YAY! Becca has become Becca the Giggler! I am now happy! Alright, first off, BTG, teh las t chapter was kind of short, but it was also pretty forced. I didn't really know how to stick it in there, but I couldn't led into teh next chapter w/o Ashain getting really freaked out, and werewoves won't do that for her/me/whatever. And i'd also like to thank RandomBattlecry for leting me make refrence to her story. READ IT! And please contiue my reviews!

Thoughts, though random and obscure

Carl was startled out of his studies that he had just resumed when Ashian banged unceremoniously into the tower library. She was soaked from head to toe by the sudden onslaught of rain that had begun as soon as she abandoned Van Helsing on the forlorn hilltop. Completely disregarding Carl, she dived strait at the blue couch and twisted in midair ((much like I do when I get ready to read a good book)) to land on her back staring at the ceiling. Her entire visage quaked with pained sounds and Carl noticed that her right hand was ungloved and shaking violently, whereas her left was calmly wrapped in worn black leather.

Uncertain if he should ask what was wrong, Carl stood awkwardly behind the desk as he waited for Ashian to calm down. When she had stopped her self-induced torture, he spoke. "Would I be able to inquire as to what troubles you without being yelled at and having some sort of large projectile thrown at me?"

Ashian sat up and shook her wet hair like Van Helsing did whenever he got out of the showers at the Vatican. The action had always reminded Carl of a wet dog shaking itself out. "You're too used to Van Helsing. Does he really throw things at you?"

Carl realized that she was dodging the subject, but didn't pursue it. "Only when he gets drunk. It happened a lot after Anna died, but when Cardinal Jinette told him where you were, I haven't seen him touch a bottle since."

Ashian shed her sopped coat and draped it over the fire grate to let it desiccate. Fortunately the leather of her coat kept most of her dry. "So he's still an alcoholic?"

"I suppose, if by 'still' you mean he was an alcoholic when you knew at school. But, where would he get the liquor to get inebriated at a school?" Carl looked up with genuine interest.

"He got it from the school priest. It was allegedly the 'Holy Wine' but it was strong enough to get him blathering incoherently in a matter of minutes." Ashian shook her head in her reminisces. "Oh, I remember this one time he got so drunk that I actually took him to the nurse when his hangover started. She wanted to take a look at me, thinking that all my bruises were from him, but I wouldn't let her. She'd find too many scars, ask too many questions. Of course, she asked them anyway, and Van Helsing got shipped off. I don't think I've ever forgiven him for abandoning me in that deadly place, but maybe I should."

"Is that how you two were separated? He was expelled for getting drunk?" Carl had crossed the room to Ashian and sat on the vacated couch. She was pacing before the fire.

A sad grin, almost a grimace, contorted Ashian's face. "If only it were that simple. The nurse found too many scars on his body for a drunk, and called the police. At first they thought that he was just a victim of child abuse, but too many of the scars were fresh for child abuse. They interrogated him, asked where all the scars were from. At first he wouldn't tell them, but they became desperate. They induced him to get drunk and then continued the interrogations. From what they could decipher from his babble made them think he was crazy. They took him to an insane asylum, but as soon as sobered, the doctors declared him perfectly sane. He was released, and until almost twenty years later that was the last I'd heard of him. I only know that he was released because the headmaster told me three days later, on my graduation. He probably blames me for what happened, but I don't want to ask him. That conversation would just twist too many knives that are already buried deep."

"Why would it be his fault? So far I've heard a lot of incriminating evidence against you." Carl had wanted very much for this to be a friendly, almost brother to sisterly, but he was overcome with curiosity.

"We got in a fight." There was a flat tone to Ashian's voice as she sunk down next to Carl on the couch and put her head in her hands.

Carl gently rubbed her bent back, just running his hand over the contours of her spine, in a definitely brotherly act. Carl was surprised to hear Ashian speak again. "Carl, did you cry when Anna died?"

Shocked for a moment, Carl's tone was slightly unsure. "Yes, I did."

"And did Van Helsing?" Ashian dropped her right hand so that she could look at Carl's face.

"Yes, frequently for awhile, but less and less as time grew on. He still has nightmares about it, and sometimes he claims that he'd rather kill himself than live another day sad and alone. I thought he was going to do it to, but the Cardinal told him about you in time to stop him." Carl gently brushed back Ashian's hair so that he could look into her eyes "I think that the knowledge that he was the one who trained you to put your life in danger daily sits heavily upon him, while it gives him hope to go on at the same time."

Ashian smiled, but the grin didn't reach her eyes. "Carl, have you ever fallen in love before?"

Unsure where this was going, Carl raised his brow. "You do realize that this is a very random and obscure conversation?" Ashian nodded. "Well, I suppose that you'd have to define love. A twinge of wanting when I look at a woman-"

"Like the barmaid?"

"Yes, like the barmaid. But a burning passion that devours my entire being? I have only felt it once." ((RandomBattlecry's "The Big Bang Theory." Read it!)) Somewhat relieve that she didn't further her questions, Carl sunk back into the couch and regarded Ashian in a different light. Van Helsing obviously had feelings for her, but did she return such a fierce infatuation? Perhaps that had been what scared her, this knowledge of Van Helsing's passionate feelings. "Why do you ask? Have you ever lost yourself to the wild emotions?"

A shocked look spread over Ashian's face. How could Carl, who had hardly known her for more than a week, put such a precise pinpoint on what had shaken her? She rationalized that because of the vampirc venom that coursed through her veins that she had sensed Van Helsing's emotions on contact. She told herself not to be ridiculous, both Van Helsing and herself had sworn to be friends only. That was the day she had stopped calling him Gabriel. Perhaps it wasn't what he wanted at all, and the bitterness was what had caused him to slip up and invoke the argument that had separated them. If she hadn't been a stupid, scared little girl maybe he would still remember who he was, maybe Dracula would be dead, maybe Anna Valerious would be alive, and maybe she wouldn't be about to become a vampire.

"ASHIAN! WHERE ARE YOU?" She was broken out of her brooding by Van Helsing's bellow. He rushed into the library, soaked from the rain and blood running down his side for the bite, thoroughly in the grip of the deadly calm that took him when ever there was a battle about. He had spoken to her like that once, and it had been the start of the conversation that initially sent him away.

"Van Helsing, what's wrong?" Carl asked the question that she could not; somehow her musings had stolen her tongue.

"Dracula and his brides are coming. They're going to attack the village." Van Helsing glanced at Ashian with inquisitive eyes, but now was neither the time nor the place.

Without a second thought Ashian swung her semi-dry coat over her shoulders and grabbed her discarded crossbow. Tonight she would make sure that Dracula regretted the day he condemned her to a fate of Living Hell.