Chapter 9: Testing Times
Sorry again for the wait between updates. This is the penultimate chapter, so I wanted to write it in conjunction with the finale so that I felt I was happy with both. Thanks again to all the readers and reveiwers, in particular shoepigeon, whimsyfox, TJ, saemay and fifi! Chapter 10 coming very soon... Enjoy! x
Disclaimer: I don't own Being Human, and I don't wish I did because it wouldn't be anywhere near as good as it is, and it would get cancelled when I made sure Damien Molony was in every scene!
"I'm going to the funeral." Alex stated matter-of-factly over breakfast the next morning. Hal and Tom looked up at her for a moment, then carried as normal.
"Alright." Hal answered, as if the idea of a ghost going to her own funeral was the most normal thing in the world. Bethan glanced up at him before realising that he must be talking to Alex and getting back to her breakfast.
"What? No persuading me not to go? No disapproving look?" Alex frowned at him, slightly disappointed at the lack of reaction.
"No need. We're going with you." Tom answered for him, smiling at the ghost.
"What, no! You can't."
"Why not? If you want to go on your own that's fine, but we thought you might want some company." Tom explained.
"You've already discussed this?"
"Of course we have. We had a feeling you'd want to go." Hal responded without looking up from the paper he was reading.
"But... You can't go. What about your jobs?"
"Already took the time off."
"So, let me get this straight. You're prepared to sit in a car and drive the four-hundred odd miles to Edinburgh for seven hours, all for me?"
"That's about the gist of it." Hal answered.
"That's... that's really lovely. But I can't ask you to do that." She shook her head at them and looked down at the buttons on her jacket, fiddling with one nervously.
"Well that's alright then because you're not asking, we're telling you we're doing it." Tom grinned at her.
"Why?"
"Because you're our mate and we love you. And because we know why you're really going. Well, Hal knew, but then he told me so now I know as well."
"And why's that exactly?"
"It's one last chance to see if your door comes." Hal looked up at her seriously. She opened her mouth to deny it, but after opening and closing it like a goldfish a few times, she sighed and came to sit with them at the table.
"Ok, you're right."
"I know. I'm always right." He smiled at her smugly. She stuck her tongue out at him.
"But how can you go? I mean, Tom can't come with me on his own because that leaves you and Bethan alone together in the house, you can't come with me or your own because if my door does come you'll have to drive back on your own and God help the population of northern England if you get peckish. And you can't both come with me because then Bethan will be left on her own here and Rook might get her." Alex rushed.
"It's all taken care of." Hal answered calmly.
"What does that mean?"
"We might have asked Bethan if she would also take the time off work so that she could come with us."
"You what?! So you're all going now? That's absurd. And so, so nice." She finished with a slight smile.
"Well we couldn't leave you to go through your door on your own could we? If it comes I mean." Tom beamed at her.
"So you're all coming to Scotland with me?"
"Yup."
"Hang on, but isn't it your time of the month on the Tuesday night?" she asked Tom worriedly.
"Yea, it'll be fine. We'll be back home by then and even if we wasn't, I could do my thing in the Highlands or something. Stop worrying Alex, we're going with you and that's final."
Five days and one five AM start later, Tom was feeling a little less cheerful about the situation. He had always been pretty good at getting up early while he had lived in the woods with McNair. Living in a house with a real bed and central heating had soon put paid to that. He yawned sleepily and lay back in his seat. Hal rolled his eyes.
"You're not even driving. Honestly, the youth of today."
"Bethan's asleep and you're not telling her off." Tom sulked.
"Bethan is entitled to sleep, she's driving the second half of the journey."
"Wait, we're stopping somewhere? I thought you said that motorway services were evil? And they're on the left, I didn't think you could stop on the left?"
"Yes, we're stopping, just before Preston. And it's a motorway Tom, all of the stops are on the left." Hal answered dryly.
"You know, it's times like these I wish I could rentaghost with living things. That would make the journey go quicker." Alex sighed from the back. "Hey you know what else would make the journey go quicker Hal? If you would drive faster. Mind you, I have to admit, I am impressed at your pedal control. You've actually managed to keep us at exactly sixty-six miles-per-hour for a good seventy miles now."
"It's the optimal speed for fuel consumption." Hal replied through gritted teeth.
"Yea yea, you keep telling yourself that." Alex muttered.
When they eventually stopped at the motorway services, Tom made sure he was alert. Hal was much better now, but it paid to be careful. It would be a devastating blow for them all if he slipped up now after all the work they had put in rehabilitating him. He had been relieved to find that the vampire only wanted some fresh air, citing a trip inside the services as "a fate worse than death". Alex stayed with him in the car park while Tom and Bethan went inside.
"What's so bad about service stations?" she asked him amusedly.
"People." he said simply.
"You know you're a proper moody old sod."
"I try my best." He smiled sarcastically at her.
When the time came to get back into the car, Hal was hesitant to surrender the driver's seat to Bethan.
"Oh Hal, don't be such a misogynist. Women can drive just as well as men can." Alex huffed at him, folding her arms.
"Firstly, congratulations on your use of such a big word, and secondly, it's not because she's a woman, it's because she's not me." He glared at the ghost.
"And boy can we all be thankful for that. One of you is more than enough." She shot back.
"You're really not helping." Hal sighed. He opened the door for Bethan, who was trying very hard not to laugh at the half of the conversation she could hear. He walked around the back of the car to the seat behind the front passenger. They had decided that keeping him as far away from Bethan's neck as possible was a priority, so Tom had given up his seat in the front of the car to sit behind Bethan, making sure that Hal couldn't reach her if things got heated. Not that the vampire anticipated that. If he had, he would have called the whole journey off, knowing very well that Tom wouldn't be able to stop him in time if he really wanted to attack her.
As they crossed the border into Scotland and drew ever closer to Edinburgh, their chatter and good-natured teasing died down. Alex stared out of the window silently as she began to recognise places she had visited all her life. She smiled at the familiar sight of the Pentland Hills, where her Grandfather had taken her and her brothers out walking years ago, before his arthritis had got too bad to manage the steep inclines. They passed the cinema she and her friends had visited often during her teenage years, the wall outside the local supermarket where she'd had her first proper kiss, and her old secondary school. She had heard the expression that your life flashed before your eyes when you died, but even she could see the irony in that statement in this situation.
Finally, they pulled up outside a stone church on a quiet suburban street. Alex sat in still silence, staring at it for a few moments.
"My Mum and Dad got married here. When she died, this is where her service was held. And now it's my turn." She told them emptily. She rentaghosted outside and stood at the black cast-iron railings that bordered the church, resting her chin between two of the blunted spikes in the fence. The others followed her, standing at the railings with her as black-clad mourners filtered through a gate on the other side of the church yard.
"Should we go in? It looks like it's going to start soon." Tom asked quietly.
"I'm not going in. It's weird, but it feels like I'm not really welcome. Funerals aren't really for the person who died, they're for the people who are left behind to say goodbye. And I know I'm still here, kind of like I've been left behind, but it feels wrong intruding on their goodbyes. I don't want to see that. I want to remember all the times we had together while I was alive, not their sadness that I'm gone. Does that sound stupid?" Alex turned to look at them searchingly.
"Not at all. It makes perfect sense." Hal smiled sadly at her. It was almost a mirror image of the look he had given her at the bottom of the basement stairs in the nightclub, when she had finally accepted that she was dead. She thought it seemed strangely appropriate that he would give her that look again now. Before he had time to react, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into a tight hug. He stiffened for a moment, but relaxed faster than she had anticipated, wrapping his arms loosely around her waist in his own uncomfortable effort to return the hug. It made her smile, to think how different he was now to when they had first strapped him to the chair.
Much of her initial impression of him had come from Tom, and during his worst days of rehab, she had doubted the werewolf's assurances that he was "a nice bloke really". As he had got steadily better and more lucid, the Hal she had seen trying to save the world, the real Hal as they liked to call him, had grown stronger and stronger. They might argue all the time, and he might be uptight and posh and irritating beyond belief, but she had to admit, for all that had happened to him in his life, he had one of the biggest hearts of anyone she had ever met.
She swiftly released him from the embrace, knowing that he was only really hiding his deep-seated discomfort from her as an act of kindness. He stepped back and smoothed down his clothes involuntarily, looking away awkwardly. He might be relaxing around them slowly, but showing affection, especially physically, still embarrassed him a great deal. She smiled again at that.
"When they come out I'll follow them, but for now there's someone I want to see first. She led them through an iron gate to the side of the church, walking through the cemetery as if she knew exactly where she was going. The reason soon became apparent.
"Hi Mum." Alex said sadly, kneeling down infront of the familiar headstone. "So this is kind of a bummer. I thought I might get to see you again when I died, but it seems like I'll have to wait a bit longer for that. Anyway, if you can hear me wherever you are, I hope you're alright, and that you're not worried about me. I've got my best mates to look after me." She brushed a hand over the stone affectionately. "And if we do get to do any of that watching over people stuff they talk about when we reach the other side, please just make sure Dad and the boys are alright. They deserve some happiness for a change."
A little while later, after the church had emptied, Hal, Tom and Bethan watched on from a safe distance as Alex stood with her family while they buried her. One by one the mourners left the graveside, until eventually just her father and her two eldest brothers were left. She watched as he put his arms around the two teenager's shoulders, holding them close as if he were afraid he might lose them too.
"Love you sweetheart." He said quietly, before leading the boys away still holding onto them.
Once they were gone, Hal, Tom and Bethan made their way over to her. Hal was surprised by just how tranquil she looked.
"Are you alright?" he asked gingerly.
"Yea. Yea I think I am." She smiled sadly. "They'll be alright, they've got each other. And I've got you guys. Thanks again for coming. It would have been really hard if I'd been on my own."
"Your door didn't come then." Tom pointed out, trying to hide his relief.
"Apparently not. So I guess we really are back to square one on the whole unfinished business thing. Oh well. I suppose I'll just have to start facing up to spending an eternity with you Hal." She gave the vampire a half-hearted smirk, the events of the day still raw. "It's alright though. I don't think I was really ready to go anyway. Come on. Let's go."
With Hal in the driving seat once more, they made their way out of the city and back into the open, undulating hills of the Scottish countryside. After getting lost twice they finally found the isolated stone cottage they had rented for the night. Hal hadn't been comfortable with the idea of staying in a hotel, thinking that the close proximity to all those human guests might just be too much to take, but he had conceded that fourteen hours in the car in one day was unlikely to help his mood either. They had settled for a holiday cottage as a solution to the problem of the vampire being too close to any unsuspecting humans, and as it was still low season and they'd booked late, it had been a fairly cheap and cheerful reminder of home.
"I was thinking I might stay up here for a few days. You know, just to say goodbye to the place, make sure my dad and my brothers are getting on alright. Maybe check in on a few friends. What do you think?" Alex asked over dinner. Hal looked up, a tinge of worry visible in the set of his mouth.
"If you feel you need to, we can't stop you. Nor should we." He said oddly formally. Alex frowned, wondering why he was nervous about the idea.
"Stop her from what?" Bethan asked from across the table.
"From stopping here for a bit. You will come back home won't you? I mean, home in Barry." Tom asked unsurely.
"Of course I will! Don't be daft Tom, you can't get rid of me that easily." The ghost smiled at him.
As evening drew in, they settled in the snug little living room infront of the TV. Tom made a show of getting a fire going in the wide hearth, happily reliving memories of his experiences growing up in the woods with McNair. Hal busied himself with a newspaper crossword, while Alex and Bethan sat engrossed when an old murder mystery drama started on the television, both attempting to guess who would be revealed as the killer, both getting it completely wrong.
Towards the end of the programme, Hal glanced up at Bethan. She was curled up in her armchair on the other side of the room, head leant back and eyes closed. He tried very hard not to stare at her openly exposed neck, her throbbing pulse just visible beneath the skin. He frowned and got back to his crossword, disappointed in himself for not looking away sooner.
His fleeting glance did not go unnoticed. Alex smirked and scooted closer to Tom on the sofa, whispering in his ear and hoping Hal didn't notice. Tom looked at her confusedly but eventually nodded.
"Night then. See you in the morning." Tom said quietly, standing up and leaving the room hastily. Hal looked up for a moment, but dismissed his friend's slightly odd behaviour without a second thought. In the doorway, Tom turned and silently mouthed "be careful" to Alex. She waved him away dismissively, and with a frown he padded away down the short corridor and up the narrow staircase to his bedroom. With two bedrooms on the first floor and one on the ground, it had seemed appropriate that the boys should have the upstairs rooms while Bethan slept downstairs. When they had looked into booking the cottage, Hal had insisted that he be at least a floor away from her during the night, as apart from the bathroom, the internal doors had no locks. Alex wasn't quite so distrusting. Caution was one thing, but she couldn't shake the feeling that it was just becoming part of his new routine.
"Well, it's getting late. Oh, look Hal. Bethan's fallen asleep. You'll have to carry her to her room." Alex smirked at him, seeing no point in trying to cover up what she was doing. He would only guess anyway. Hal barely moved, shifting his eyes up to hers and raising an eyebrow.
"So that's why Tom was in such a hurry to leave. Well you can just go and get him and tell him to do it, seeing as he won't rip her throat out if he goes near her."
"You're not going to do that." Alex sighed.
"Well frankly, I don't think it's worth the risk. If there's blood everywhere, we'll void the deposit on this place." He said dryly, looking back at his newspaper and resting the end of his pen on his pursed lips, pretending to be deep in thought.
"If you're in a good enough mood to make jokes, you're in a good enough mood to at least try. You're holding yourself back Hal. You can't play it safe forever."
"A week ago I almost killed her. What makes you think this will be any different?" he asked disinterestedly.
"Well for starters she's wearing more than just a towel this time. I'm not sure I've ever seen so little flesh on show on one person." She nodded to indicate Bethan's thick pyjamas, dressing gown and the blanket that was draped over her.
"It's not about what she's wearing, it's about not getting into a situation where I might not be able to control myself."
"You could at least try. You can't hide away forever. And besides, she might be staying with us for a long time yet, and you can't keep this up forever. You need to push your boundaries, otherwise you'll never know if you're really safe or not."
"And you want to use her as a test subject?"
"I'm here, nothing's going to happen to her. I'll follow you to her room and if I see you vamp out I'll rentaghost you to Antarctica or something, and you'll only have polar bears and penguins for company. Now get over there, pick her up and put her in bed."
"There are no polar bears in Antarctica, they live in the Arctic." He answered tediously.
"Shut up smart arse. Well? Are you going to do it?"
"We should just wake her up. Let her walk to her room by herself. What do you think will happen if she wakes up while I've got hold of her? She's going to be terrified."
"She won't wake up, trust me. She sleeps like the dead. She fell asleep on the sofa a few weeks ago, I accidently knocked one of the bar stools over right near where her head was, she didn't stir. Didn't even make a sound. Seriously, watch." Alex picked up the remote control from the arm of the sofa and dropped it on to the floor infront of the arm chair. It hit the wooden boards with a loud smack, but the sleeping girl didn't even flinch. "See." She grinned at him. He sighed.
"This is wrong Alex. I don't have any right to touch her, it's not gentlemanly."
"Get with the century Mr Darcy. I'm not asking you to do anything dodgy with her. You're putting her to bed, you don't need to ask for her hand in marriage in the morning. Come on Hal, for me, please? It's been a really rough week, it'd be nice if something good came out of it."
"You're stooping to emotional blackmail now? Low Alex, very low."
"Only because you know it's working. Go on, go. Move it." She grinned as she held out her hand. The pen he'd been holding flew into it with ease, making Hal start. He shook his head irritably but stood nonetheless. Alex watched with bated breath as he stepped hesitantly towards Bethan. He faltered for a moment, turning back to Alex anxiously. "Go on." She encouraged.
Sighing defeatedly, he bent down and slid his arms carefully under her flushing at the sudden contact. He lifted her slowly so as not to wake her, in case Alex was wrong about her being a heavy sleeper, before turning to leave the room, blanket trailing along the ground after him. He could hear Alex following him down the hallway, and he was sure he could all but feel the smug grin that he knew was spread across her face. He stared directly ahead, not allowing himself to catch sight of Bethan's neck.
Reaching the bedroom, he tapped the door open with his foot and laid her gently on the bed. As he slipped his arms from under her his gaze fell on that perfect, succulent, pulsating patch of skin just over the top of her jugular. In the dim light spilling in from the hallway, her skin was a beautiful mixture of cream and warm pink, and despite spending seven hours in a car earlier in the day, she smelt wonderful. He blinked and swallowed, making himself turn away and walk past Alex through the door back towards the lounge. She smiled brightly at him as came towards her. She folded the blanket over Bethan's still sleeping form and shut the door, before making her own way back to the living room.
"See. I bloody knew you could do it!" She beamed.
"It was still a struggle."
"She's still alive. And I didn't have to take you to the Antarctic after all. Win win!"
"Yes." He admitted, giving in finally. "And on that note, I really can't take any more of you being full of yourself for tonight. I'm going to bed. Goodnight." He headed out of the room again and up the stairs, without a second look at Bethan's bedroom door. As he undressed for bed, he realised that Alex may well have been right. Perhaps he had just needed to push himself.
Small steps, he reminded himself, climbing into bed. It didn't stop him from smiling though. For the first time in a while, Hal really felt as though he could start trusting himself again.