Faye watched Julian wearily where he lay slumped on the couch like a sack of potatoes, unaware of her piercing gaze on him. She watched the steady rise and fall of his chest. The clock on the wall ticked the seconds away. The fire crackled comfortingly in the fireplace. The rest was blissful silence.

Her worries about actually getting a job and earning money to support them had diminished into thin air when Julian nearly convulsed on Christmas after going into a horrendous coughing fit. She had no idea what illness it had been though she knew it was the stupid bet they'd made that was to blame. She should have thought it through. He was a shadow man in essence, but his body was as mortal as her own and if anything, he was more susceptible to disease and drifting illnesses than she was. She was adapted to the world, her body immune to most sickness. His was as frail as that of a newborn.

Faye kicked herself mentally once again. Stupid, stupid Faye. She could imagine the shadow men rolling about in manic laughter. She could have killed Julian with her ignorance and negligence.

Once his coughing fit had faded and she was certain he was still breathing, Faye had bolted from the villa to the chemist. She would have broken into the neighbours' car and stolen it to get there faster, had she known how to drive the damn thing. It had taken her ten minutes to run into town, snatch an armful of medicines from the chemist shelves and then running even faster back home when security attempted to arrest her. She hadn't been thinking straight to steal so openly and worrying about paying or not being caught had been the furthest from her mind.

She'd dosed Julian with the medicine, hoping wistfully that she didn't give him an overdose in her frantic attempt to rescue him. For the first couple of days it had been touch and go – New Years passed by without her acknowledgement of the snapping display of fireworks throughout the night.

Julian's breathing had seemed to physically hurt him and he suffered hallucinations for several days. He was heavily drugged and dazed most of the time, his stomach turned every time she tried to get something into him. Faye had found herself thinking at one stage, Jenny is going to hate me, a random thought that hurt as much as amused her. If Julian died, she would hate herself too.

It was a relief that his fever had broken two days ago, eliminating the cold fear from her heart that he was going to die. Faye hadn't paid much attention to the persistent phone calls from Tom during this time. She wanted him to comfort her and reassure her that it was going to be fine, maybe even to lend her a helping hand. But Faye hadn't trusted herself to speak to anyone.

Watching him sleeping now, Faye knew his body was recuperating well. The shallow gurgling in his chest was gone and his breath sounded as smooth as ice. In. Out. Soothing. Comforting.

He was still weak from lack of substance but Faye now felt more confident that he was going to pull through this unscarred. She could tell he was quietly loathing what he was – he'd never been sick before and being rendered that weak and lethargic must have crushed his pride.

Faye sighed tiredly, rubbing her sleep with her fingers. She nearly jumped when the phone started to ring beside her. Sending an alarmed glance toward Julian, she snatched it up and paused.

Julian stirred slightly in his sleep. She put the receiver to her ear and stood up, walking toward the kitchen.

"Hello?"

"Hi... Faye?"

"Yes, who is this?" Faye asked quietly, boiling a pot of coffee and cursing inwardly when she saw the sugar was nearly finished again. For a moment she was so wrapped up in pondering how she was going to get more sugar without emptying the neighbours' cupboards that she didn't hear the response on the phone. "Pardon?"

"Ah, it's Jenny. " The voice sounded uncertain and hesitant.

"Oh. Oh!" Faye said, startled. "Hi! How are you? What's up?"

"I was wondering if we could talk."

"Sure, go ahead."

"No, I mean face to face." Jenny said uneasily.

"Oh." Faye said, stunned for a moment. "Okay. When and where?"

"Well... I thought I could come over to your place, if that would be okay?"



"What, you mean like now?" Faye asked, alarmed as she glanced at the dirty dishes and empty McDonalds packets strewn about the kitchen.

"No, I mean, whenever is more suitable for you, I know I kind of jumped this on you..."

"No, no, no. Not at all. Geez, Jenny, you don't know how long I've been waiting for this call." Faye blew out her breath, thinking wistfully how Julian had longed for this moment to come. He was driving her absolutely bonkers with his constant sulking. "Ah, when can you be here?"

"I'm actually in town at the mall at the moment. I'm just finishing some shopping with my mother and then I'll be on my way."

"Right. Okay. That's fine. I just need to... tidy this pig-sty so you can actually get in the friggin' door. But that's fine, seriously. Ah, we're at the Rosinda Villa complex, it's the last exit from the freeway leading out of Vista Grande. It's the only complex in a five mile radius from the beach. Give me a call when you're outside and I'll let you in." Faye explained, frowning slightly at the sharp intake of breath from Jenny when she said 'we'.

"Yeah, okay. I'll see you in a bit, Faye."

"Cheers." Faye hung up and set herself the near impossible task to clean up the villa.

She could hardly believe Jenny was actually coming over. Faye tried to be quiet as she packed the dishes into the dusty dishwasher and stuffed all the litter scattered throughout the place into a plastic bag. She crunched her face in disgust when she had to literally yank a glass off the coffee table where it had nearly moulded into the table from its spilt contents. Faye shuddered. She really needed to get over her laziness and start to clean. It was what she was good at after all, having learnt how to clean spotless since before she could properly speak.

Faye finished cleaning up in record time and was inspecting the cupboards for snacks and beverages she could possibly offer to their guest when Julian appeared in the doorway to the kitchen behind her.

"What happened?" Julian shook frosty white hair from his face and squinted at her through sleep encrusted deep blue eyes.

"Oh, ah..." Faye trailed off, closing one set of empty cupboards before yanking another pair open. Empty. "Oh no." She opened the next set. Empty again. "Oh, no, no." She opened the last set and spun around to face him. "You pig!"

"What?" Julian asked, startled at the unprovoked insult.

"You and your damn stomach! Do you have worms or something? Bloody hell, there's no food." Faye exploded, her temper flaring higher when he gave her an amused smile.

"I've got a healthy appetite." Julian offered as means of explanation.

"Where do you think we're supposed to get more food, Julian? We can't sponge off the neighbours all the time and there's no way I'm going to try and shoplift an entire grocery list! We don't have any money, and as of next month, if I don't get enough cash in time, we're officially out on the street. Our lease expires at the end of this month! How do you expect us to survive when you can barely leave food in the cupboard for more than a day?" Faye was nearly screaming in frustration.

"But look at me, I'm nearly skin and bone." Julian grinned.

"Gahiji was skin and bone, Julian. You're... you're..."

"Perfect?" Julian inquired mockingly and straightened at the dagger look she sent him. "Go ahead then, hate me if you must."

"Gaa, you're impossible!" Faye spat at him, slamming the cupboard doors closed angrily and yanking open the nearly empty fridge.

"I've been meaning to ask you, Faye." Julian's voice had turned from playfully mocking to dangerously soft and Faye turned to face him, slightly daunted.

She blinked in surprise when he seized both her wrists in his hands and pulled her toward him.

"What are you hiding from me?"

"Don't touch me!" Faye shot back hotly, attempting to pull away from him but his grasp was like steel. She knew Julian was deadly when he got into these random moods and she wanted to make a 

mad dash for it before things got out of hand. She gritted her teeth when his grip tightened and she used all her weight as she leaned back but Julian didn't budge.

"You're going to hurt yourself." Julian warned, watching her in amusement.

"You're the one who's going to get hurt if you don't let go!" Faye shouted back in frustration.

Julian's smile tipped her off and she changed her struggle to a full on attack, throwing her whole weight into him. To her surprise Julian hadn't expected this change of strategy so soon and they both toppled over with her momentum. They hit the kitchen floor hard, evoking a string of profanities from Julian and a yelp of pain from her.

"No, don't... get off me..." Faye spat when Julian pinned her hands to the floor beside her, hovering over her, his expression dangerous.

Faye stopped struggling abruptly, knowing she would end up with bruises more because she was trying to fight him off than him actually hurting her. "Let go or I'll bite you." Faye threatened.

"I'm not playing around, Faye. What are you hiding from me?" Julian demanded.

Faye blinked back up at him and held her breath, pulling a face back at him. Julian's gaze narrowed and something ugly flashed in the depths of the vibrant blue pools fixed on her."It's about Jenny, isn't it?"

Faye replied with a silent glare.

"Is it about Tom?" Julian demanded and anger swept across his sculpted features when Faye diverted her gaze and cleared her throat nervously. "What? What is it? Did she go back to him, is that it?"

When Faye looked at him again her gaze was nearly as piercing as his. With a swift move backed by pumping adrenaline, Faye drew her knees up between them and pushing with her entire body she lifted him off her and threw him onto his side. She wrenched her wrists free from his grasp and sat up, looking back at his vaguely impressed expression.

"Stuff off, Julian." Faye muttered, slapping her palms onto her knees and rising to her feet, suppressing the temptation to get a kick into his stomach while he was down.

Faye turned to leave and halted in her tracks when she almost smacked into his chest.

"I want the truth." Julian demanded.

Faye sighed heavily and met his gaze evenly. She hesitated, mind reeling for an escape route. Trickery wasn't going to get her out of this one, she knew.

"I don't think you can handle the truth." Faye replied evenly, taking a weary step back as she folded her arms around herself defensively.

"I don't think you have any solid ground to judge me on that." Julian snapped.

"Ha. Says the Shadow Man." Faye spat back.

They glared at each for another moment before Faye caved in. "I don't think they're back together. I wouldn't really know because I don't go around harassing them and I haven't seen them since the night of the winter dance. They're still too... nervous to actually see either of us again and I don't want to push things by pitching up on their doorstep and asking 'where's the party at.'" Faye sniffed and looked away. "But you'd better hope and pray they're not because I swear you'll have to restrain me from killing that girl."

Julian's expression was indifferent to her words but his voice rang with an edge.

"I didn't think you cared so much about me." Julian said softly. "Regardless of your pity fondness of me, I don't appreciate you threatening to hurt Jenny."

Faye smirked in response. "Don't flatter yourself, Julian. I'm not that fond of you."

"Don't play me for a fool, Faye." Julian's voice turned cold and his eyes grew stormy. He was in a fickle mood today but it didn't deter her own swirling emotions. "I know there's something going on, why else would you constantly be in contact with that... that... imbecile."

Faye blinked and arched her eyebrows. "I beg your pardon?"

"Don't underestimate my intellect by denying it. You've been on the phone with that arrogant git nearly every day since we booked into this damned prison..."

"It's a villa and I had to pay a shit load of cash to get it for us." Faye snapped indignantly.



"Cash that you pick-pocketed." Julian pointed out. "It's not like you earned it fairly. I don't like this place."

"Because it's on the other side of town from your beloved little blondie?" Faye fumed. "Trust me, the distance will do you good. How else do you expect her to trust you're not going to stalk her and seduce her again? Besides, we both know that's exactly what you would resort to if it weren't for me..." Faye trailed off when something dreadfully resembling realization dawned on Julian's face.

The silence between them was deafening. Faye waited for the inevitable scene that was bound to go down and attempted to brace for it and trying in vain to ignore the sickening churning in her stomach.

"You... no." Julian shook his head in complete bewilderment. "No, you wouldn't..."

Faye looked back at him expectantly. Waiting.

"You and Tommy?"

Faye snorted."Tommy? Are you two that close that you would call him that? You're sick!"

Julian blinked at the sudden accusation and his temper took flame, blue eyes swimming with rage.

"Faye..."

"Oh just leave it, Julian. I can't talk to you about it. Anyway, you didn't see me freak out when I found out you have an obsession with Jenny, so you have no right to make a fuss about this."

Faye looked up sharply when a half-hearted chuckle sounded up from Julian's lips. She watched uneasily as he ran both hands unceremoniously through his thick frosty white mop of hair, leaving it in complete disarray when he dropped his hands to his sides and subconsciously clenched and unclenched his fists. His jaw was set and the corners of his lips turned down in either disgust or contempt, she couldn't tell which.

Her heart was pounding up her chest and her head throbbed with tension. Adrenaline soared through her veins and the instinct to run was nearly overwhelming. Faye wondered if she would feel like this if she was faced with a starved tiger.

Run, get the hell away from him, run, run, run! A voice was screaming in the back of her mind but the flicker of primal fear that Julian's aura evoked from her was strong enough to root her to the spot. Besides it would only make things worse if she actually did make a run for it – Julian would only chase after her and she knew she couldn't outrun him anyway.

Faye fixed her gaze on a crack in one of the tiles on the floor, every muscle locked in tense anticipation. She thought for a moment she was going to faint when she heard him let out a long deep breath.

"How long has this been going on?"

Faye shrugged in response.

"You don't... actually like him, do you? You're just playing with him, right?"

Faye chewed her lip and risked glancing up at him briefly. She cringed when his gaze burned back at her in carefully controlled malevolence. She pushed down the temptation to lie, wondering for a brief moment if he was going to kill her.

"People aren't toys, Julian."

Julian turned so still that it made her want to cover her head and cower in a corner of the room. He stared back at her, frozen like a statue for what felt like forever. The tension in her body mounted to the extreme where she could feel herself begin to tremble. She couldn't look at him, fearful that if she did it would unleash the demon inside of him, and instead directed her attention back to the crack in the floor.

It was so wrong that she should be afraid of him. She created him after all. God didn't fear His creations so neither should she. He should be afraid of her, by all means, but then again she wasn't God and Julian wasn't exactly human either. For a fleeting moment she thought about scratching his eyes out – she could feel them boring into her and it nearly wanted to drive her insane.

"Hell... Julian... just say something..." Faye gasped breathlessly, frowning hard.

"Is he going to take everything away from me?"



Faye's head snapped up at the agitated cry of desperation. Her mind stalled as she watched his retreating back before common sense screamed in her head that he was heading for the front door. Her breath caught in her throat. She didn't need to guess where he was going or what he was planning to do.