A/N: Not entirely certain why it took me so long to find this story again. Hopefully, you'll find some foregiveness for me in your hearts.
chapter seven
"Where are we going?" The headlights swept away the night in front of the car, revealing only infinite stretches of asphalt and desert. Desert. It was the only thing Marianne had seen rising and rolling by through her passenger-side window for so long, she had begun to believe the entire world was composed of nothing but desert and starlight and the soft drone of Porsche's engine. And Ash.
"You're determined to spoil my fun, aren't you?" The lights from the instrument panel cast eerie, dancing shadows on his handsome face. It was a poignant reminder that he was above all else a creature of the darkness. He belonged in this twilight world.
Regret was stirring painfully in Marianne's thoughts. Hannah and Thea and Poppy would certainly be disappointed in her for missing the Midsummer celebration. How would she ever explain this, how could she possibly make it up to them? She could barely rationalize the decision herself. Maybe she deserved to have the witches curse her.
"I haven't seen any signs of civilization for over half an hour. I'd just like some reassurance that we're going somewhere." The pangs of her conscience made her tone sharp.
"Never fear, we're going somewhere."
"That's not funny. I want to know where you're taking me."
"Please," there was a pleading note in his voice she tried to ignore. "I don't want to ruin the surprise. Just trust me. We're almost there."
"Where? We can't be going somewhere when we're in the middle of nowhere."
"Peace, woman," he beseeched. "Leave it be, for my sake."
"Ash," she warned, "I'm only going to ask one more time--"
"Somehow I doubt that."
"--where are we going?"
"No, you're not going to threaten me. I'm not telling."
"That's not a threat. A threat is if I said that if you don't tell me on the count of three, I'm going to open the door and jump out of the car."
He snorted. "You wouldn't."
"One…"
He glanced warily sideways at her. "Stop it, Mare. We're almost there, I swear. Calm down."
"Two…"
"You're insane, do you know that? Why do I put up with this kind of abuse?"
"Thr--"
Ash rotated the wheel to the right and the car drifted into the emergency lane. Marianne gripped the door handle fiercely, her bones rattling, as the low-riding vehicle bounced agonizingly over every rut and pebble. When they finally ground to a halt, she allowed her head to fall gratefully back against the seat.
"We're here," he announced with an expansive gesture.
She craned her head around to get a glimpse of outside, hoping vainly that some mirage had emerged from the empty desert. No such luck. She collapsed exasperated into the leather headrest. "There's nothing here."
"That's the point."
She was suddenly, excruciatingly aware of the fact that she was alone with Ash in the middle of desert, miles outside of Las Vegas. She was sincerely regretting leaving the safety of Thierry and the others now.
Raising an eyebrow, she asked, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You'll see."
He unfastened his seatbelt and opened his door, proceeding to slide out of the car, but when she undid her own seatbelt, he made a hasty motion to stop her from following him. "No, stay there. Close your eyes, and I'll come around and get you."
"Close my eyes?" she parroted incredulously. "Ash, in case you haven't noticed, there's nothing to see."
"That depends on your point of view," he retorted enigmatically, before adding encouragingly, "Go on, close your eyes. I still want this to be a surprise."
"Have I told you yet that I don't like surprises?" But she obeyed his instructions anyway. Behind her eyelids, she held the image of his face as she had last seen him, eyes bright and sparkling with excitement, much like a little boy on Christmas morning. Except he wasn't the one getting gifts, he was giving them.
She stretched her other senses, listening for the sound of his feet rounding the car, feeling the chilly air hit her side as he opened the door. One hand wrapped around her upper arm, guiding her out of her seat, while the other slipped over her eyes as reinforcement. He maneuvered her a few steps forward, and she felt the change beneath her shoes of road to sand. His hands dropped away.
"All right, you can look now." She opened her eyes, and the first thing that filled her vision was Ash, his head tilted back, staring above them. She followed his eyes out into the night to the brilliant, gleaming stars crowding the sky. "Merry Midsummer, Marianne."
She chewed uncertainly on her lip as she tried to decipher this particular present, the car ride and the desert and the stars. "You…want to give me the sky?"
"Not just any sky. This is ten times clearer than anything you'd get in the city. Have you ever seen anything like this?"
Memory shifted, conjuring images of life before the car accident and Aunt Cindy's house in San Francisco, when she had lived with her parents in Kentucky. There'd been nights like these then, skies like these, but she'd left that in her past a long time ago. Yes, she'd seen stars as bright as the ones overhead, but she didn't want to hurt him by admitting the truth.
"It's beautiful," she murmured in agreement. She slanted her chin back until her neck protested, broadening her view like she could soak in the heavens in their entirety. She set about picking out the constellations that any child knew, Orion and Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper. Silvery light filtered down, unadulterated by the interfering lights of the metropolis, cool as the air against her skin.
His eyes strayed, gazing at her, and she made a deliberate effort to hold herself very still under his scrutiny. She heard his intake of breath and waited for him to speak, but he broke off abruptly, striking a palm against his forehead. "I almost forgot. Stay here. There's something I have to get out of the car."
"More?" she queried, but he was already jogging back to the Porsche, unlocking the trunk and extracting a blanket-draped object. He returned, plucking off the covering in one grand tug, and deposited the telescope between them, using his heel to nudge the tripod into place.
"It was yours," he explained, making one last adjustment so the telescope balanced upright.
"Mine?" Her voice snagged oddly in her throat.
"Yeah. You loved the stars." He glanced up, away from her. "You taught me everything I know."
She reached out reverently to brush the dark, glossy surface of the cylinder, but his words were echoing uneasily in her ears. "Ash," she whispered with desperate gentleness, "this isn't me anymore."
"Would you believe me if I said I know that?" His eyes were still fixed on that point beyond her. "I won't lie---at first, I didn't understand. I thought somewhere, somehow, something had gone wrong. But lately you've helped me recognize things I never knew about myself before. You changed…but so did I." His eyes flickered back to her face; they were holes in the fabric of the universe, darker than the night itself. "It's a law of physics, after all--for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You're my reaction. My reflection. For everything the War and those years by myself altered in me, you transformed just as much. And somehow we're still perfect a match--soulmates." He ran a hand over his hair, his dry laugh filling the silence. "Does that make any sense?"
"Actually, it makes a whole lot of sense. But it doesn't explain why you brought me out here. It doesn't explain the telescope."
"Because I like watching the stars. Because I wanted to share something I care about with you."
She was sure her heart was going to shatter. "Okay. Show me."
His smile lit the darkness, and he stooped down to peer into the lense, tweaking the angle of the telescope until he was satisfied. His hand enveloped her wrist, tugging her down until she was in the same bent position he was. The air hummed with their nearness. "Here." He stepped aside so she could press her eye to the lense. "Vega," he named the dazzling image that spread beyond what the telescope's narrow scope could hold. "It's one of my favorites."
They stayed like that for along time, Ash ticking off directions or moving the telescope himself, while she marveled over the wonders that had thus far been invisible to her eyes. She was so fascinated she barely noted when he crept away some time later to let her explore the cosmos unaided, recovering the discarded blanket and stretching himself out on it. She only realized his absence when she discovered something so magnificent she thought it was imperative that he see it too.
"Come here," she called out, not moving from the telescope. "You've got to see this."
"Mmm," his unintelligible answer came back. "No thanks. The view over here is just fine."
She straightened, distracted from her stargazing. If he had been closer, he probably would have sensed the blood rushing to her face, flushing it an embarrassed red. As it was, he could recognize her bashfulness in her shifting feet, hear it in her timidly mumbled, "Ash…"
Knowing the darkness obscured his expression, his lips curved into a smirk. Sometimes it was too easy. "I didn't mean you--I meant me."
"You're vain for a parasite, you know that?" The color in her cheeks was from another emotion now.
His smile widened as he smoothed the blanket beside him invitingly. "Don't you at least want to come over here and see for yourself?"
She made a scornful noise and busied herself with the telescope, but he couldn't help but notice with pleasure how her attention drifted occasionally to the figure lounging on the ground behind her. Eventually, after a sufficient amount of time had passed that it appeared she was acting on her own will, she abandoned the pretense of the telescope and arranged herself very cautiously in the space next to him.
"I want to look at the big picture for awhile," she excused herself.
He didn't venture any smug comeback, just folded his arms behind his head and was silent for several minutes. "It makes you feel so small, doesn't it?" he said unexpectedly then, waving a hand at the endless dome arched above them. "Puts things in perspective. Even immortality pales in comparison to something that…vast."
Her eyes settled intensely on the side of his face. Discomfited, he fidgeted and rolled onto his side to face her. "What--"
But his question was interrupted as she lunged forward to kiss him rather ineptly, mashing her lips inexpertly against his. Their noses bumped clumsily, their teeth scraping together roughly. And before he could even conceive of reacting, she skittered out of his reach.
Marianne giggled, clasped a hand over her mouth, and laughed again. Her situation was only made worse by the expression of bewilderment and insult marring his features. "I'm sorry," she schooled her voice to be serious. "It's not you, I promise. It's just…Is it always that awkward?"
Comprehension shifted his face, his expression becoming something more…predatory. His hand located the dip between her hip and her ribcage, skimming down her side to the small of her back, his fingers applying a tantalizing pressure. The wordless message was unmistakable: Come closer.
"It doesn't have to be," he answered her gravely as he drew her irresistibly against him. His mouth grazed the corner of her lips, then stopped without warning as he slanted his eyebrows mockingly at her, an afterthought occurring to him. "Well, if you do it right, that is."
She might have been offended if she hadn't been so preoccupied with keeping her breathing even. She tangled a hand in his hair, tugging his head back down insistently, intent on finishing what he had started. His laughter over her impatience was muffled as their mouths converged.
And soon, he wasn't laughing at all.
ººº
"I'm offering it to you freely, Ash." Her neck was inclined at an awkwardly painful angle so she could look sideways and up at that beloved face. The bindings around her wrists stung where they had scraped the skin raw, and her body was an oddly burdensome weight that she would have loved to be rid of.
"What if I offered you my blood? You need it much more than I do. I'm the immortal one, remember?"
Not immortal enough, she reflected regretfully as she took in the distinct protrusions of his bones, the wildly ravenous glint in his eye, his own blood dried where it had coursed from a slash to his chin. "Semi-immortal. Not invincible. You still have to feed. And I happen to be, well, prey
"Stop it. Mary-Lynnette--"
She wished desperately that he wouldn't make this decision any more difficult for her. She was offering up her life to see the person she loved survive, and as worthy a cause as that was, if he delayed her much longer she was bound to lose her nerve. "Don't you get it yet? I do this, or neither of us leaves alive."
"Fine. I can live with that."
"The point is, you won't live with it because you'll be dead. Dead dead. Vampires don't come back, idiot. Poof. 'Out, out brief candle,' and all that. I at least have some chance of coming back."
No. Absolutely not. Give me time to think of something, and I'll get us both out of here." Of all the times to be arrogant and self-assured, this was certainly not the best, but she heard the echo of her own hopelessness and gentled her tone in response.
"We don't have that kind of time. You don't even have the power to contact Thierry or Quinn telepathically. No help is coming until this battle's over. I can give you that power, I can change that. Now's no time to be valiant and brave and…and pig-headed. We have to face facts. You have to live. And I--" Fear clogged her throat. "I'll be back."
"What, no Shakespeare, no Austen? You have to quote The Terminator at a time like this?"
"I'm tired. I don't want to fight. Not now. Not anymore." Please, God, Goddess, Whoever, she added the plea silently, let me have him back and I swear I won't ever argue with him again. I won't lock him out of the bedroom or throw things or call him an idiot. If I get just one more chance, I won't ever take him for granted.
"I love you. Don't leave me."
She would have given anything to touch him at that moment, but instead she was forced to reach into her memory for something to say. "'Were a star quenched on high, for ages would its light still traveling downward from the sky, shine on our mortal sight. So when a great woman dies, for years beyond our ken, the light she leaves behind her lies upon the paths on men.' Longfellow. "
"That's not comforting."
"You asked for a quote, not comfort." But she couldn't have denied him anything, not at a time like this. And the truth was, she needed the consolation just as much as he did.
"Now?" He had never agreed to her proposal, but he didn't need to. His eyes were an uncanny silver even in the blazing brightness filling the room, his fangs already extended over his lips. They both struggled within their binds to find a position that would facilitate the process, and she braced herself for the feel of his teeth in her throat, reminding herself it hadn't been painful last time. But he held himself immobile a few moments too long, and underneath his gaze her courage was waning. She didn't want to leave him.
"You're taking too long."
He lurched shakily forward, and the air was snatched unceremoniously out of her lungs. But in place of his teeth, his lips brushed her throat, coaxing it into a more natural position. And only then did he bite her.
She was engulfed by the brilliance of his mind, but the experience was spoiled by the relentless litany of his guilt.
Shut up, Ash. You're ruining the moment.
ººº
Everything about the dream was too vivid, too intense, too real. Marianne wrestled against the grip it had on her mind. She didn't want to see anymore, to know anymore. It was trying to take her farther than she was willing to go, to show her things that were better left unknown.
"Shhh," Ash's wordless reassurance wafted to her through the dissipating fragments of the vision. She opened her eyes and distinguished his shadowy figure bent down to her level, his impossibly dark gaze fixed on hers with concern. He had the passenger door of the Porsche open, and he was leaning across her lap to unbuckle the seatbelt. Behind him the silhouette of Thierry's mansion loomed up in the darkness.
"Go back to sleep," he commanded soothingly. "I can handle everything from here."
She blinked, readjusting herself to her new surroundings, and was startled when tears she hadn't realized were suspended there slipped loose.
Ash looked just as taken aback, and his thumb moved delicately across her cheek to the corner of her eye, seeking to stem the flow. "Sweetheart?" The question was in the words he didn't say.
She forced the corners of her mouth to mobilize into a small, heartening smile. "'S okay," she mumbled sleepily. "Just remember to put me in my own bed this time," she reminded him, belatedly recalling his habit of stashing her territorially in his room. Not that she would have been particularly adverse to the idea tonight--which made it all the more imperative that she did not wind up there.
He laughed softly, the sound barely making a dent in the night's hush, and his hand traveled up to brush a strand of hair off her forehead. Lips briefly replaced his fingers, chaste and achingly sweet. "I'll keep that in mind." His arms slid smoothly underneath her, one supporting the back of her knees as the other coiled around her shoulders, and he lifted her effortlessly free of the car.
She snuggled into his chest, yearning to be closer, and his arms gave accommodatingly, allowing her to nestle so near to him that Marianne was sure there was no room for even the air to come between them. Beneath her ear his heartbeat was steady, and the rhythmic intake and exhale of his breathing rocked her almost imperceptibly. The tempo and surety of his life pressed beneath her fingertips sent an upwelling of peace flooding over her and propelled her back to brink of sleep.
It was good to be home.
