lil-blonde-pirate: wow really must have taken you hours!! Thanx for the review glad your enjoying it, here's more for you 

Countess Alana: Big drac fangirl so will def check out your story!!

Knnyphph: Glad you kept reading honoured that you've stuck with it and its gonna get longer so don't stray!!!

Niffers: Yeh I love that parody too! "Lucy please! I'm british!" "So are these!" lmao promise to try and not be mean anymore ;)

Note: be warned very angsty with suicide references!

Disclaimer: I don't own Van Helsing. (short, swift and painless---winces---mostly painless)

Chapter 60

When Marston entered the bedroom he was greeted by Amie and Tony, who sat whispering in the meagre candle light trying not to wake Jory, Chris and Bob who still slumbered nearby.

They both turned sharply when he entered, the orange glow making the shadows dance eerily around them.

"Ok, why do I feel like I've just walked in on a gun powder plot?" he asked quietly walking over and dropping to the floor beside them. "Why are you two awake?"

"I was worried about Sarah, Tony woke when you left the room." Amie explained wrapping a woollen blanket tightly around her shoulders.

"She hasn't really spoken since the ball, she's avoiding us."

Tony nodded in agreement.

Marston frowned. "True, but I just spoke with her. Yeh she's a little bit distant and has these really long silences going on… but other than that…I mean she hasn't attacked anyone recently right?"

"That doesn't mean she won't." Tony pointed out seriously.

Amie shivered. "I'm scared she's going to hurt herself." She whispered "by the lake she told me that, everything was her fault, that things would have been better if she wasn't around."

Tony frowned with concern. "I'm going to go talk to her." He said standing.

"Why you?" Amie bitterly.

Tony shrugged "She's opened up to me before, maybe she will again and I can stop her doing something stupid, even if I have to gag her and lock her in the tower to do it."

"Good luck with that." Amie said watching him leave.

Silently, Tony made his way a long the darkened corridor, most of the torches had burnt themselves out. A clear sign that dawn was less than a few hours away.

Tony was on the ground floor when he heard raised voices coming from the study, which sat next to the Valerius library. Frowning as he recognised Sarah's voice he pressed himself against the wall and listened intently.

Van Helsing sighed in frustration as he faced the seething vampire.

Anna and Carl watched from their positions around the door, unconsciously keeping the girl from making a run through it.

"I always wonder what separates me from those I hunt. There is only one difference as I see it…I never allow an innocent to die without trying to help…even if I do fail more often than not."

Sarah glared at him defiantly, daring him to finish his speech.

"My life…my job…is to vanquish evil. I can sense evil."

Sarah rolled her eyes, this she'd heard before, none of this righteous crap would make her change her mind.

"You are not evil; even though evil has left its mark on you it doesn't rule you!"

'Self-righteous bastard' she thought angrily as she felt doubt enter her mind.

"So what's your big plan?" she asked her eyes flashing a deep purple, betraying the demon so close to the surface. "Looks like we're right back to the, 'lock her up for her own good' scenario."

Van Helsing and Anna shared a regretful look.

"It is one option." Carl spoke up hesitantly.

Sarah sent him a withering look, her vampire side gaining the upper hand as her anger increased. Carl gave a tiny squeak of fear stepping behind Anna for protection. Taking a moment to calm herself, Sarah kept her voice reasonable and addressed the stubborn hunter once more.

"So, what? I spend days, weeks, or month's maybe. Chained up in my room until you either kill Dracula or he kills you. That gives me a choice of waiting to die or waiting for him to come for me. In the time it would take you to decide whether I'm evil enough to drive a stake through, you would risk everyone in this house."

She noticed Van Helsing's eyes flash with concern as he stole a quick glance in Anna's direction.

"Your mission has always been to protect Anna and destroy Dracula. You can't fail a mission." She pointed out coldly.

Anna strode further into the room her hands on her hips "And what about his new mission, his obligation to you and your friends? Should he just push that aside?" she demanded.

Sarah shook her head. "He knows that sometimes one person must be sacrificed for the good of many. He's had to do it many times…it's why they call him murderer." She said bluntly fixing Van Helsing with a withering stare, beyond caring whether her words hurt him or not, there were more important things to think about.

"If you let me stay I jeopardise your mission…all of your mission and you know it. Think about it, I have." She trailed off staring beyond the hunter, her eyes haunted.

"In nightmares I see myself walking into my friend's bedrooms in the early evening… Amie's laughing with Bob, Tony and Jory are sparring, Chris and Marston walk up to me smiling… They don't run; don't do anything as I attack…. I see the shock in their eyes as I kill them one by one…they don't even scream.

I wake with the taste of their blood in my mouth." She whispered.

Carl shuddered fingering the cross at his throat.

Sarah saw something change in Van Helsing, saw the shadow appear in his eyes when he looked at her, the droop of his shoulders… and the slight nod of the head that sealed her fate.

Shaking but determined she turned to leave and meet her fate.

"Do you have the strength to do it?" asked Carl "Can you destroy yourself? Your soul will be damned." Carl stammered from the shadows.

"I don't believe in hell." Sarah whispered clutching the pentagram at her throat. "And I don't need strength." She said sadly glancing at the window. "I just need the sun to rise."

She smiled to herself at the use of the Buffy quote, even as it was lost on the three concerned people before her. 'Of course', she reasoned walking out of the study. 'She meant it literally.'

Suddenly the princess was in the doorway blocking her escape. "Don't Anna…I have to do this, you would do the same." She pleaded, desperately trying to hold back the instinct that made her long to tear the young woman apart.

"I know." Anna whispered, reaching into the draw of a nearby desk, she brought out a full bottle of Absinthe and handed it to the startled girl.

"For the pain." She whispered, eyes shinning with tears. Sarah choked back tears of her own embracing the princess like a sister, careful to turn her head away from the exposed skin of her neck.

"Take care of them." She whispered.

Anna nodded pulling away. "As if they were of my blood." She vowed.

Sarah smiled at her gratefully and without looking back at Van Helsing strode through the door.

Tony stood shaking in the middle of the corridor in her path his, eyes wide with anger. Sarah froze when she saw him, the last thing she'd wanted was a confrontation with her friends… anything to make her decision harder to bear.

"Tony…you shouldn't be here." She whispered.

He glared at her "You're not going to do it. You're not seriously going to kill yourself tonight, you can't." he stammered. Sarah heard Anna, Van Helsing and Carl walk up behind her.

"You can't let her do this!" Tony yelled pointing an accusing finger at the hunter "You're the hero…hero's don't just watch people leave to kill themselves!"

"It's for the best." Van Helsing answered his voice hollow.

Sarah avoided Tony's stare as she walked up to him and stepped to the side, heading towards the main doors of the manor. He reached out to grab her but she evaded him seeming to disappear as she used all of her unnatural speed to pass him and reach the doors.

Even as she pulled aside the many locks she heard him running along the corridor at her back. She stepped quickly out of the doors and turned to close and bar them so he couldn't follow.

An arm pushed through the gap holding the heavy wood in place; through the space above it she saw his determined expression.

"Move your arm Tony!" she demanded adding pressure to it.

He grunted "You'll have to break it if you want me to stay in here." He hissed.

Sarah felt herself consider it, and recoiled from the thought backing away from the door and leaning against the wall to push the vampire back.

When she looked back the door, stood a jar and Tony faced her from its steps.

He glared at her "How can you be so selfish? Just give up because you can't take it anymore. Did you even think about your friends? About how we'd feel?" he yelled.

The slap came out of nowhere sending him to the ground with a large red mark where her palm had connected with his cheek.

He gazed up at her in astonishment, as she stood over him eyes blazing a menacing purple and a predatory growl escaping her throat.

"You think I'm selfish?" she demanded angrily, the tips of her fangs clearly visible against her lower lip. Tony stared up at her defiantly.

"My whole life… all I've done is thought how my actions might affect other people! I never have the time to have problems of my own because night and day I'm dealing with other peoples." She said bitterly. "For the last few weeks everything I have done I have done for you, for everyone else when I was dying inside!

My first morning here, I saved Anna from Verona…I was safe and I could have stayed safe and saved my own skin but I chose to go out there and help and that led me to this! Was I selfish then?" She asked.

"When Dracula brought me to the village…it would have been so easy to give in …to kill that boy…God knows I wanted too." She admitted eyes glistering with unshed tears.

"But I didn't, I saved that boy. When I came back here Van Helsing and Anna had to convince me to come in, because no matter how much I wanted to be with you all again, I knew that this would happen, and I wanted to spare you that.

I was willing to disappear out into a world I didn't know, to spare all of you from this…is that selfish?" tears ran freely down her face and she bit her lip in anguish.

Tony turned away from her gaze.

"Don't you dare tell me, I don't consider how this will affect you!... Because that is all I have ever thought about! I have to die so you have a chance to live, the vampire is taking over and I can't take the chance that I will turn on you…I have before and this time I won't be able to stop it and there is no guarantee that Van Helsing or Anna will get there in time."

Tony slowly got to his feet and faced her shakily, his cheek swollen and red. Sarah reached out and touched it tenderly, an action she wouldn't dare have even considered otherwise.

"I have a list of the things I wanted to do before I die." She said smiling ironically. "Number five was to hit a guy and not feel guilty about it afterwards… Guess I can cross that off."

Tony's expression didn't change. Sarah saw his gaze shift passed her to where a grey glow was already illuminating the eastern mountains. Sunrise was less than two hours away and she turned and looked almost longingly at the coming dawn.

Tony looked at the girl in front of him in disbelief "So what you're just going to kill yourself?" he demanded his voice unnaturally high.

Sarah looked at him sadly "I'm already dead Tony" She said slowly "I died Fourteen days ago with Dracula at my throat."

Tony grasped her by her shoulders roughly shaking her "No! No you're alive!! You're here I can feel you here!" He yelled desperately all thoughts of dignity were forgotten in his desperation to stop her.

"I'm dead Tony," she said again, firmly despite the tears still falling freely. "I died and there is something inside of me that's going to take over and when it does it will kill you and Amie and everyone in this house that I care about! I won't let that happen!"

"If you are doing this for us, don't. Stop thinking about other people!" he cried, "I'm telling you to think of yourself now!" Sarah smiled at him sadly.

"So first you're angry because you think I'm being selfish and now you're angry because I'm not?"

Tony's expression softened. "Do you want to die alone?" he asked quietly.

The bite marks on Sarah's neck burned suddenly "I did die alone" she whispered.

In the open doorway the princess and the hunter watched. Anna sobbed quietly next to Van Helsing who fought hard to keep his emotions in check.

How many goodbyes had he said in his past? How many people still existed believing him lost or dead? And how many had he lost?

Sarah watched as tears filled Tony's eyes, her human half was distraught. While the larger Vampire side felt nothing.

"Tony, I'm losing my battle here, soon this creature will take over. It's like a cancer only I won't be the victim."

"You shouldn't die alone, you shouldn't have to feel yourself burn, you don't deserve that!" he yelled.

A sad smile appeared on her pale face "I'm a witch remember" she said dryly "it's tradition."

The smile disappeared "I asked Van Helsing to kill me. But he can't, not while the evil is dormant and I can't wait until it's not, because for that to happen… someone would die. I wouldn't ask Anna, she's lost too many people already." Looking at Tony she said, "I would never ask you"

Tony's eyes met hers "I can't let you burn" he whispered his eyes growing cold with determination.

Sarah stood calmly as he drew the silver dagger from its sheath at his waist. "Do it," she whispered "please"