A/N: Weekend Update! Here's more kids. I hope you like where this is going. The reviews have been a great fuel to the creative fire. I've worked my imagination to hell and back for this plot so that it will work. I'm praying that it does. Anyway, read on and be, shocked, awed, amazed, or whatever noun you wish. Also, don't be afraid to tell me if you like where it's headed or not, I dig that kind of input. Also, if you are so inclined to go see The Da Vinci Code, I do recommend it. If you're someone who isn't into its subject matter, then forget I mentioned it. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and hopefully I don't offend you by suggesting it. But, as a side note. If you're into movie scores...that one is beautiful. Alright, I'll shut up now. Go read...

McFadden-

Chapter Three

As Abby left, she debated on whether or not to let Caulder know that the girl was awake. She decided against it, since she knew that King needed to talk to her, and, if anyone, King could be the one to know what to do if she started reacting to the EDTA. As lucid as he was when he went through it, there was no doubt in her mind that he remembered exactly what it was like. He needed to get this thing resolved as much as he could if he was going to have any sanity left. It needed to happen soon, Josie was dying...

Just as King had suspected, she was too weak to do anything but lay there, despite of her wanting to do otherwise. She may have been still, but he couldn't mistake that look. He knew that if she had the strength to scream at him, she would have. Judging from the pressure of her grip on his wrist, she could still easily break his hand. She open her mouth, sticky with clotting blood, she spoke unevenly.

"You fucking bastard..."

For a minute, King almost smiled at the familiarity of her comment. Then he remember why it was that she used it.

"Nice to see you too Josie."

He thought that maybe she was just going to stare him down and refuse to talk anymore, but he was so wrong. With a small snap, King felt an immense pain shoot through his arm. She had broken his wrist without so much as flinching. To prevent from screaming, King just clenched his jaw and bit the inside of his cheek, giving her a hard look. His breathing labored as she released him. There was such a contempt for him there. Her eyes stood out as they glowed preternaturally when she whispered through her tiny fanged teeth.

"Don't ever call me that again. No one calls me that."

Trying to recover somewhat, King replied with a scratchy voice.

"That's because I'm the only one who ever did."

A sadness flickered through her eyes as she acknowledged that. She loved the way he used her name, not that he ever knew that. Then again, he had to have known to some effect, because even through his years of vampirism, King was the only one to use it. She would've killed anyone else who tried to. He noticed her body started to shake, making her eyes drift closed. He knew that was a preemptive sign to a blinding pain that she was experiencing, yet she didn't attempt to scream. Her pain tolerance had always been higher than his. Although it was a little on the reverse side. Break his wrist and he would be able to handle it. Give him a paper cut, and he was a blubbering idiot. He was startled when her fingertips touched his injured wrist soothingly as she studied it. Her touch was as light as a feather and didn't cause any further damage to his throbbing arm. To his surprise, she spoke calmly.

"Can you feel this?"

Thoughts raced at the multiple possible meanings of that question, but he decided to just answer the literal one.

"Yes, I can."

But he could also feel so much more than just the pain. There was longing, a needing to feel someone's touch again. He knew that, only because he had spent years dying for her to touch him like that. Josie settled back into the pillows and looked away from him tiredly. Her voice telling on her in a subtle way.

"Good, at least you're alive..."

As much as she blamed him for what she had become, she could tell that he took just as much responsibility for it. She saw what he was about to do and spoke up before he had a chance to say anything.

"How can you expect me to forgive you for what you've done to me? You hated every agonizing second of being a vampire..."

King couldn't take it anymore and finally screamed out.

"And I hated every second of my new life because of what I've done! Can't you see that? Even when I was still a vampire, there wasn't a day I didn't regret pulling you into my sadistic little world. Danica would've killed you if I hadn't made you one! You were the only person I knew that didn't fear me because of what I was. It was only after you turned that you hated to even be in my presence. You resented me then because I gave you my blood. But why didn't you run like hell when you so obviously had me figured out the night we met!"

Joselyn eyes had been staring hard and calculated at him up until he finished, when they finally lowered in submission. And without the slightest grit of anger to her voice, she replied.

"Because I saw you then as I'm seeing you now."

King was at a momentary loss for words. Studying her was all he could do. She sighed heavily and gripped the sheets as a wave of pain coursed through her. When it subsided, she spoke again.

"I thought you were different King. Even after you bit me the first time. I knew Danica forced you to do that. But...she didn't force you to brand me, or to rape me."

King winced at her last comment as he felt the power of it slam against his body. He knew that's what he did. And no amount of apology or repentance could justify that. Just the fact that he was put into the same category as Jarko Grimwood made him despise himself. King hadn't forgotten that Jarko raped her, but it was only now that he realized the full effect that his actions had on him. That's why she wouldn't look at him. Even though Jarko raped her first, Josie knew there was no stopping it. What was worse, was the fact that she trusted King even after he turned her, but he still chose to do that. King felt so sick. He stole something from her that he could never give back. It wasn't sex, it wasn't virginity, it was trust. Completely engrossed with his self-loathing, King could only sit there. Joselyn broke the silence once more.

"Why would force that on someone who was just like you?"

She just asked the ten million dollar question and he just shook his head.

"I don't have an answer for that Josie. Maybe it was because you weren't like me and I knew it."

She coughed heavily, and King was noticing the small beads of sweat that was forming on her skin. Her fever was breaking. The next stage, anger. This was know as the 'Truth Hour,' a very vital part of detox where they would be able to ask her any question and she would willingly tell them the truth. He grabbed a cloth from the sanitation sink, and began to wipe down her face. Her eyes were glassy with internal thoughts, but as soon as she felt the coolness of the washcloth her vision came alive again when she looked at him.

"But I was like you King, I am like you. I just think that you saw blind innocence infront of you and wanted that piece of you back that she took. You can't tell me that the very second you met Danica, you thought she was a fucking girl scout. No! You knew she was trouble and you went after her anyway. Well, fuck me, but I did the same thing to you! Granted you weren't a masochistic sadist like your mistress bitch, but it wouldn't have taken an idiot to see that you sure fucking weren't Wally Cleaver."

King's mind reeled. Here was the one person who he had spent years trying to crack, finally talking to him and uninhibited by drugs, but now, he would've rather heard a lie than the truth. The truth simply hurt too much. There was something he was dying to understand though.

"Why didn't she kill you when she took you away from me?"

Jocelyn had to swallow the feeling in her stomach that was attached to that question. Hoping like hell that he wouldn't catch her emotion and confront her about it.

"Do you honestly think Danica would kill off your new obsession? Not if she couldn't enjoy seeing your face while she did it. In the meantime I had to keep of the charade of pretending you meant nothing to me. I was lucky she drew more pleasure from seeing you suffer from my silence than she would have if she killed me infront of you. I kept on pretending until she finally drew some respect from my coldness, even after you were rescued. So, she kept me alive and I've had to live this way ever since."

He would be lying if he said that the newly learned knowledge that he actually meant something to her didn't bring a sense of hope that she still retained some feelings for him. But he cursed himself still for letting the whole thing go too far.

"If I could've put you out of your misery, I would have. But it was never easy. Every time I thought about it I felt empty. I'm surprised to find you didn't kill yourself."

Joselyn saw the apology in his eyes and sighed, resigning to trace the blue web of veins that stood out against her alabaster skin.

"I almost did..."

King became frustrated as his hatred grew for the dead slag that put them through this.

"God, I just don't understand Danica's motives!"

To his shock, Joselyn began to laugh. Not at him, but at some thought stuck in her mind.

"As much as she was a fucking narcissistic whore, she was a smart whore. She knew you would go looking for me. It was her final strategy at getting one final stab at you. She never counted on the fact that I would disappear to hide out until she was dead. Didn't you ever wonder why it was so easy for you to find out that she had Drake in the first place?"

King remembered the whole process the Nightstalkers went through to decipher Drake's existence.

"It was from all the artifacts that I took from her."

Joselyn peered at him through her heavy lidded eyes.

"Didn't you ever wonder why it was all conveniently at your disposal while Danica was inconspicuously absent?

The dawning of realization was painfully evident on his face. He looked at her in complete shock.

"You did that?"

She just nodded faintly.

"I was hoping that you would find him and kill him before she could use his power to her advantage. But there were just too many of them working against me then."

A scream tore from her throat suddenly and shook King to the core. He jumped up, remembering this particular reaction to the treatment. Grabbing a small titanium plate, he anchored her body to the bed with his arms and stuck the plate into her mouth.

"Bite down Josie. Bite down..."

She did as she was told and it didn't faze King to hear the slight crunch that followed as the metal gave way with her strength. Her teeth had punched through the seemingly powerful alloy. When her shivering subsided from the somatesthesia associated with sudden and immense bouts of pain, King ran his hand over her head in a calming motion and removed the now mangled plate from her mouth. His tone was quieting.

"There, that's better now."

She took a moment to recover before resumed speaking. Her voice sounding more forced from the screaming.

"She knew once Blade was back and found out you were the one who got him out, she wouldn't have much longer. Even with Drake there...

Blood trailed from her lips and he bent over to wipe it off, getting so close to her face. She just continued.

"She knew about Daystar, everybody did..."

King looked at her with a mixture of awe and sadness. He didn't know if the information had ever reached her about the virus. He only hoped that it didn't, but he was wrong. He searched her for a moment and then asked.

"Did you think it was going to kill you?"

Her eyes glazed over with unshed tears, as King looked on with just as much anguish as he saw in her. He'd only seen her cry once before. Her voice softened substantially when she looked at him again.

"I was hoping on it. But it didn't have an effect on me. I don't know what was worse. That it didn't work on me, or that fact that once it killed Danica, I'd be one of the only ones left."

King felt his throat constrict. He didn't want to think of her suffering anymore. Withholding his own grief he smoothed her cheek as she finally, for the first time since the fist night they met, she leaned into his touch instead of shying away from it. It nearly broke his heart at the cruelness that his life often dealt him.

"You were around Danica till the beginning of the end. I don't understand why it wouldn't work on you too. But you don't have to worry about that anymore. It'll be over soon... I promise. You were too far gone when we found you. Even for the medicine here. They all say your going to die. I just wanted you to die with the dignity of being human."

A tear finally escaped as she grabbed his hand and offered him a sad smile.

"Human or not, you can't die with dignity. Death is anything but dignified. It's cold, harsh, and most unforgiving of all...it's something that you have to face alone. I've spent countless times trying to justify death as I prepared to walk out in the sun. All the solutions still left me with one painful truth. No matter how pretty the package it was wrapped in, the reality is, I was still alone."

Her head turned away from King before she could see his reaction. Knowing from the quiver in her voice, King let her look away. He knew that she didn't want to see him upset. He just picked up her hand and brought it up to his face, letting the trace of a tear that had fallen to his cheek, settle itself right on her knuckle. He felt her body shrink into itself while she tried to fight the sobs that wracked it.

"You're not alone anymore."

Her red and tired eyes turned around to meet his.

"I'm not going to die King. "

Confusion hit him hard. He looked at her with furrowed brows.

"What do you mean?"

She took some needed deep breaths before gathering strength to continue talking.

"There's a reason I didn't succumb to all of it."

King couldn't wrap his mind around how she could survive much longer. Her betrayers had nearly her dry of her life. She looked at him with her intense eyes.

"You forget... Danica never bit me. It's not her blood that is running through my veins."

She dragged one finger lightly down a vein line in King's arm watching his muscles tense at first, then relax as she touched him. Meeting his eyes, he could tell that she was going to faint at any moment. Her voice cracked slightly when she said one last thing before her head lolled back.

"It's yours..."