Suze's POV:

"I hate you, Paul!" I said furiously, staring at him. Throwing daggers was more like it.

"How was I supposed to know he'd grabbed your shoe?" Paul asked. Jesse just stood there, looking between us. He looked ready to kill. Yeah, well, no way in hell is that happening!

"Ok, so what now?" I asked, trying to keep fear out of my voice.

"Now the 'we' of two weeks ago is us." Paul said.

HUH?

"So you mean, if I go out to the graveyard right now, I won't see myself standing there? Or him?" I pointed to Jesse.

Paul nodded. "Everything is how it was two weeks ago."

"Not everything, Slater." Jesse said. "I'm not dead anymore."

Indeed, he didn't have a ghostly glow about him. "We brought back the alive Jesse." I said.

"That's why I wanted to say it with him not touching you." Paul said. I swore. Then I did something that would earn me a huge bruise later.

I walked up to Jesse and slugged him. Just hauled off and popped him right in the jaw. He snapped back and grabbed my fist before I could slug him again and hissed, "What the hell was that for? Susannah, have you lost what's left of your little mind?"

"For making my life hell- AGAIN!" I kneed him in the groin and Jesse went down, dropping my wrists. "You will pay for that later."

"Uh, I don't think so." I went to kick Jesse, but he grabbed my ankle and I toppled down onto the ground with a loud, "Oof!"

"De Silva, touch her again, and I swear to God, I'll kill you." Paul hissed, pulling me up and away from Jesse.

"You can't protect her all the time." Jesse growled, glaring at me. I shivered.

"That's where you're wrong." Paul said. "I can protect her all the time and I will." Paul took my hand and led me back to the festival, where we started reliving the past two weeks.

"Paul?! Paul I know you can hear me, get your butt down here right now!" I yelled in my head from the locked confines of my bathroom.

It was a week after our time-travel escapade, and Paul had been teaching me how to call for people in my mind, how to put up walls to protect myself, and other shifter powers I could use against Jesse. We also discovered- upon calling his sister, Carmelita De Silva Esparza, that Jesse had been a shifter and mediator when he was alive. This explained the materializing and dematerializing he had done.

"PAUL! I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DON'T APPEAR RIGHT NOW, I'M GOING TO HAUNT YOU FOR THE REST OF MY AFTERLIFE!" I screamed in my head. See, usually, if he doesn't appear, its fine. I can totally handle it. But right now...

Right now I needed backup, and I needed it that second.

Because Jesse had attacked. Not literally, of course. Well, somewhat literally, because I was bruised, busted, and broken, but more subconsciously. He had invaded my mind while I was sleeping, and almost threw me into an Armageddon-type coma. Seriously. We're talking end-of-the-world type dreams, and then not letting me wake up. When I finally did wake up, he was on top of me, ready to repeat the actions of my two weeks of hell.

Well, I was stronger, but not by much. I couldn't throw him off of me via telekinesis, since he was way too strong, and I couldn't conjure a block since it would protect him as well. Somehow, I fought him off of me and took refuge in my bathroom.

"Susannah, Paul won't be coming to save you this time." I jumped and saw that Jesse had materialized into the tub next to me.

"What the hell did you do to him?" I asked my voice squeaky and laced with fear.

"Merely a sleeping potion. He'll wake around dawn." I swallowed hard. "As will your family."

I swallowed again as he took slow definite steps towards me. "You know, Susannah, I wasn't always evil, as you seem to think."

I snorted. That's a laugh. "I'm perfectly serious." Jesse said. "I remember the first time I saw you. You walked into this room- my room, our room- and just seemed like an angel. Of course, I soon found out otherwise." He looked at me with laughter in his eyes, clearly remembering the incident with Heather.

I stayed silent. "And for awhile, it seemed like I'd still have to wait to come back to life. I needed the blood of a shifter, not just a mediator, but a shifter as well, and they had to truly love me. I saw signs that you had feelings towards me," Had JESSE! HAD! PAST TENSE! NO LONGER! I thought. Despite what I said to Adam, with the still in love with you thing, because I'm so NOT! "But I wasn't sure until the graveyard. That's when I knew. I knew you were a shifter, as you had shown at the party, and then you loved me. I was so close!"

"Was?" I asked stupidly. "Didn't you get away with it?" Stupid prick!

"Watch those thoughts, Susannah." Jesse snapped. I glared and thought, "Bite me!"

So he did! Just leans over and bites my shoulder! Hard! "Hey, prick!" I screamed.

"Told you to watch those thoughts." Jesse said. "And I didn't get away with it, because Father Dom discovered what I was up too. He was going to contact a mediator who worked with the police department to turn me in for assault and other assorted crimes."

Way to go, Father D!

Jesse glared at me, hearing this thought, and I thought about how great it would feel to pop him one in the eye. "I wouldn't do it, Susannah. You know very well how much I can hurt you."

"How about how much you've already hurt me?" I retorted. Yes, since going back two weeks, he hadn't raped me, but the memory of it from before still stung like hell.

"Just take that as a warning, Susannah." Jesse glared at me.

Whatever. I dematerialized to my bedroom, out of the bathroom and collapsed on my bed. "Miss me, Susannah?" Jesse whispered from next to me. I jumped and shrieked.

"Dammit, De Silva! Don't do that!" Jesse just smirked and held me down on the bed with his mind.

"No, stop it! Dammit! Jesse, get off of me!"

"Shut the hell up, Susannah!" Jesse snarled, delivering a blow to my face. So I did.

And once again, Paul came in to save the day.

"Did you really think some stupid potion could keep me out? Suze's screams would wake the dead." Paul said, climbing in through the window.

"And did." Came another voice from the corner of my room. I couldn't see who it was, since Jesse's mind control kept me held to the bed, but I knew who it was.

"De Silva, we're going to have a little talk." Peter Simon said. "Usted shithead! ¿Qué el jode lo hace piensa que usted hace a mi hija?" (You shithead! What the f # # # do you think you're doing to my daughter?)

"Whoa! Since when do you speak Spanish?" I asked Dad.

"Took it in high school, and have a couple friends in the Spanish Mafia." Dad said with a wink. "You OK, pumpkin?"

"Yeah, but someone wanna get Rico off of me?" Jesse was sitting on my stomach, seemingly frozen. Paul and my dad pulled Jesse off of me, and then I heard my dad and Jesse speaking rapidly in Spanish- well, my dad was speaking rapidly in Spanish. Jesse was just standing there, looking afraid. Dad must have threatened the Spanish Mafia on him.

Paul pulled me up and said, "Are you sure you're OK?"

I nodded. "Didn't have time to do anything worse than yell and slap."

"I'm so sorry we brought him back." Paul said, sitting next to me. I drew my knees to my chest and said, "It's not your fault. I'm the idiot who fell in love with him."

"Are you still? I mean, in your outburst, before we came back, I think you slipped, and said you did, and I just-"

"Paul, I'm not still in love with him. Not like I was before." I said quietly. "I mean, I can't forget how he was, all sweet, and gentlemanly, and nice and that, even if it was an act. I can't forget how he's been since that day, either. I don't love him like I used to, but I still love him, if that makes any sense."

"Suze...you know how in love you were with him? Before all this?" I nodded. "Well, that's how in love with you I've been, practically since the day I met you." Paul said, drawing my face to his. I felt shivers go down my spine, but in a good way, the second his skin touched mine.

"You should get to sleep." Paul whispered. He brought me into a sweet, gentle kiss. "Goodnight, Suze. Sweet dreams."

And Paul was gone, out the window, into the night air.