Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, they own me. Special thanks to Toby Whithouse and BBC3 for the playground. Beta assistance from Whimsyfox & TJ4ev enables (most of) my grammar to pass muster for Hal. Extra thanks on this one.
To everyone who reached out on the last chapter, you have my sincere thanks. I always love to hear what you think, even if it is just along the lines of "OMG please please update soon!" I never meant to leave that one hanging for long, so without further ado...
Time did not move backwards in death for Hal Yorke. There was no descending spiral of memory to white light or flaming pits.
No.
Time blossomed forward.
-one-
The scream ripped out of Alex Millar from somewhere deep. The far reaches of her soul were scattering - blowing apart in unholy terror. Hal slumped into her arms. One breath, a slow motion exhale as a great heat built. She clutched cast iron. She clung to a fire.
No!
-two-
A biting coldness growing outwards in a creeping frost. Tiny icicles spanning and hardening the blood and mud of battlefield. Snowflakes and lonely trees against a flat, grey sky.
Death blossomed forward from a terrible accident of mortality and spiraled into eternity. For five frighteningly cruel centuries, death danced close. Sometimes leading, often following. Death, oh death… She had been a glorious mistress.
-three-
Ghostly force exuded the wooden shaft from Hal's chest and she flung it aside. Expelling the bolt was a hopeless effort, she knew. There was no stopping this. Distantly, she was aware of a scuffle. Tom was breaking free of his fight with Milo… and Maggie was there, helping him.
It all fell away.
Hal's eyes, hazel depths in deepening green met hers for the briefest of eternities. Softly shocked and pliant-peaceful, the moment of astoundment was a flicker and gone. In one short instant, all of it was gone. All of his hope, all of their possibility. She hadn't even told him… Hal was coming apart in hairpin cracks.
No-no-no-no-no-no-no!
Alex held on with every shred of herself she had left. Hal was wet sand in a tide, flowing away no matter how fast she tried to grasp and rake to keep hold.
This couldn't be. This can't be.
He was giving out from under her, capsizing, so Alex pulled a buoyant sphere of force around them; a containment of desperate, pleading strength. She held her palm over the wound of his heart as if somehow she could keep his life from fissuring out.
In the span of that one breath, to his last, a light flared outwards, white-hot and blinding.
-four-
Death was a glorious mistress. The finality of it all was a strange comfort. To finally be free from death, in death.
And yet…
And, yet...
Destiny, it seemed, wasn't yet ready to let him go.
Snatched from death yet again, Hal Yorke was lifted up and up into spreading warmth. Blown to the winds, pulled by the tides, hugged to the earth and consumed by fire.
An anchor, caught.
-five-
Tom knew that sound. He'd heard it hundreds of times. He immediately stopped. Shoved Milo away. His mate - his best mate - was cracking apart. Tom froze as if he was the one who'd been shot through the heart. Hal couldn't just die, he -
He was.
Alex was there and she caught him, holding him upright. She flung the deadly wood away and blood erupted, the spatter striking vivid against her hands before the vampire curse tore Hal apart.
They didn't even get to say goodbye…
And yet…
It wasn't just that the whole world had slipped into slow motion.
It was taking too long.
-six-
Alex caught the thread and held tight -
That piece of herself hooked in him -
That shard of being that was not affected by the vampire curse -
She could feel it, white-hot, buffered… and untangling. It was leaving him, panicked and fleeing to come back to her. To hold that thread was to fight a force eighty times stronger than herself.
-seven-
Tom knew that a vampire could shift to ash nearly instantly if they'd had a good fight leading up to it. The ones caught by surprise would lag - as if it took the body a moment to recognize the damage.
But even with that, it was taking too long. A piercing white light, bright as from beyond a Door, flared out of Alex where her palm covered Hal's heart. Her eyes glowed haunted, determined and ultra-violet.
Tom had seen a ghost look like that just one time before. Tom had seen it when Annie got rid of Kirby.
He turned to the ghost at his side, but Maggie shook her head. She watched, just as bewildered as he.
White light flickered at the edges, and a ghostly static whipped into wind - a tornado of debris and autumn leaves spiraled. Alex held Hal at the center.
-eight-
She called to that untangling, fiery piece of herself, and it answered - a tenuous yet tenacious thing. She raised it up to where his heart had been pierced, just under her palm. Then, she held it there. White-hot and buffered, it sunk like ink in water, like a burnt brand.
She could not hold on any further.
There wasn't anything left to hold on to.
The piece of herself - that discarded piece of her soul rooted in him and flared. As fragile as rice paper in a bonfire, it was consumed. Their thread caught in him, and the line pulled taut.
-nine-
Tom watched, just as bewildered as Maggie. The wind ceased, and Alex's flickering edge of light shrank quickly to her arm, then her hand, then faded out. The stark, terrible darkness of spots in his vision was all that remained. Mundane street light through fog, the world stepped back into place, and Hal - still impossibly here - collapsed into Alex.
Her strength died with the light. She couldn't keep herself upright, much less Hal. The world came crashing back into place as the dead weight of a fully solid vampire knocked her down. They slumped together ungracefully to the ground, but she didn't care. With the weariness of a marathon runner, all she could focus on at first was that she had done it. Hal was still here.
Slowly, Alex became aware that Tom had dropped down next to them. Castle was propped against the boot of the lorry, clutching his arm with his head tipped back in an attempt to stem his bloody nose. Maggie watched him warily. He looked through the old ghost to Alex with an outright livid expression. At first, Alex couldn't even register the fact that he could see her.
"Alex?" Tom's worried voice broke as he kneeled next to them, bringing her scattered attention back. Tentatively, he reached out to touch Hal. He patted his friend on the shoulder, repeatedly, as if he couldn't believe his eyes. "You a'ight there?" he asked her, his voice coming out as shaky as she felt.
"I... don't know," Alex stammered. She was exhausted, worn thin, but Hal was beyond pale. His skin was porcelain, broken, with dark lines under the surface. Blood pooled, slick and spreading across the pavement, a darkness against the black.
She could feel it. Hal wasn't healing fast enough, or he couldn't heal fast enough. She had saved his heart, but she hadn't yet saved him. She knew she was taking on his blood as she tried vainly to stop the flow. She knew that was why Castle was watching her.
With quick and decisive action, Tom peeled off his jumper, wadding it into a tight compress and pressed it down. "Here, keep it here," he said, his words rushed. Sounds of the fight raged around the corner, an entire world away.
"I can't-" she gasped, her strength flickering. She tried to "taste" from Hal through touch, and could feel the fragile hold he had. Her sense of him was utterly gone. What she stopped… was only paused. Hal needed to heal, and he needed to heal now. "Tom - your knife. I need your knife."
Tom cocked his head, questioning. He had to intervene in London afterall, pinning Hal down before the vampire could drain her completely. But then he squared his jaw and nodded, reaching into his pocket for the balisong he always carried. Passing it over, he took the compress from her and placed a hand on Hal's shoulder in preparation.
Alex flicked open the blade and didn't hesitate. She closed her fist around the metal and slashed, gasping with the stab of pain. Wincing, she opened her palm and covered Hal's mouth, forcing it open.
And... nothing. Alex checked to make sure she was actually bleeding. Hal's lips were smeared with blood, but he didn't swallow. He did not move. Already, her self-inflicted wound was fading, ghosting away, so she sliced again - at her wrist this time. "Hal come on! Please!" she screamed with desperation.
"He's dead without blood," Castle barbed from a distance. Alex wondered why the hell he was still here, but then saw Maggie's stance of concentration focused on her fellow operative.
Tom grasped Alex's shoulder, fingers pinching her hard as he reached across Hal. "You already saved him. Now keep saving him," he said, then abruptly let go as his muscles tensed. Alarmingly, Tom gritted his teeth as his spine spasmed straight. The first wave of the change passed just as quickly as it had come, but he didn't have much more time left. He caught his breath, then made to stand to face Castle. Alex held her futile wrist against Hal's lips for a moment longer, then pocketed the knife to use both hands on the makeshift compress with meager strength.
Before he could even register what he sensed, Tom's body language shifted as he stood. He turned his fighting stance away from Jon Castle, to face the unknown approach. Dominic Rook, crossbow aimed and ready as he walked, stepped out from behind a lorry. Tom's anger turned murderous. After all they'd done to help, how could he just assume and -
But Rook froze.
Leveling Tom with his calculating gaze, he lowered the weapon with focused intention. Tom didn't change his hostile stance, but paused. Rook quickly took in the scene, then locked his eyes on Tom. Weapon pointed away, but keeping eye contact, he slowly came forward to approach Castle. After a quick assessment of his operative's condition, Rook returned his gaze to Tom with a raised eyebrow.
"Your bloke ain't who you think he is," Tom broke the tense silence, preceding the question in Rook's eyes.
"Bullshit," Castle spat. "You should have kept a tighter leash on your mate McNair. He was about to kill me."
"No he weren't! He was about to get the truth outta ya," Tom declared and took a threatening step forward. Rook tensed, tightening his grip on the crossbow, and Tom growled with frustration, then pointed at Castle. "He was with that Milo and Hal caught them!"
"Milo is being apprehended. He will not be allowed to leave the park," Rook replied calmly, producing a pale grey handkerchief and handing it to Castle.
"Hal wasn't goin'ta kill him," Tom reiterated, softer this time, as if he was already second guessing what he saw. "He was trying to stop him."
"I believe you lad," Maggie Dan nodded, her focus still intent on Jon Castle. "He's hiding something in that noggin. Don't you fret. We'll get to the bottom of it."
"There are many unanswered questions, but now is not the time. We mustn't remain here," Rook said as his gaze fell on Hal's still form, then returned to Castle. Extending a hand, he asked his operative, "Can you walk?"
Castle nodded, but before taking Rook's offered support, he glanced down to Hal & Alex. "You never miss," he muttered to Rook.
"Well, apparently I'm human," Rook belittled the statement, then pulled at the youth to come along, like an errant child.
"You didn't," Alex stated weakly, and Rook paused. "You didnae miss."
The blonde man regarded her, piercing eyes narrowing, then flicking to Hal. "There will be time to discuss this later," Rook said, as the distant sound of fighting seemed to draw closer, but Alex vehemently shook her head.
"Hal doesn't have till later," Alex glared at Rook fiercely, accusingly. Damaged, beyond the body's ability to heal… She could feel how tenuous it was. The hold Hal had was gossamer, barely here. Just a day ago he hadn't healed from a bruise. How was he supposed to heal from this?
"He needs… blood," Alex uttered.
Tom's eyebrows met worriedly, but he repeated, "Blood? But he can't..."
"He can't heal! I stopped it but… I only slowed it down. He's still slipping, Tom. He's gonna have to drink."
"If that were a good idea, and I'm not saying it is and all," Tom deliberated, then furrowed his eyebrows with narrowed eyes. "Well, I see a perfectly good candidate," Tom growled at Castle.
"We have blood. Donated, at the Archive," Maggie offered.
"There are donations at the archive," Rook said the same thing, but dismissively. "We have to go," his voice was clipped as he took hold of Jonathan and made to leave.
Alex insisted, "Help us. Please!"
"Alex… but," Tom protested in spite of his bravado. He knew, same as she, the price such a solution would cost.
"I'll get him out of here Tom. We have to."
Maggie pursed her lips with a brief, grandmotherly deliberation, then she was gone. She returned a second later holding a simple, metal flask.
At the appearance of the floating flask, Rook drew a sharp intake of breath. "Maggie," he huffed, then gave a resigned sigh. "There's an isolation room at the Archive. Just - take him there, alright?" Rook's plea was earnest to Alex.
Alex nodded then took the flask Maggie offered by ghosting it to her outstretched hand.
"You shouldn't. Really, they shouldn't," Castle protested, feebly trying to pull away from Rook.
"I'm thinking I shouldn't have shot him to begin with," Rook replied, caustically, and Jon Castle grew silent. "Milo is not on our clearance. Your explanation had better be exemplary."
"You sure about this?" Tom asked, cautionary.
"We don't have a choice," Alex answered as she unscrewed the cap. The metallic clatter was familiar as it would be to anyone with an alcoholic past. But there was no heady scent of liquor upon the opening.
She took a deep breath, then lifted Hal's head. Everyone froze, watching her as she brought the flask to his lips. Her hope went with that crimson liquid. She couldn't think of the consequences. She could only hope that it would work. The blood trickled into his mouth, and he swallowed, unconsciously responding. She tilted more, and he gulped. Her hope grew with every desperate swallow, until the flask was drained. When she took the empty container away, Hal sucked in a violent gasp of a breath.
And just as violently, her relief shattered.
His eyes, when they opened, were full, fathomless black. But even that isn't it, as she has seen those eyes before. When he's trying to fight it off, there is always still a sense of Hal in there. The struggle is evident. The only time she had seen this depth of blackness was in the church in London; both of her hands on his chest in an attempt to stop him, pushing against a force as indifferent and deadly as a howitzer cannon. There wasn't a shred of her Hal left in that awful gaze. It was like looking into black oil. Hal was gone, and in his place was a demon of pure fury and wrath. Dark and unbridled, the split second that gaze is locked on her is devastating, but when his attention shifts, it is even worse.
Blood.
The blood that still flowed freely through the clutched and trivial handkerchief in Jonathan Castle's hand.
She had never seen him move so fast. One second, she held him, her hand in his hair. But the next... Like any good predator, from near-death to leaping death, Hal was on Castle in an instant - Rook already shouting a warning as he staggered clear and raised the crossbow, and Tom lunging after him. Alex knew Hal's hunger, and she knew his struggle against it. But she had never imagined what it would be like if he were to give in.
Alex could feel everything. Hal fell with such relief. Such inevitable, unleashed acceptance. The pleasant welcomed shock of warm, silken wetness on lips as fangs tore through thin skin, the way it dripped down and spurted; a flooded mouthful. The satisfaction that spread from throat and stomach out to every tiny nerve ending, every single cell coming alive with a blindingeuphoria of life. The quenching thirst that passed, settled… then ignited a burning, undeniable hunger for more.
The feeling consumed her, overrode all other senses until she thought that she would explode into nothing but beats of pulse and spark.
All in the span of mere seconds.
But not Hal. He knew this. He had danced with this before. His eyes black, his stance threatening and chin bloodied as Castle's body slumped to the ground. He licked his lips and gave Dominic Rook a savouring smile, despite the weapon the man had shakily trained on him. Thankfully, in the moment Rook's finger began to tighten on the trigger, Tom slammed into Hal, and Rook hesitated. They tumbled, Tom wrapping his arms around his friend in an encompassing bear hug which the vampire hissed and fought against. Rook pulled his weapon up short, unable to get a clean shot.
As the two supernaturals fought, Rook dropped to check on Castle. "Fuck," he cursed, pressing his hand to the wound in a vain attempt to stem the flow. "Maggie - get help."
Maggie nodded and disappeared as Tom crashed Hal into the lorry. They grappled, but at each turn, Hal blocked him. A punch, stopped. A chokehold slipped free of. It was terribly clear Hal was trying to break free to go after Rook.
"Get out of here!" Tom bellowed to Rook as he caught Hal by the shoulders and kicked him back against the truck. Rook stood over Castle guardedly and raised the crossbow again.
"Jaysus no!" Alex screamed. Rook didn't heed her and he nearly had the shot… Alex pitched what little strength she had left at the compact weapon. If she could just...
In that awful moment, the fast approach of running footsteps shifted Rook's attention as Allison, Irving and Christa came panting around the corner. Allison drew up short, eyes growing wide with Rook and his aimed crossbow. Her mouth formed a wide "oh".
Tom had somehow gotten Hal pinned to the lorry, blocking Rook's shot again and Rook yielded a frustrated snarl. "Get him to the Archive," he barked the order at Alex before he turned and fled, leaving the fallen Castle behind.
The vampire in Hal roared at Rook's escape and he shoved Tom aside, breaking free to run after. Christa was closest and she tried to intervene - to help - but was bluntly flung aside as if she were no more than a rag doll. She hit the ground and rolled as Alex teleported herself in front of Hal. He plowed into her like a train. Tom caught up to them and seized Hal's arm, pulling him back from behind - just as he had done once before in the woods when they were trying to bring him down. "Allison - get them out of here!" Tom shouted as Hal struggled against him, trying to pull away. Allison, flabbergasted, finally unfroze and went to help Irving with Christa.
"Hal stop!" Alex pleaded, hoping that some shred of him would listen. This was awful. The dark, unleashed fury of his eyes turned on her, and she knew. He would kill her if she wasn't already dead. Whatever was between them wasn't enough to stop him. It wasn't enough to stop what he had fought against for so long.
"Hal, mate," Tom warned, then pulled against him hard, trying to muscle him down. Tom strained with the effort and Alex just stood there, numbly exhausted and feeling futile. The small teleportation had winded her. She was spent, and doubted she could even shock Hal if he attacked her. But she would have to try.
Hal shoved Tom back, just as hard, unbalancing him and he spun, catching himself with hands on the pavement. In the brief respite from Tom's onslaught, Hal charged her, and she didn't move. Didn't stop him. Couldn't stop him. Everything felt heavy and thick. When he took her by the shoulders it was as if she were watching from leagues away. When he leaned in, eyes soulessly black, she had no illusions.
Tom was getting up in what seemed like slow motion, as Hal's teeth tore into her neck. The violent jolt of it felt more present than the pain. When she died, she had been overcome with this terrible detachment from the impossibility of it all. Awareness flung from the brutal terror of what was happening to her body. That same detachment hit her now. Hal, her Hal - was gone. Completely overcome with a crushing hunger, a terrible, massacring drive.
Alex remembered her dream, and how Hal had tore into the girl at the Gardens with such a satisfied finality. The wanting for this woman had gone on long enough. It was over. He would consume her and she would fade...
He hugged her close to better draw from her throat, taking back the blood he had lost... and more. The lithe frame of his torso leaned into her like so many times before, but not like this. Never like this. From far away, oceans and leagues away, Tom was shouting, pulling on Hal's shoulders, kicking him - anything to try and wrench him free. But there was no stopping this. Not unless Tom wanted to repeat what she had undone.
Tom tried another angle and rammed an elbow into his friend's neck, jolting his teeth in her throat. The pain of what Hal was doing hit her fully and she gasped. In one last desperate flutter of survival, she shoved against his chest, palm flattened over the cold bloody tear of his shirt in an attempt to break free or shock him - but couldn't. She was trapped, powerless. With every thudding beat of her heart she was waning thinner.
It was simple. So very simple. With the instinct of self-preservation, she did the one thing she realised in that exact moment that she could do.
She turned it off.
She simply let go.
She had to.
The bond of their thread drained with her blood, as awareness seeped back. Something hard and long pressed into her stomach and Alex's awareness clicked open. With impossible effort, she inched her pressed hand to where the department issued tranquilliser sat in Hal's pocket. Somehow, her fingers blindly found the safety and clicked it off. The position was awkward, but she nudged the barrel against him, inside his jacket. The thing couldn't have weighed much, but to Alex, it felt like lead. Engrossed, and with Tom pummeling him from behind, Hal didn't notice. Alex pulled the trigger to an answering whoosh-thwunk! When Hal jerked away something snapped inside of her, broken and sharp with loss. The muffled tranquiliser gun sounded almost inconsequential to the sudden dull rush of nothingness.
But Hal stopped.
Tom stopped.
Hal took a step back, blood smeared across his cheek. He glanced down to where a little pulsing light - a bright and cheery tracking beacon, protruded from his stomach. His black eyes blinked, and he seemed almost befuddled before he dizzily faltered, then slumped bonelessly backwards into Tom.
"Zugzwang" is a German word for a 'compulsion to move', and is often referenced in chess. Generally, it means being forced by circumstance to take an unfavourable action.
Musical inspiration in the playlist for this chapter was "Insolence" by Shearwater.
"There's nothing in that awful gaze - it's like looking into black oil - but there's everything there too. Loss and hopelessness and despair. And anger. Dark, unbridled anger."
This is a quote from one of my all-time favourite ghost stories, "The Memory of Grace" by Charles DeLint.
