A/N: We're up to episode 4 (Another Fine Mess)! Still reactionary, still Canon, and still primarily meant to look inside Mitchell's head. This one brings Annie in a bit, in her sweet and motherly way, but focuses on Mitchell's confusion about the differences between being Human and being a good person.
A Light in the Dark Makes Shadows Come Alive ~
Watching Fleur and Bernie board their train almost made Mitchell want to throw himself in front of it. He doubted it would have killed him, but it almost seemed worth it to try.
He had Turned a 12-year-old kid.
And the mother had thanked him for it.
It was disgusting on so many different levels. He'd only befriended Bernie to make himself feel better about the fact that he was and always would be a monster. He could pretend to be a human being for a while when he was with the kid.
And now Bernie was his fault.
His screw up with the DVD had sent things spiraling out of control. When Bernie had gotten hit by that car . . . that was entirely Mitchell's fault. He'd needed to save him somehow, and Turning him was all he could think of doing.
Fleur and Bernie had thanked him, thanked him.
He wondered if Bernie would still feel that way in a hundred years or when he was twelve going on two hundred, or three. How many people would Bernie kill after his mother couldn't feed him anymore? How would Bernie survive this world as a twelve year old forever?
Mitchell didn't think he could live with himself anymore.
He'd turned more than a few people over the years, but he'd sworn off. He hated it, how efficiently it ruined lives. Lauren had been a mistake, an accident. Bernie . . . had been a choice, an offer, a gift even . . . He'd 'saved' Bernie in a way. He'd put all the responsibility of the decision in Fleur's hands, letting her chose without telling her the costs.
And that's what sickened him.
It had been voluntary.
Bernie's mother had no idea what she was signing her son up for, but Mitchell had known every detail of it. And he'd still made the offer.
He was a monster.
He was the furthest thing from being human you could get. When Bernie had first gotten hit by that car, it had been because of that mob outside his house, the flailing idiocy contained in the notion that people were only human. Mitchell had wondered then about what exactly was the reason that he even wanted to be human. Humanity was sick and vile and just as awful as anything in the Dark.
Mitchell had given a mother the rest of her life to be with her little boy.
Was it really that bad? Could this vampirism thing be utilized, a virus going into save lives? Like a flu shot preventing death itself.
Herrick said it was evolution. Herrick said they could offer people a choice. Herrick said that vampires had to look after their own. Herrick said that vampires had a responsibility to each other, that they were a family of sorts, that there would always be a place for him.
Mitchell took a long swig of his whiskey, draining the glass.
His mind was in complete chaos. Nothing made any sense to him anymore.
What exactly was he? A vampire playing human? A monster in disguise? A good man who'd been cursed with a disease he couldn't shake?
If he didn't even know exactly what he was, how was he supposed to know how to decide who he was? Where did his loyalties lie if he couldn't even figure out what sort of creature or person he was? Who were his people, where did he belong?
What did any of it even matter for?
"I'm buying him another round."
Mitchell felt Clara sit down beside him. His eyes were still on his glass. He sensed the bartender give her a look.
"I'll get him home safe," she promised. "I'll just have a coke."
A silent moment passed as the bartender refilled Mitchell's whiskey and delivered a bubbly coke to Clara. She passed him enough cash to more than cover the purchase. A wink told him to keep the change as she picked up her drink and began sipping on it as she looked Mitchell over. He didn't make a move to acknowledge her or the whiskey she had bought.
"You shouldn't be here, Clara," he said after a long minute.
Clara was halfway through her coke.
"Listen, Mitchell," Clara said softly. "You don't have to tell me anything. I promise I won't ask any of the burning questions about the mob at your house, or the mother and son that just got on a train, or how you walked away from a car crash. I won't even ask how Annie's doing with her break up or how it's going for George with that nurse he fancies. Let me just see you home safely, okay?"
"Why're you doin' this, Clara?" Mitchell asked, still without looking at her. "I told you that you should steer clear of me."
"If it's about my image, I've got friends in high places to keep everything clean. I know this neighborhood thing'll blow over soon. I know that you aren't what they say you are," Clara told him. "I talked to Bernie about it."
Looking sharply up at her, Mitchell responded, "In case you haven't noticed, the people who spend time with me typically end up regretting it sorely."
"That must hurt."
"They deserved so much better."
"No, I meant it must hurt you," she clarified.
Mitchell's eyes told her that he knew, that he accepted that. That they deserved so much better was still his response, it was his acceptance of the punishment that came from existing in his world.
"John Mitchell, I need you to listen very carefully to me," Clara said quietly. "I, more than most people, stepped into your world knowing that it would have shadows and secrets and that by stepping in I would forever change who I was, that even if I ever managed to step out I would never be able to go back to who I was. I'm a writer, Mitchell. I know we all have secrets. I know how all the bad things pile up and bleed into the good, how they taint everything. I stepped into your world of shadows and secrets and things I don't understand and probably never will because that's part of what it means for me to be human."
"What're you talking about, Clara?" Mitchell asked, his voice teetering on dangerous. If Clara knew he wasn't human . . .
"Everyone's afraid of themselves, Mitchell," Clara responded. "Everyone has monsters hiding inside of them. Some are bigger and badder than others, so I'm not going to patronize you by saying I know what it's like. I'm just saying that I don't think hating yourself helps."
"What do you know about me?" Mitchell demanded. The tone he used was still that dangerous one, the sort just short of threatening. "About what I am?"
"Nothing. I know that you're an ex-junkie with a soft heart, that you're a charming playboy followed by a string of broken hearts, and I know that you have this extraordinary capacity to be kind."
"You don't know anything."
"I don't need to know anything. You're nice to me."
"That doesn't mean anything," Mitchell replied, taking a swig of the whiskey Clara had bought him. "You don't know what I've done."
"And you don't know what I've done," Clara countered. "It doesn't even really matter. Everyone you meet changes in the time you don't spend with them, sometimes a lot. All that ever matters is how they treat you and others in the exact moment of the present."
Mitchell scoffed. "If I really were . . . what they say I am . . . no matter how nice I was to you, you'd never let your kids play with me."
"You're right, I probably wouldn't. Knowing a person's past changes the odds you can count on of predicting how they'll treat you in the future, the odds of whether or not they're using you or lying to you, but it doesn't really tell you what someone will do," Clara explained.
"Sometimes it does," Mitchell said blackly.
He took another gulp of whiskey, letting it burn his throat for as long as he could. He went for another but realized he'd drained the glass.
Clara put her hand on his, carefully not touching the skin exposed by his fingerless gloves. "Your past might define who you are, it might set the stage for your future, but you're the only person that can decide what you're going to do now."
The quiet that followed was punctuated by the fact that there wasn't anyone else in the pub at all. Clara checked her watch: it was almost five in the morning. The sun would be rising before she got Mitchell home.
She hadn't known that pubs were open 24 hours a day now. The thought was almost disheartening. But at the same time, she'd rather have found Mitchell drunk in a bar than wondering the streets looking half as ready to set things on fire as he'd been when he'd left the train station and stormed into that funeral parlor.
Whatever his business there had been it hadn't taken long, and Clara was glad she'd followed him. This was not a night for him to be alone on.
"Come on, goth-boy, time to get you home," Clara said, tugging on his sleeve.
"I can't . . . I don't deserve . . . I shouldn't be there," Mitchell protested as Clara pulled harder, made him stand from the stool lest he fall off it.
Clara didn't hesitate to slide under his arm and half drag him out the door. She was tenacious, despite how small she was compared to him. "You might not deserve to live there with them or whatever you think, but your friends don't deserve to be left wondering where you are and what happened to you," Clara informed him.
She got him outside and into the back of her car without too much trouble. Getting him out of it was more of a hassle, but she managed. The door she knocked on was answered by a sweet young woman, tears running down her cheeks like she'd been crying all night.
"Oh my god, Mitchell," she breathed, jumping to help Clara get him inside.
Even with the two of them, getting him upstairs was an impossible goal so they settled for getting him to the couch in one piece. Once he was resting, Annie herded Clara into the kitchen for a cup of tea.
"Thank you so much, Clara," she said. "I've been so worried about him. George too."
"I didn't really do anything special," Clara replied. "Where is George, anyway?"
Annie shrugged. "I think he's with Nina. I hope he's with Nina."
"Nina's that nurse he likes, right?"
Nodding, Annie replied, "Yeah, I think she'll be able to take care of him."
Clara agreed and took a sip of her tea. She and Annie looked through the window at Mitchell's more or less sleeping form.
"What happened exactly?" Clara asked quietly.
"Well you know the whole neighborhood was in a ruckus, right? Well, it's because Mitchell's . . . ex-girlfriend, I suppose, gave him this DVD and it was awful . . . I . . . I didn't know he'd kept it, but somehow it fell into the kid's hands and everyone thought Mitchell'd done it on purpose, given it to him as a sick joke . . . and then last night, the kid showed up, trying to apologize, I think, but it didn't work and the neighborhood went crazy and . . . I can't believe he died . . . what that must be doing to Mitchell," Annie said, explaining as best she could. "When did you find him?"
"Actually, I was walking up the street to come bother him just as the car . . . I don't think he even saw me," Clara admitted. "I went to the hospital, followed him out, sat next to him in a pub for a while, shared a drink."
Annie looked at Clara with the most sincere gratitude anyone could muster. "Thank you, for not letting him do anything stupid," she said.
"I'm not quite sure I managed that," Clara responded, looking back to Mitchell. What she'd seen that night, what she'd heard, or half heard from down the hall . . . and the little boy that boarded the train with his mother. Something was wrong here.
Mitchell hated himself far too thoroughly for something to not be wrong here.
Clara finished her tea and thanked Annie for it as she made for the door. She paused before he headed out, looking once more to Mitchell. "Look after him, won't you?"
"Of course," Annie promised. "You should come back and see him when he wakes up."
"Maybe," Clara said, stepping out into the morning. As Annie waved and closed the door behind her, Clara whispered, "He may not be that eager to see me."
Sitting in her car, Clara put her forehead on the wheel.
"What have I gotten myself into, Mitchell?"
A/N: Thank you so much for reading! Things get even more introspective for Mitchell, with a bit of help from Clara, in the next chapter, which will be up soon!