A/N: I think this one's kinda long…very emotional, so if you like that, good, if you don't…oh well. The lyrics are kinda supposed to match what's going on. Please tell me what you think!

"You get back on the latest flight to paradise

I found out, from a note taped to the door

I think I saw your airplane in the sky tonight

Through the window, lying on the kitchen floor."

-Stars, "Heart"

I'm sitting on the thick branch of a tree in the woods near New Mayhem when Jager finds me. He smiles up at me from his position on the ground, by the roots of the tree. "Are you coming down anytime soon?" he wants to know.

I shrug. "I've only been up here a few hours." Which is true; after I left my parents' home, I went to New Jersey to feed and then came here. His eyes laugh and I realize what a relief it is not to hate him anymore. Because I don't; I am truly Elyse now, and have no reason for resentment. "You can come up if you want," I add.

He takes me up on the offer; less than a second after the words are out of my mouth, he is beside me, looking into my eyes as if he'll see something important there. "What?" I demand.

But he only shakes his head, and, after perhaps studying me for my reaction, he leans into me and kisses me. I pull away after a few moments. Not because I'm uncomfortable, but I'm feeling as if this is too much, suddenly.

"I saw my parents yesterday," I tell him casually, as if it's not a big deal. He shifts uncomfortably, a very odd action for him. Jager is never uncomfortable. "I'm not seeing them again," I continue. "That was good-bye."

"Won't they wonder where you've gone?" he queries after a few moments of silence. I wonder if he's guilty for taking me from my family. But Jager is never guilty, either.

I shake my head in answer. They never cared. But I keep that thought to myself.

He kisses my lips briefly. "Little Emmie, are you angry with me?" His voice is strangled, worried.

I stare at him, my temper bubbling up into my throat. "I am now." I want to get away from him suddenly, want his gaze to stop catching mine. I jump out of the tree, landing catlike on my feet. But Jager is close behind me. "What did I do?" His eyes have sparks of anger in them, making them glimmer like the gems they appear to be.

"Stop calling me Emmie." My teeth are gritted together and it is hard to speak clearly.

He reaches forward to finger my hair, but I jerk away. It is my turn to be moody, for once. "Elyse," he corrects himself, and I pause, "you can't erase your entire past in one week. Especially not from me. It doesn't work that way."

My eyes cloud over, becoming more grey than indigo now. "I am not Emmie. You know that. I'm not erasing my past, and I am different now. Stop reminding me of the person I hate most!" I wonder if I sound like a child, protesting against her guardian because she doesn't want to go to bed.

He takes a step back as if in surrender, but I know he's mad. When he opens his mouth to speak, I cut him off--I have nothing to lose, anyway. "So should I ask around about your past, bring it up every once in a while like you're doing to me?"

He replies by viciously lashing out at me with his power. I stumble to my knees; I've made him that mad. One thing a vampire doesn't like is to be reminded of their weak, human past. Especially one as old and powerful as Jager.

But before he can do anything else to me, I smile into his eyes and twist the remains of his power that is still mixed in mine. His gasp of pain only makes my grin widen. "Stop provoking me," I warn. "I'm strong, too. And I have no fear of you, Jager."

"Oh, this is entertaining." The sugary voice grates against my ears, and I growl, standing up but never letting my eyes leave Jager.

Fala saunters between us as if genuinely interested in our fight. But she moves towards Jager, kisses his cheek as she passes him and begins to circle us. To my surprise, he catches her wrist and pulls her to him as if it's a habit, reflex. He kisses her full on the lips.

My eyes widen with a twist of my gut. Not waiting to see anymore, I hiss silently, I hate you, and then disappear.

-vVv-

Things are falling too quickly. I'm pacing in the room of my new house, silently fuming but unwilling to go find Jager and make him explain. Why do I feel so possessive even though I can never seem to stop fighting with him? Fala annoys me to no end; how she interrupted our argument, her confident aura, her love for pain—others' pain. I spin around and slam my fist into the mirror over my dresser, watching the glass shatter, watching my skin's lacerations heal themselves in seconds. I take a deep breath and decide to go back to the night club in New Mayhem. Maybe, if I keep hold of my temper…things won't collapse again.

I love Jager. I know this. So maybe I should act like it.

When I get there, it is early morning and the club is nearly empty. No humans, only the blood-bonded bartender and a few of my kind—Moira, Aubrey, Jager, Fala, and myself. There are a couple weaker vampires, but I don't pay much attention to them. Jager is leaning against the counter, drinking from an unlabeled bottle. I grimace, a strong suspicion rising in my throat that whatever he is gulping down would kill a human. I walk up to him, trying my best to act humane, though the thought brings a smile to my lips.

"Jager—"

He parts from the bottle to stare at me, his lips sealed shut. I don't want to talk to you.

"Jager, listen to me…I'm sorry, okay? I got angry…"

Go away.

But I don't back away; in fact, I take a step closer to him so our faces are only a handful of inches apart; this moment reminds me of that night in his room, the night I came to him… "Listen to me," I breathe, absently rubbing the hand that, moments before, had met with glass.

That's when I see the hurt in his eyes. And I don't understand. He's the one that brought up my old name, that kissed Fala in front of me—

Why? he wonders. His eyes are ice and an emerald ocean at the same time, one moment angry, the next incredibly vulnerable.

Because I love you, I say desperately. Despite my promises to be logical, to try to understand him, I find myself telling him what I hadn't planned on saying now.

"Damn it, Elyse, make up your mind!" he shouts out loud suddenly. "What am I supposed to think? One moment you're screaming at me for reminding you of your days as Emmie, and the next you're saying you love me?" My chest caves in on itself at his reaction. He tosses the bottle he'd been holding behind him and it shatters somewhere behind the bar."Make up your mind," he repeats, his voice much softer now. "Sometimes I wish that I'd killed you myself that first time I tasted your blood, do you know that? I can't predict you, I can't understand you. Unless you stop this, I can't do this anymore, Elyse."

I bite my lip, forcing the anger down. He may be furious, but I won't be this time. And maybe he'll win. Maybe he doesn't want this anymore.

It doesn't matter.

I clutch at my chest, at the burning there, and he notices even though I didn't mean for him to. Elyse? What's wrong? He is confused because vampires are nearly immortal; it's not as if I'm having a heart attack.

I want to scream for him to call me Emmie. "I can't do this anymore," I echo his words, shaking my head and backing away from him when he tries to embrace me. In my distress I substitute clumsiness for a vampire's natural gracefulness, tripping against a chair. I'm grateful that at least there are no humans here, no one that can see my weakness for what it really is. I stumble and my back slams into a table, the sharp edge biting into my skin. Jager's eyes are filled with something like anger, but I know him better than that. "Leave me alone. That's my decision, okay? I don't know what I want. But…" I decide not to tell him how I hate it when he calls me Emmie, but when he doesn't, I'm practically screaming for him to stop calling me Elyse. I shake my head again, looking him straight in the eye. "Just stop." The finality in my tone, or maybe the expression on my face, must bring Jager to his senses. He nods and turns away from me, letting me go. 'Bye, I say, my voice a breath in his mind.

Hours later I am back in the club, hiding my aura and my face in the red lights, watching Jager from my corner. It is a shock to see him with Fala. Already. But I'm not angry. Only when I see him kiss her, speak to her gentler than he's ever done to me, do I feel my heart wrench. That's when I feel my walls crushing me. When I know for sure that I really did love him.

And that's when I see Moira looking at them, too. Standing along the wall, her face twisted into an expression of utter horror, but disappointment and jealousy are there in her face, too.

I turn away from the scene, my dead heart aching fiercely, as if it were starting to beat again. Only it's worse than that. I close my eyes, needing to leave, so I will myself far away, trying so hard to forget Jager, to forget Moira's face, to forget everything.

I end up in England. And I stay there for one hundred years.