Hello everyone! Long time, no write! :( Sorry about that, I have been very busy in RL and somewhat lost my flow. Massive thank you to Funsoup who helped me get it back with her amazing reviews on Haunting Hal!

So, now I've got my flow back, I found it a little difficult to turn off and have therefore given you a pretty long chapter today, hopefully it will make up for the lack of one for so long.

This chapter had a LOT of crossing over with Haunting Hal. Its not so much that you have to read Haunting Hal to understand it but some parts of this chapter, you will already have known about. (there is even one scene that you have already read, from someone else's POV, i sneaked it into Haunting Hal, I wonder if anyone can spot where it is?)

Thanks to 0positiv, CamillaVirgil, MissPinderx, Brookesey, Paperclaire and Funsoup for the reviews.

Thanks to anyone who has added me to their author/story favorites/alerts.

I don't own Being Human.

Enjoy x

UPDATE: Thanks to a suggestion from CamillaVirgil I have decided to put links to any corresponding 'Haunting Hal' chapters at the end of chapters of 'I Do; that have any crossing over.

Part 3: The Good Part.

I do believe that I am actually rather enjoying this now, recounting my past. At first I thought it would just give me something else to think about, give me a distraction, but now it appears to be becoming rather fun. I would be the first to admit that my past hasn't exactly been what you would call happy but amongst the bad times there are a few gems, beautiful moments that I will treasure always and the greatest of them all was just about to happen.

The 7th of October 1609. I don't know what it was that made me finally snap, the day went just like any other. I don't think anyone could have seen it coming, I certainly didn't, I'm glad it did though.

My husband was having a leisurely evening drinking and playing cards with some of His friends: recruits and advisors who were all just after a bit of His power, He didn't have any real friends. I was playing my part, as always, perched on His lap, looking pretty and trying desperately to ignore His wandering hands.

As the evening progressed the party (and myself) got steadily more and more drunk. My husband had won every game, His friends weren't going to let Him lose and the more He won, the more He drunk and the more He drunk, the more His hands wandered and the more they wandered, the more I had to drink to ignore it. It was a relief, if not altogether a surprise when the decanters finally ran dry and I was sent down to the cellar to fill them up again. He liked doing that. It was technically a servants job but He always had me do it. In order to fill up the decanters I would have to kill and it was like a constant reminder that He had won.

With surprisingly good balance, given the state that I was in, I made my way, carrying the decanters and the small silver knife that was used for such purposes, down to the cellar.

The cellar was split into two parts, there was the larger part, where the humans were kept and a smaller room branching off (so that you had to walk through the human room to get to it) that played home to the werewolves. The room hadn't always been there but since Hal and his recruit had moved in, my husband had decided that it was a necessity.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, Hal had remained in London after the anniversary party. My husband had been very impressed with the dog fight and had decided he wanted one every month. Hal's first attempt at gaining power quickly had failed but he was resourceful and, slowly but surely, he was working his way up. We didn't speak of the incident under the willow tree. He was still completely mortified that a woman had got the better of him and I was still pondering what to use my newfound power for. He was doing everything in his power to make sure that I didn't have the chance to think of something. He would never allow himself to be alone with me, and on those moments when he was forced to be in the same room, he would never make eye contact. It was like he was afraid of me, afraid of someone having power over him. It was hilarious and made bumping into him in the human cellar that night a very strange experience indeed.

I had just stepped into the room and was just squinting around in the dim light looking for my… victim, when the door to the werewolf room opened and Hal appeared. He didn't notice me at first, he was busy making sure that the door to the werewolf room was securely locked. Only he had the key, he didn't trust anyone else, they might try and fix the fights and he couldn't have that, it would spoil his reputation. It did mean, however, that he had to make sure that the werewolves were fed and ready for the next full moon.

The look on his face when he span around and saw me was truly something. He composed himself quickly, although I could tell that he was looking for an escape, an escape that he wasn't going to get without talking to me because I had positioned myself, rather cunningly, between him and the exit.

"Lady Lanrete, what are you doing down here?"

"They've run out of drinks upstairs." I replied holding up the decanters and knife.

"Oh, I trust you are enjoying yourself?"

"They are."

"Well, I wouldn't want to deny them their drinks any longer, if you would excuse me."

I let him pass, only because I couldn't think of anything else to say to detain him further and I knew that my husband would be impatient. I placed the decanters on the floor, picked a victim at random and began to approach them. But then a thought entered my head. A thought that had come completely out of nowhere. A wonderful, terrifying thought.

I dashed towards the exit and called after Hal. At first he tried to ignore me but after I had called him four times, he couldn't pretend any longer.

"My Lady?" He said, turning around and trying to pretend that it was the first time he had heard me.

"Might I ask a favour?" I asked.

"Of course." He said, but his smile tightened, he was dreading what I was about to say.

"May I borrow your keys?"

"My keys?"

"Yes, the ones to the werewolf cell."

He laughed, then realised that I was serious. "I'm sorry, My Lady, I can't."

"Oh, that's quite alright. I'll just go and get the drinks and take them upstairs then. I'll probably have a few more myself. Though I do tend to talk a considerable amount when I have been drinking, God only knows what might slip out."

Any trace of laughter then vanished from his face. He stared at me for a moment, trying to figure out if I was bluffing or not. My face remained firm, I really did enjoy myself that night and he knew it, and hated me for it. When he spoke, it was with a sort of… resignation to his voice.

"Alright but I don't want to know what you want them for, I want no part of it, if anyone asks, you stole them, is that clear?"

"Crystal." I replied, holding out my hand for the keys.

My hands shook as I carried the decanters back up the stairs. It was partially due to the fact that they were so much heavier now that they were full, partially due to nerves and partially because my hands and arms really, really hurt at that particular moment in time.

When I re-entered the room, my husband asked me what had taken me so long, I told him that I was cold and had gone to put on my gloves, a rather well thought up lie, if I do say so myself. The gloves were a necessity but not because I was cold.

I poured the drinks and he pulled me back onto his lap.

And I waited.

And then it happened.

Almost simultaneously, my husband and his friends poured the blood down their greedy throats and burned from the inside out.

I had known for a while that werewolf blood was toxic to my kind but it was somewhat of a whispered rumor, I had never seen any proof of it, not until I felt my arms burn as a plunged the silver knife into the heart of one of the werewolves in the cellar, and collected his blood in a decanter. The scars never did heal, I always wore elbow length gloves from that day on. I still do.

I can still remember the feeling of the dust and smoke that was formerly my husband, clogging up my lungs. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world.

I did regret killing the werewolf, but it was a necessity. There were two of them down there, one, the one that I killed was Hal's champion, a strong middle aged man, probably a farm laborer. The other was a woman, sad looking, about mid-thirties, the same age as me. I told them what I wanted to do, the champion volunteered. He had spent so long in Hal's service, I think he had had enough. I let the woman escape.

Eventually, all the smoke in the room became too much so I made my way out into the corridor, shutting the door behind me and there I fell to my knees as a giddy fit of hysterics washed over me. My whole body shook and tears fell from my eyes, my head bowed and my hair falling down over my face. My arms were in agony but I didn't care. I felt numb, it was like a dream. I had just killed my husband. I didn't know what to do first.

"My Lady?" It was Hal, I didn't look up at him, I don't think I could have kept a straight face if I did. My shoulders were shaking, my breathing unsteady. "My Lady, are you alright?" He thought I was crying, that thought made me laugh even more. "My Lady?" He walked around me, towards the room that I had just left. I wasn't going to wait for his questions, I couldn't think properly, there was just one thought going round and round in my head: He was gone.

I made my way back to my room, a little more sober now, barely hearing Hal's shout of surprise behind me. I remember catching my reflection, or lack of, in the mirror, on my dresser. I had always kept it. It was a reminder, of what I was, of the last time I had ever seen myself, before all of this. I felt the same as I did back then, eighteen years ago, thinking about the end of an era. Before I died, my life was a certainty. I would get married, have children and die. I knew my future. Then I got married. It wasn't exactly what I had expected, I didn't get the children or the death but my future was still vaguely certain, it was dictated by my husband, I… I didn't have to think about it for myself, my future was whatever He wanted it to be. But, at that particular moment in time, just after He died, on the best day of my life, for the first time ever, I had no idea what I was going to do next.

"LADY LANRETE!?" It was Hal again, I knew that I was going to have to face him sooner or later. I took a deep breath and prepared myself to explain. I still felt numb. He burst through the door, he was out of breath, his eyes were wide, his face pale. "W-what just happened?" Was all he could say.

"What do you think?" In light of everything, I'm surprised I still managed to keep my sense of humor.

"Lord Lanrete, is he-?"

"He's gone." There. I said it. Out loud. It was true. I couldn't stop a ghost of my previous hysterics escaping from my mouth.

Hal merely nodded, I think he was still having difficulty believing it. "Did you do it?" He asked. I nodded. "How?"

"It's a secret." I replied. I felt the same power that I had felt after I had deceived Hal under the willow tree. He was scared of me, I could see it in his face. The full truth of what I had done finally hit me. I hadn't just killed my husband, I had killed my maker, an Old One. No one did that, no one dared. I felt… well, if I'm honest, I felt proud, like a bit of a legend.

"So what happens now?" Hal asked. And it wasn't until I was asked the question, that I knew the answer.

"I have to leave." I said quietly. That place had been my home for so long, my home and my prison. True, I did love the house but at that particular moment in time, I needed to get away. I was free, for the first time in my life, I had a chance to really live.

"You can't just go." Hal's words cut into my thoughts like a knife. "What about the house, the money, the lands, London? You are Lord Lanrete's heir, it's all yours now." He couldn't hide the bitterness in his voice. Hal's words had hit home. I hadn't thought about it, but yes, it was mine now, everything He had, all mine. The problem was, I didn't want it. I couldn't lead London, I would be no good at it and how could I be free if I was tied down with so much responsibility? Then, as if by magic, a solution presented itself.

"You have it." I said. Hal merely stared at me, open mouthed.

"What?"

"Well, not the house, and the money and the lands, I would quite like to keep those but, London, it's yours."

"You're giving me London?"

"Isn't that what you wanted? Power?"

"Yes but-"

"Then what is the problem? London needs someone to take control and I don't want to be that person. You do and you would probably be a hell of a lot better at it than me. End of conversation." I turned towards the door, picking up my rather considerably sized jewelry box on the way out.

"What are you going to do?" Hal asked and the answer was there, just like before.

"I'm going to live."

So there we go! Now that evil Lord Lanrete is dead, the story can really begin!

Hope you enjoyed, reviews very welcome :) x

UPDATE: So there is one crossover scene in this chapter and it corresponds with the beginning of Chapter 11: 'Bet' of 'Haunting Hal'

s/8040233/12/Haunting_Hal