"Shut up. Please." Daniel rested his forehead against the coolness of the bars in the door.

"I will not, sir." The woman was terrified, but hiding it admirably. The reason for her strength was peeking out from her skirts. Such a thin, ratty face, the girl had. It reminded Daniel of someone, if only he could think around the blinding headache. "I want to know," She took a breath. "I demand to know what has happened to my husband."

"And I have let you know a hundred times before that he is in audience with the baron and his men."

"For what are we being held? What possible reason could the lord of Brennenberg have with us?"

"Baron Alexander has need of your services and seeing as how the residents of Altstadt have always eagerly waited upon the lords of Brennenberg, you won't begrudge him your time."

"You're wrong." The child spoke up for the first time. Daniel's eyes opened and he frowned down at the wretch.

"You are not loyal to your baron?"

"Hush, Sascha."

"But mother, he's wrong. There are no lords of Brennenberg. There's just the one, there's always been just the one. All the children in the village say so."

Daniel burst out laughing. "You think him something akin to one of those Romanian demons, a vampire? He is flesh and blood, I assure you."

"That may be sir, but he's no mortal man. He's lived centuries."

"Sascha!"

"Sascha, is it? I am weary of children's tales. I shall leave you for the night. Please enjoy the accommodations."

"Sir, where are my brothers? Sir?" Her mother hushed her, crouched down and smothered the child's face into her ample bosom.

Daniel walked away, rubbing at his temple. The headache had been brewing since they had started out for the settlement. It was escalating into a maelstrom of pain. He needed to lie down. He needed to drink some laudanum and maybe rest his cheek on Alexander's knee, have the old man stroke his hair and hum one of those strange songs he knew until Daniel drifted off to sleep. He needed Alexander. Alexander made everything right.

A thought struck him and he paused in mid-step. Whirling around, he retraced his path and thumped on the door. "Why are you speaking to me in English?"

The woman was now seated on the bed, her daughter resting in her lap. "Pardon?"

"English. How could a peasant family in the backwaters of Prussia know the Queen's tongue?"

The woman studied him with her flat black eyes for a long moment. "I have no knowledge of your tongue, nor do my husband and my children."

"But just now, right now, you speak it!"

"We are speaking German." She said it slow, as if gauging how each word would affect him before letting it drop from her lips.

"I do not know German, madam, and I understand you perfectly and you, me!"

"You are also speaking German. For someone who claims not to speak it, I had thought you a native."

Daniel pulled away from the door as if burned. "This is impossible! I-" But wasn't it strange, now that he thought of it, that all of the prisoners had pled for their lives in English, that he had understood each and every curse, cry and entreaty that had been uttered by them. Most of them with little more intelligence than the common cur you'd find in the gutter. There was no way that such an element could be bilingual, no conceivable way that Daniel could understand them.

His head was agony. Alexander. He needed Alexander now. He tried to run, but stumbled over his own feet. He fell, but was able to catch himself before he knees met the floor. Keeping a hand on the wall, he stumbled towards the ascension room chamber. The stones were slick with slime under his fingers and the torches seemed to be darkening before his eyes. He took a breath, held it, and released it slowly. It wouldn't do to hyperventilate. The lights weren't dimming, the stones were not running with blood, and there was no way he had suddenly sprouted a knowledge of a language he had had no use for before he stumbled upon an accursed orb in the desert.

He rounded a corner, fingers skimming the wood of a sign. The kitchens for the prison. He was close to the chamber, close to being reunited with Alexander, and everything was going to be all- A hulking shape took form from the gloom and he cried out, shrank against the wall. No, there was no need for alarm. It was one of Alexander's men, just one of the ones that policed the prisoners. Maybe the man could aid him. All Daniel needed was some assistance to the elevator; his legs seemed to not want to cooperate.

"Please, my good man-" The shape turned at the sound of his voice and Daniel saw his…its… face. He screamed, or tried too. His voice seemed to have become tangled in his throat and all that would come out was a rusty sounding whine. The thing took a step towards him, an arm extended. It didn't seem to have a hand, just long talons jammed into the raw flesh of a bloodied stump. The world then became very dark and wavy before his eyes. Blessedly it all seemed to fall away and the floor rose up to meet him.

Daniel woke up and screamed. He had no trouble getting out the cry this time. He scrambled backward and his back smacked into something hard and unyielding. Stone? No, wood. And his fingers weren't scratching at the rocks of the prison floor but were tangling in sheets. Bed, he was in bed. Alexander's bed. And it wasn't an eldritch horror in the doorway reaching out for him, but his friend, face almost unrecognizable twisted as it was with concern. He had made him worried. Daniel hadn't meant to make him worry. He tried to tell him so, but all that would come out was a small sob.

Alexander was seated by him in a moment, arms around him, gently guiding his face until it was buried in the stiff fabric of his coat. Daniel gave into the horror he had felt down in the darkness. Tried to let it run its course with each sob and tremble and all the while Alexander murmured soothing platitudes and stroked his hair. "I was so scared." He kept repeating.

"There's nothing for you to fear here." Alexander gently responded each time.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour, he had cried himself out. He kept pressed to Alexander though, ear against the other man's heart, letting the steady and strong rhythm assure him that this was the reality and the prisons were the dream, albeit a horrible one. "I think I'm ill." He confessed in a whisper.

"You do seem feverish." Alexander's cool fingers rested against his forehead. Daniel leaned into them.

"I was in the prison and I saw… That is I thought I was speaking…" He held the baron closer to him. This was what was real, this man and his promises and…

"Daniel, I told you not to go down there anymore without me. What did you see? Did our…guests upset you?"

Those blessedly cool fingers were now in his hair, scratching his scalp lightly, combing through the tangled strands oh so carefully. "Them? No, why would they upset me?" The fingers paused. "Maybe she did upset me a little." Alexander resumed his petting. "What language am I speaking?"

"English."

"And you?"

"English as well."

"I could understand them. They speak naught but German, yet I understood them and they me." Daniel pulled away. "How is that possible?" Tears sprang to his eyes again and his hands shook as they clutched Alexander like a life line.

Alexander blinked, seemingly stunned. "Psychic bleed through." He muttered

"Pardon?"

"Nothing to concern yourself with. I am sure you were mistaken. You've been under a great amount of stress of late."

"Nothing to concern myself with?" Daniel's voice grew shrill. "How can you say such things? I feel as if I am going mad and yet you tell me… I saw, I thought I saw…" He closed his eyes and clutched his head, tugged at his hair until Alexander pulled him into his lap, restrained him.

"Hush, darling, hush. What did you see?"

"A horror." He shook his head, tried to banish the image that he felt would be forever burned into his mind.

"A horror? How intriguing. Whatever did it look like?"

"You wish me to describe it? I cannot. It was…ghastly. As if every creature I had believed lurked in the darkness when I was a child had merged into one being and been given form."

Alexander's hand was shaking when he brought up Daniel's hand and pressed a kiss to the inside of his wrist, right over the point of his pulse. His lips lingered and Daniel began to grow uncomfortable, wondered if this was meant to be a soothing gesture. Alexander seemed to regain his senses, he let Daniel draw back his hand, but still refused to let it go. "You saw one of the Gatherers. One of my men in charge of the prisoners. You've seen them before."

"I would remember if one of your servants had a form such as that!"

The baron laughed. "You've met them all before, Daniel. I'm afraid the stress has quite gotten to you. It was he, the one who gave you such a fright that brought you up to me. Hardly the act of a monstrous abomination."

"It wasn't real? It was all in my head?" Daniel didn't know whether to be relieved that it had been another of his delusions or mortified that his mind was decaying so.

"A trick of the mind and of the laudanum. Drugs can be quite cruel with their effects. I've warned you of this before."

"Yes. You did. I…" He hid his face with his hands. "I want to sleep, I think."

"That would be for the best, as would forgoing your usual nightly tonic."

"Yes, I am in agreement with that. Could I have some warm milk though? Maybe with a shot of brandy?"

"Anything you desire."

After sipping his milk, Daniel let Alexander tuck him in. "I want this to be over. I want this all to be over."

"And it will be and soon, Daniel. Patience."

"Don't leave me."

Alexander settled against him, an arm pushing under his body to wrap around his chest, hands clasped over his heart. Daniel placed a hand over Alexander's and let the other curl by his cheek. "You never have to fear that. Ever."

"Are you smiling?"

"Why would you think such a thing?"

"You just seem like you are. You seem happy."

"You're tired. Sleep. I will entertain our guests tomorrow and you may rest. I have some books on archaeological findings in Greece that I think you might find entertaining."

But Daniel was already asleep.

Alexander couldn't restrain himself any longer. He kissed the nape of Daniel's neck, wished the boy had fallen asleep facing him so he could cover his face with kisses. It was working. After so long with no clear results, he finally had his proof that the rituals were working. Daniel was his or near to it. Psychic bleed through, gleaning knowledge from Alexander's mind and not even realizing it, the little scamp. And the Gatherer. The glamour he placed on his servants should have held up to the scrutiny of any human, no matter what their mental duress. But Daniel had seen it for what it was, what it really was. His little Daniel was losing his humanity at long, long last. Now Alexander could focus on getting the portal open and them through it before the Shadow came a-calling for his pretty lover.

He closed his eyes and let Daniel's steady breathing lull him into a doze. He entertained himself with planning the renovations he would have to do now that he finally had a consort. Technically, Daniel should be housed in the pleasure quarters for form's sake, at least for the first few years, but those were too far from his own chambers to be satisfactory. His chambers were a bit…traditional and hadn't been changed since his grandfather's time. No, Daniel wouldn't like them at all, he'd find them dreary, alarming even. His mother's rooms hadn't been used since she had died. Propriety stated they shouldn't be used until their union was over its first decade, but no one would dare look askance at them in his presence. Tongues would wag at him for instilling his other worldly prize in those rooms and they would wag even further when it leaked out, as such things always did, that Alexander was shunning his own chambers to dwell with his love. Ah well, let them talk. He had never paid such matters heed before his exile and he was not about to start. He let himself drift towards full sleep. It really was almost over. The happy ending to their little macabre fairytale was within reach at last. He smiled in the darkness.

Thank you, as always, for all the reviews! I am really excited that the end is almost in sight! This is the longest fic I have ever worked on and all the positive responses have given me the motivation to carry on with it. And don't worry, once this one is wrapped up, I have several other new Amnesia tales in the works!