Apologies for the delay, RL and I had a touch of the writers block. Grrr.

This chapter, as promised, is about Hal.

Thanks to MissPinderx, camillavirgil, 0positiv, Paperclaire, brookesey, XxxPrettyxxxGirlxxX and Kate for the reviews.

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I don't own Being Human.

Enjoy x

Part 2: Hal

July 1606. It was our fifteenth wedding anniversary. My husband threw a party, He wanted to keep up pretense. News of our wedding, of my recruitment had reached far and wide in the vampire community. To the outside world, we were the perfect couple, hopelessly in love, a romance that even death could not tear apart. A fairy tale. They envied us. They envied me. They didn't know the truth. They only saw what He wanted them to see. The truth was that fifteen years beforehand, I had died, and since that day I had been living in hell.

The party was an extravagant affair. Everything had to be perfect. To my husband, image and reputation were everything. He was all about showing off. His vast and expensive collection of paintings, statues, vases, the house, me. All trophies. He wanted to be seen to have found love and so His declaration of love, our anniversary party, had to impress everyone.

The finest chefs in the land had been brought in, master musicians had been recruited especially, plenty of blood, of course, and one of the country's most well known dog fight organisers had been summoned. Apparently he was very good, had a knack for spotting champions, those who would provide good entertainment, and he had brought two of those 'champions' with him. Both of them were in the cage that night.

I played the perfect wife, smiled, looked like I was enjoying myself for fear of what He would do if I did not. I had no stomach for dog fights. I had seen quite a few by that time, my husband enjoyed them, they never failed to make me feel sick. It wasn't just the transformation, which was always a grotesque spectacle, it was the fact that they always reminded me of the evil of what I had become, of my kind. Killing for food was fine, well, not fine but I comprehended it was a necessity, but this, this was not a necessity. Turning people who never asked to become these creatures, into even greater monsters than they already were, for nothing more than sport, I found that barbaric. Thank God I have a stronger stomach now.

Those were the thoughts that usually ran through my head on the night of a full moon, but that particular night I was granted something else to think about. The dog fight organiser, Sir Henry Yorke they had called him, hardly took his eyes off me the entire evening. He just sat there, with his recruit, drinking blood and watching me.

The look he had, that predatory gaze mixed with something else that I couldn't quite name, it made me uneasy. Nobody looked at me like that, not anymore, not now that I was married, nobody dared. But Henry Yorke dared.

Despite hating my husband, I did love some of the benefits that came with being married to Him. Namely, the house, the grounds, the library. In the grounds there was this lake, the water was always perfectly still, no birds, no fish, my husband didn't like wildlife. Beside the lake, the side furthest from the house, there was a huge weeping willow, its branches always fluttered so delicately in the breeze. On a good summers day, when the sun was at its peak, the light would reflect perfectly off the lake's surface, the water would shine like molten gold. I loved that view.

My husband would rarely leave me on my own, even when He was busy, one of His employees was always on my back, making sure I didn't get up to anything. Occasionally though, I managed to give them the slip and got some time to myself. The day after the dog fight was one of those occasions.

It was gone noon and my husband was still in bed. He had overindulged the previous evening and was suffering for it. So, I decided to take a book and sit by the lake. The sun was bright, as it often, irritatingly, tends to be, so I took my favourite spot, in the shade of the willow tree, and looked out across the landscape I loved, that belonged to the man I hated.

"Beautiful view." I remember my dead heart nearly started again when I heard his voice behind me.

"Mr. Yorke. You startled me."

"Actually, it's Sir Henry" he said looking a little bit annoyed "but you can call me Hal."

"My apologies." I replied. He was watching me, with that same look he had had at the dog fight. I realised that this was the first time I had been alone with a man, other than my husband, in fifteen years. I tried to make nervous small talk. "You're right, it is a beautiful view."

"I wasn't talking about the lake." He said, moving a little closer, a smile playing on his lips. I felt myself blush. I composed myself and stood up, realising that he was now very close.

"Sir Henry, you do realise that I'm married." I said, a little nervously. It was not myself I was nervous for, it was him. God only knows what my husband would do if He found out about this. I took a step back but Hal stepped simultaneously towards me.

"I organised the entertainment for your anniversary, of course I know you're married, but that doesn't stop me looking."

"It stops most people." I said, still moving back.

"Then they are fools, or blind to ignore such beauty." My back hit the trunk of the willow.

"Sir Henry, are you trying to seduce me?" I asked, with as much confidence as I could muster. I knew what he was doing, and why. I had finally put a name to the look that he had in his eye. It was ambition.

"That depends, is it working?" He asked, leaning closer.

"No." I said, pushing past him and putting a good few yards distance between us.

"Pity." Hal sighed and turned to leave before glancing back. "Your husband's a very lucky man, you must love him very much to remain so faithful."

I remember watching him walk back to the house and realising that no one had ever spoken to me like that before. With my husband I was an object, a neck, but with Hal it was like I was actually there. It didn't matter that he was doing it for selfish reasons, he saw me, it was about me. I was letting my one chance of having the fairy tale that everyone thought I had just walk away.

"Hal, wait." I called. He spun around, that crooked, arrogant smile on his face. He'd expected me to call him back.

It was sunset. I was shivering. I struggled to put my dress back on whilst keeping one hand clamped firmly around my neck, trying to stop the blood flow, waiting for it to heal. I felt miserable. No matter what had happened before, it had still ended the same way as it did with my husband: me having my throat ripped out. There was no such thing as a fairy tale, not for creatures such as I.

I struggled for a while, one-handedly, with the lacing on the back of my gown before I felt Hal's hands takeover. My now free hand joined the other at my neck. Hal noticed.

"I'm sorry. Beautiful women tend to do that to me." An apology? This was new, it still didn't excuse him though.

"It's fine." I murmured. "I'm used to it."

Hal paused in the act of lacing up my gown, a confused look crossed his handsome features. "Used to it? Surely Lord Lanrete doesn't… but I thought-"

"You thought he loved me." I finished. "You thought that we had a fairy tale relationship, that, somehow, I was the power behind the throne and that by sleeping with me you could sneak your way to the top." I had known from the beginning, since I had seen the ambition in his eyes, it was quite funny really. "My apologies, Hal, but you are sadly mistaken. To my husband, I am nothing but a possession, an object, a trophy, something to look pretty and to parade in front of people that He wants to impress. I have no more influence in this place than that lake."

Hal's face was a picture, you could almost see the cogs turning. "You used me." he said, finally.

"Isn't that what you were going to do to me?" I got up, picked up my book and went to make my way back towards the house, hoping that my absence had gone unnoticed, when suddenly an idea came to me.

"Oh, Hal" I said, turning around, copying his previously used arrogant smile onto my own face. "About me being a possession, well, my husband doesn't like other people touching His things. It would be... catastrophic for you if he ever found out about this."

There it was. Blackmail. At the time I couldn't believe that I had actually had the courage to do it. I can still remember the mixture of surprise, anger and fear that flooded Hal's face. I didn't feel sorry for him, he'd got what he deserved. For the first time in my life, I had just a tiny bit of power. I didn't know what to do with it yet but it was a taste. And it felt good.

Sometimes I regret what I did that day more than any other.

Thanks for reading, hopefully the next chapter will be up sooner.

*Puts tea towel on head and performs Annie and Regus type ceremony to ward off writers block*

"For wise he is but can he seldom know, Caecillius est in horto, Carpe diem, veni, vidi, vichi, et tu Brutae, Dolchae Gobanae, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever, Amen!"

Reviews very welcome :)