous!"

"Honey, I might not like what's been done to me, but I have to admit it's given me a few advantages. I'll be able to sneak in and out of that building without anyone catching me."

Genevieve nodded unsurely. She really didn't understand what was going on, but Tom could tell that she was too afraid to ask questions. "Okay," she whispered. "I'm not quite sure if I like this plan, but I can go along with it. My only fear is that we won't be able to flee very quickly. Tomorrow, they'll know that either Chris or I took Amy. If we're gone, they'll be looking throughout Maine for us."

"It's fine, Gene. We won't stop being on the move and it's not that hard to obtain false identification. Both you and Chris used to party with a guy in Portland who made fake ID's for college kids. I remember both of you using his name before. I know that it'll take us a while to actually get to Portland, but we'll be traveling nonstop. It'll be sometime during the day before they even realize that Amy's gone. We'll be far from Collinsport by then."

"That's all well and good, but what are we going to do about you? You're not like the rest of us anymore. You probably don't need many of the things that we have to offer. Do you have any special needs stuff that we need to pick up before we head off?" inquired Genevieve.

"Ugh. Let me put it this way: both of those things aren't going to be too hard to get hold of, but one of them I'm not really eager to go after," said Tom.

"Explain."

"Well, hold up a moment: we might not need one of those! You've got a pretty big trunk don't you?" Genevieve mumbled an awkward affirmative. "YES! We're not going to have to steal a coffin for awhile. Of course, we're going to have to put a little dirt in but not much. Hell, we can find a way to put it into my clothes, maybe my socks or shoes. Great, it's not going to be a big deal."

"Uh-huh." Genevieve took her hands from his face and laced them into her lap. She looked up into his eyes and asked, "Tom, what are you?"

"I don't know if you're ready for that."

"Of course I am! If I'm ready to leave town with you and break your sister out of Windcliff, I'm ready to hear it. Hell, I think I have the right to know what I'm getting into before I start breaking the law."

"You sure?" The piqued look on Genevieve's face showed that she did. "Okay . . . I'm a vampire."

"Vampire?" she asked, although Tom could tell that she didn't want an answer. She went silent with closed eyes, thinking as she twirled her thumbs inanely. She looked up quickly and said, "Prove it to me. Open up."

"Huh?"

"Open up." She opened her mouth wide to reveal "normal" teeth. Tom groaned but did as she asked. Genevieve moved closer to him and stared into his mouth, occasionally emitting an "oh my" as she examined his lengthened canines. She carefully slipped her finger into his mouth and stroked a fang, only removing the finger after it accidentally poked the tip of a tooth. A couple of drops of blood manage to slip onto his tongue before she could remove the injured digit. "Oh shit! You're telling the truth. You really are a vampire."

"Yes," Tom managed to mumble. Those few beads of blood had been enough to awaken his thirst. He could barely stand to watch her grip the wounded finger, knowing that bits of precious plasma were being wasted in the palm of her hand. "Gene, go clean the wound now. I can't deal with the smell."

"Really? When was the last time you fed?"

"It's been months."

"But you've been dead for months. How many people have you bitten?" asked Genevieve.

"I've bitten one person and she continues to live."

"Have you just been feeding off of her for the last few months?"

"You don't understand," insisted Tom. "I 'lived' for about a week before someone was able to hunt me down. He laid me to rest for what was supposed to be an eternity. Of course, Nicholas Blair had something else in mind for me and that's why I'm here now."

"Bastard. Then you must be starving?"

"Yes but we can deal with that later. Right now, we have to wait for Chris and run the plan by him."

"But you have to be so weak. You're probably not working at full potential."

"So?"

"So take of me," offered Genevieve. She uncupped her hands, allowing him to see the pool of dried blood in the center of her palm. "You want it; I can see the lust dancing in your eyes. Take my hand . . . no," she said before rolling back her collar, "take from here."

"You don't want me to." Tom knew he did, though. He couldn't pry his eyes away from her neck, mesmerized by the pulsing vein hidden just beneath the surface. There was nothing he wanted more than to feed from her, but he believed that Genevieve Reeves was the last person he needed to mark. Although he had changed, Tom still loved her; she was intrinsically above anyone he'd have to kill. "You don't know what you're asking of me."

"I'm asking you to sink those fangs of yours into my neck and drink my blood. I know that's what I proposed to you. Why won't you take it?"

"Because I love you and I don't want to hurt you!" exclaimed Tom.

"And I'm offering you this because I love you and I don't want you to hurt," explained Genevieve calmly. She inched closer to Tom, wrapping her arms around his neck and laying her against his chest. "I want you to have what you need. What's the worst that could happen?"

"I could take too much. You could die."

"What would happen to me if I died?"

"You'd become a vampire."

"Then I don't see the problem." Genevieve glanced back into Tom's eyes, showing him that her own was filmed over in a thin sheet of tears. "My blood his all I have to give to you. If it ends up making me like you, then I'm fine with it. We've been apart for so long that I don't see what alittle togetherness could harm. Do it, Tom."

"Don't make me do this!"

"I don't have to make you do anything! You want to do it."

Genevieve was right. He couldn't look at her without seeing the trace work of her circulatory system. He hadn't wanted her this bad since they first met.

Tom leaned in and pressed his lips against Genevieve's. Their kiss began chastely but soon intensified as both of them probed the other with tongues and hands. As Genevieve's nails dug into his back, Tom picked her up and propped her body up against the wall. She braced her foot against it and pulled Tom closer. "It's been so long. I can't pass this up."

Their playing seemed to stretch out forever. She writhed in response to his touch, grinding her body against his and begging him through impassioned groans for him to continue. Although it was something they had rarely done during life, Tom was pleased to be so near her again. He loved the feel of the heat rising from Genevieve, which seem to intensify by the second. His eyes continually scanned her body, relishing her lust flushed face and swollen breasts. If he were brazen, he would bleed her from her hardened nipples, suckling from her body like a hungry child. Of course, that would probably disturb her, so Tom decided to go for the traditional bite.

At the moment where she seemed closest to ecstacy, she screamed, "Take me now, Tom! Now!" Tom fell onto her neck and bit, slicing into her vein and unleashing a torrent of blood into his mouth. Genevieve's moans failed to subside; in fact, they increased as she continued to move against his stagnant form. "Oh God, more . . . more, please!" He didn't need her urging to continue. Her blood tasted a million times sweeter than Julia's, sweeter than anything he had had before. He didn't know if he could stop. His nourishment deprived body ached for what she could give him.

He didn't know how long they stood like that, their limbs entangled as Tom bled his lover. On occasion, she would give off an encouraging squeak or caress the top of his head. He could feel her weakening in his arms. Yet as much as he wanted to spare her, he knew that it was now out of his hands. Even if he stopped drinking from her, he had taken too much blood for her to recover. Genevieve would to die and Tom would be her killer.

The moment came sooner than he had expected. Genevieve sighed softly and her arms went limp. Tom removed his fangs from her neck and looked at her. Her naturally pale skin was bleached white with lips that had begun to turn an unsettling shade of blue. Tom lifted the lid of one of her closed eyes and saw the upturned iris. "What have I done?" he whispered as he lowered her to the floor. As a final precaution, he checked her pulse. There was no way to deny it: Genevieve was dead.

Tom arranged her body neatly on the ground, making sure that her skirt was straight and that her long blonde hair covered the faint wounds on her neck. He paced around her body mindlessly. Chris would be back any minute. How was he going to explain to his brother that he had just killed Genevieve, but that it would be okay because she would wake up tomorrow night? Chris would think it insane. But he would have to believe. After all, his once dead brother walked the earth again. Who could say that his dead girlfriend wouldn't do the same?

Tom finally lay down beside Genevieve's lifeless body. As he wrapped his arms around her, he could feel the heat that was quickly evaporating from her. He loved this last bit of her mortality. It would be the last time that he held her in human form. He would miss this side of her, but there would be a better side of that would arise tomorrow. They would no longer have a reason to be apart. Never again would Tom have to leave Genevieve behind. They would finally have their happily ever after.

But just as Tom began to feel comfortable with his actions, he began to feel an alien presence feel the room. Tom looked up to see a black clad figure looming over him, glaring down with red rimmed eyes on the scene before him. "Who are you?" demanded Tom. "What are you doing here?"

"You've been a bad boy, Mr. Jennings," reprimanded the form in a gravel-laden voice. "You didn't do as your master asked you."

"I tried to do what Nicholas asked of me," insisted Tom, "but I was interrupted. If I had been left alone, Victoria Winters would be dead."

"But she's not. Now Barnabas Collins is onto the scheme."

"That's not my fault! How was I to know that he was nearby?" Tom curled closer to Genevieve as he asked, "What does this mistake mean to me?"

"So you have to be punished," answered the man calmly.

Tom groaned and fell back into Genevieve. But he suddenly felt as if he were leaning against the air. He opened his eyes to see that he was being pulled away from her body. He tried in vain to hold on, grasping at her limbs in the hopes of being anchored to the ground. However, the force acting against him was too much, and Tom soon found himself staring at Genevieve from across the room.

He watched as the man withdrew something from his cloak. The closer the stranger moved to Genevieve, the clearer the objects appeared to Tom. The man carried a stake and hammer. "No! You can't do this to her!" screamed Tom. "Punish me. Hurt me!"

The man didn't listen. He leaned over Genevieve's unresisting body and placed the stake above her heart. He let skeletal fingers embrace the curve of her jaw before he ran the stake through her chest with one quick swing. Tom tried to run to her body but the force that had torn them apart held him in place, allowing him to writhe in its grip but not letting him leave. Genevieve leapt up once struck, releasing a scream like none other as the last bits of blood that had been in her body crept out of her nose and mouth.

Tom stared on in shock as the man rose from his post and walked toward him. He waved a hand in front of his prisoner's face and said, "This is what happens when one fails to complete Hell's orders. See that it doesn't happen again."

In a flash, he was gone.

Tom, finding that he could again move, scurried to Genevieve's body and cradled her, wailing like a child as he rocked. He had been so close to finding happiness and now it was gone.

"But Nicholas removed the stake from my heart and I lived. Maybe I can try this with her," thought Tom aloud. He placed Genevieve back on the floor and straddled her body. He took a breath and pulled the stake from her heart, bringing with it a few meager drops of blood and miniscule pieces of her heart. Her body bucked with the removal and the pressure release forced a sigh from her lips. At least it looked hopeful. Tom stared at her waiting for some sign of life; none appeared.

"She doesn't have any blood," he began to reason. "When I had died, I had been full of it." Tom pulled back his sleeve and bit into his wrist. He lowered the bleeding limb over Genevieve's mouth, begging her to drink. She didn't. Instead, the blood pooled in her mouth and slid down the sides of her face to collect on the floor. Soon, the wound healed by itself. Tom was left sitting over a bloodied Genevieve, her blonde hair matted red and her dead lips and teeth stained its cruel color. Tom had to face the truth. She was gone.

As awkward as the first situation would have been to explain to his brother, Tom knew that this scene was a million times much worse. He had to get her body out of the house and bury it, preferably somewhere far from this place.

Tom searched through her suitcase and found what he knew he would. Genevieve had probably planned to stay at the Collinsport Inn for the night. She had had a quirk about not sleeping on hotel linens. In her bag, Tom found a set of cream-colored bed sheets. He spread one out across the floor. He ran back to Genevieve's body to place it in the sheets but he didn't do so instantly. Her face had taken on sleep's sublimity; she was as lovely as ever in death. Tom took a seat next to Genevieve and stroked her blood soaked hair. Cautiously, he leaned down and kissed her, hoping to taste the lasts bits of his lover that remained before he buried her. All he could taste was the drying blood. Tom licked those remnants from her mouth, cringing a bit at the bitterness that remained. When it was gone, he kissed her again and found what he wanted. Underneath the death, the person she had been in life remained. Tom took what was left before placing his lover in the sheets and tightly wrapping her body inside.

He placed her suitcase on top of her body, grabbed her purse, and left the house for Genevieve's car. Tom carefully positioned her body in the backseat and chunked the suitcase in the passenger's side. He searched through the purse until he found her heavy key chain before tossing it with the luggage and stepping into the car. Much to his chagrin, it took a minute to remember how to use the car once he started it. "This isn't getting me anywhere!" he hissed before pulling out onto the road.

Tom drove like a madman toward the cemetery, swerving on both sides of the line and dodging many an irate driver in his rush. He thought little of it until he sideswiped a familiar car. He looked behind him and attempted to repress his anger. "Shit…it's Chris!" His brother didn't realize who was driving but he did recognize the car. Chris turned around in nearby driveway and took off after Genevieve's car. Tom floored the accelerator and took back paths to the cemetery, hoping to get Chris off his trail. Of course his brother had cruised every back road in Collinsport and could follow the car easily.

Quite suddenly, Tom looked in his mirror to see that Chris' car was gone. Had he given up? Had he gotten the message? More than likely. Chris was probably going to go home and see if Genevieve knew that someone had swiped her car. Tom knew that all he would find would be a few spots of blood. This was getting worse by the minute. He might have been better off waiting on Chris and telling him the truth; but it was too late to change things now. Tom turned into the cemetery, ready to do what he knew must be done.

Tom took out her body, suitcase, and purse and carried them to the spot that held his headstone. Quickly, he searched the nearby grounds to find a wayward shovel lying beside a newly dug grave. Tom returned to his spot and dug out the hole, letting the dirt rise high before he found the pit deep enough. Once done, he climbed out and retrieved Genevieve's body, placing it lovingly into what had been his grave. He went back to the surface to get her suitcase and purse and placed both beside their owner. Before rising up to fill in the hole, Tom searched through her purse until he came across her billfold. He scanned through the pictures there in until he found one of he and Genevieve. He took it out and slipped it into his pocket. Although he knew that he probably had little time left on this earth, he wanted to have at least one bit of Genevieve on his person when he died. When he had what he wanted, Tom rose out of the hole and filled it in.

The deed was finished much more quickly than he had expected. Although he had at least an hour left until the sun rose, Tom had hoped that the burial would take longer and leave him at the mercy of the sun. He couldn't wait in the cemetery because someone could easily find him there. He was surprised no one had found him before.

Then again, he had nowhere else to go. He couldn't go to his old home out of the fear of finding a furious Chris. He couldn't hide out in his coffin because he would put himself closer to having to deal with Nicholas Blair or quite possibly Barnabas Collins. Of course, Blair might not be as mad at him as he believed. Any fitting revenge had been enacted on Tom by the Devil's emissary. Besides, he would eventually have to find his way back to his coffin. He had few other choices.

Tom flew back to the House-by-the-Sea, choosing to wander through the forest for awhile before facing the music inside the house. For a few moments, he felt slightly lifted by the cool night air and, for the first time, remembered what he had enjoyed about this life in the first place. But as he approached the house, he was met with a grim reminder of why he hated it. He saw Barnabas Collins hiding behind the trees as he spied on Nicholas Blair and someone who looked to Tom to be the Johnson kid. Once they left the scene, Barnabas made his way out of the woods and entered the home through the unlocked door.

Tom knew why he was there and, for a moment, seethed with pent up rage. If Barnabas only knew what he had been through this night! "Death would be kind," he snarled. It would end the intense suffering; it would throw out the regret and guilt over what had happened. Hell, if it were done correctly, Tom thought that he might actually escape the odd limbo he had found himself in with Barnabas' first hand as Van Helsing. He knew that Mr. Collins would not stop until he found a way to destroy him. He had nothing left to live for; there was no use in running.

Tom left the forest and headed for the house. If Barnabas wanted a fight, he found no need to let him down, but he readily admitted to himself that he would not see the next nightfall. Hopefully, he would be begging Genevieve's forgiveness in the afterlife. He didn't quite know if he deserved such a gift but it didn't hurt to wish.

Before he stepped through the door, Tom took a moment to remind himself of how the stake felt going through the heart. 'It hurts for a few minutes and then there's nothing.' And with one last look at the slightly faded sky, Tom Jennings turned the doorknob and walked inside to meet his fate.

The End