A/N: And now we're at the season 1 finale! This chapter takes place in the last 5-10 minutes of the episode (Bad Moon Rising), and it changes Canon in one tiny but incredibly significant way. In this version of events Nina isn't scratched by George and doesn't turn into a werewolf. She's still traumatized, and this extension of the episode is an explanation of how she might deal with that. Happy Reading!

Blood of a Black Sunrise

Everyone has secrets.

Everyone gets scared.

Everyone runs away from some things.

It's a part of being human, it's the part of being human that defines being human.

Being human means being mortal, and being mortal means being afraid. But it also means being brave. Sometimes that bravery can spin into stupidity and martyrdom, the blaze of glory that might make up for all the other moments when fear won out and being human meant running away.

It's stupid. It's pointless. It isn't real bravery.

But it is so very very human . . .

To run headlong at Death, to choose it, to make it mean something is perhaps the most human thing a person could ever try to do.

And yet . . . martyrs and suicides and daredevils and adventurers aren't mourned in quite the same way as the people who just live and die. Mourning someone who died after truly living is cleansing, purifying, healing. Mourning a martyr or a suicide or someone who jumped off a mountain to see if they could fly always leaves a hole.

It's the part they never tell you about.

That when you choose death, you can't actually make it mean something more. You make it mean less, you make it hurt more. Stepping willingly into the black . . . it scares other people, makes them shy away instead of come together.

But Life and Death and Humanity is about something else as well . . . it's about Love and Sacrifice. It's about knowing a debt and paying it, about knowing you don't have to and paying it anyway because it's the right thing to do.

Sometimes that makes martyrs of us.

And sometimes it's okay.

When Mitchell let George kill Herrick, three debts were paid. George, owing Mitchell for saving him, paid for it by saving Mitchell from himself. Mitchell, owing George for using the Lyco's debt to him as leverage to create a friendship, paid by letting George even the score. And Herrick, owing Mitchell for making him what he'd become, paid by being torn apart by something so inhuman that nothing but Love could have convinced Mitchell that this was the right course of action. And Love is always human.

Annie didn't quite understand it, the whole weights and measures of accounting for it.

But she distracted herself from the confusion by trying to comfort Nina. The poor woman was in shock. She was unharmed. George hadn't hurt her when he'd shoved her back behind him. He'd scratched Annie's arm, but she was already dead so the claws just tore her jumper a bit.

Nina wasn't physically hurt, aside from a bruise or two, but she would never be okay or fine or whole again. She'd been sitting with George in his room all morning, after Annie had given her tea and hugs and tissues and more hugs and more tea.

It was awful, being confronted with Death and all its offshoots and malformations. Annie wondered if Nina would ever recover enough to function, or if it would simply drive her mad. Sitting with Mitchell around the kitchen table, Annie wondered if either Nina or George would ever recover. They didn't seem to be responding properly to the whole thing.

George had just come downstairs when there was a knock at the door. He veered away from the kitchen to answer it cautiously. Since everyone they liked was already here and there was a horde of leaderless vampires running about, opening the door seemed like a bad idea.

Peeking through the crack before he let the green wood fully swing inside, George was surprised to find Clara standing on the stoop. "Clara . . . um, I . . . don't really think this is the best time."

"I know what's happened, George," Clara told him quietly. "I can help her."

"Wh-wh-what are you talking about? Nothing's happened? Nothing-" George squeaked.

Mitchell, hearing the commotion from the kitchen, came to stand beside George. Annie was right behind him. "Clara."

"Hello, Mitchell. Annie," Clara said sweetly, though her voice was rather somber. "Can I come in? I really think I need to talk to you all."

"Yeah, of course," Mitchell said, swinging the door open, despite George's protests. Even Annie made a bit of a worried fuss as Mitchell shepherded Clara inside.

"Mitchell, what's going on?" Annie hissed in his ear as he sat Clara down at the table and turned to get her a mug of tea.

He grabbed one that looked relatively like Earl Grey and felt almost warm as he responded, "She knows about us."

"What?" George demanded, flabbergasted.

"I'm sort of . . . psychic, I guess," Clara explained in an attempt to shortcut the actual story while accepting the tea from Mitchell. "I've technically died about six times and because of it, I'm like a go-between for Life and Death."

"But you're human . . . how does that work, dying repeatedly?" Annie wondered.

"Near death-experiences; my heart stopped, my brain became unresponsive, I was declared dead," Clara explained. "And then I woke up."

"Did you ever get. . . did you ever see . . ."
"My door? No, I never got a door. At least not mine," Clara responded. "I saw someone else's once. I even went through it with them. But it was their door not mine, so on the other side was just an empty hallway with another door. So I opened it and . . . woke up."

"Um . . . as fascinating as this all is," George stepped in awkwardly. "It doesn't actually explain why you're here."

"I'm here to help Nina. I can help her close the doors inside her head," Clara said succinctly. "I can't make her forget, but I make ease the pain of remembering. I can put the memories inside a glass box so they're more like a zoo exhibit than a wild animal inside her, and I can show Nina how to keep them there."

Mitchell asked, "Will she have to see them first, like I did when you were in my head?"

"She was in your head, Mitchell?" George asked.

"Probably, but I can be with her," Clara responded, ignoring George for the moment.

Ge0rge broke in adamantly, "Just hang on here! I am not about to let some girl I barely know go walking around inside Nina's head!"

"But what if it could really help her. George?" Annie asked. "I mean, I know we don't really know Clara, but she's helped Mitchell, hasn't she? Maybe she really can help Nina."

"I can show you how it works first, if that'll make you feel better, George," Clara offered.

"Oh yeah, because the idea of having the strange girl walking around inside my head makes me feel loads better," George yelped.

"Jesus, George, it's not that bad," Mitchell protested. "Don't make her out to be some sort of circus freak now, she's just tryin' to help. And really, it's not that bad. She's been in my head before and everything's fine with me."

"Mitchell, you're a vampire. I think your standards of 'fine' are a little bit different from what a human's would be," George pointed out, rather tactlessly.

After a moment of silence that wasn't nearly as awkward as it could have been, Annie said quietly, "Still, it's worth a try, George. Don't you think?"

"I . . . I don't know what I think, Annie, I really don't," George replied.

"Don't I get a say in this?"

Nina's voice, still shell-shocked and fragile, came at them accusingly from the stairs. Her teeth were mashed together as her jaw clenched. "No, I don't suppose I would, since it's only my fucking head that she'd be walking around in after all," Nina spat acridly.

Clara jumped up from her seat and stepped cautiously closer to Nina, asking, "Do you remember me from the hospital, Nina?"

"You were asking everyone questions about Mitchell."

"That's right, and do you remember what I told you about why?"

Breathing out harshly, miffed at being patronized, Nina responded, "You said that the scariest things we could ever encounter are the ones we can't make up."

"Do you understand what I meant by that now?"

Nina frowned looking first at Clara then Annie, then Mitchell . . . her eyes hesitated to fall on George and when the at last managed it, they flinched away almost instantly. Biting her lip to hold back a fresh wave of tears, Nina managed, "Yeah, I do." She took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling to keep herself from looking at George. "All I see is that thing, prowling around just behind my eyes. I have to keep thinking about it . . . or it feels like it's going to take over me. It hurts, like there's glass stuck inside a healing cut that keeps tearing at the skin and veins. When I look at him . . . I just want to scream because it just hurts."

"I can help with that," Clara told her. "I can't make it go away, but I can help."

"By shoving your grubby little fingers inside my head, right?"

Without even flinching at the accusation, Clara replied, "Essentially, yes."

"Fine. Do it."

"What?" George squealed, appalled at the thought of someone rummaging around inside Nina's head like it was nothing more precious than a filing cabinet.

"I can't live like this, George," Nina protested. "It's there. Every time I close my eyes, it's right there. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can barely even look at you or Mitchell, and I keep thinking . . . who else? Who else is a part of this horrible . . . thing that you're involved with. I can't do it George, I just can't."

"S-s-s-so that's it then? We're just going to let someone dig around inside your head?" George asked her, jarred by the idea that Nina was so afraid of him that she'd want to let Clara invade her mind on the off chance it could make the memories easier to bear.

"Yeah," Nina replied, her voice still dangerous and accusing, "We are."

The room was quiet for a moment as everyone processed Nina's words. That she was so adamant about this made them reflect on the true level of horror that their world presented to the average, living person. Death had changed the trio of housemates so much that they couldn't even comprehend what Nina was feeling.

"Right," Nina said, tired of the housemates' introspection. She focused on Clara, both because Clara was the only living human she had to talk to and because it was Clara that was about to be messing with the inside of Nina's head. "So, how do we do this?"

"All you have to do is lay down, and consciously let me in if I ask," Clara responded, following Nina as she marched into the living room to settle herself on the couch.

Adjusting herself anxiously, Nina asked, "I let you in and then what?"

"Well, that depends on what exactly you have going on in your head," Clara told her, sitting down on the floor beside the couch. "If you ever don't want me to see something, just picture it in a room and close the door. And if you want me to get out, you can just picture me behind a door and I'll leave."

Nina was still somewhat uncertain as Clara took her hand and told her to close her eyes. Before Clara closed her own eyes she mentioned to the others, "Touching me would be a really bad idea while I'm with Nina. It won't hurt her, but I'm going to be like a fish in an aquarium, so don't tap the glass, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Mitchell promised immediately.

With that, Clara turned her attention fully on Nina. After about a minute of watching nothing happen at all George was about to explode with nerves. Annie managed to herd him to the kitchen and Mitchell followed for lack of anything better to do while too tense to concentrate on anything aside from Clara and Nina.

As Annie got George settled with a nice cup of tea, Mitchell looked anxiously through the kitchen window at the girls in the living room.

"What was it like, Mitchell," George asked suddenly, "when she was inside your head?"

"Couldn't really say," Mitchell replied, thinking back. "I wasn't expecting it, so I didn't even notice at first."

Annie asked, "So it doesn't hurt, then?"

"Christ, no," Mitchell returned. "I'd never've let her do it to Nina if it'd hurt."

"How long will it take?" George wondered.

Mitchell shrugged. "Time was different there, sort of like in a dream. I couldn't keep track of it to know how long she was with me."

"What happened?" Annie asked. "Did you two talk? Or . . ."

"Just talked, she was trying to get me to wake up after Herrick stabbed me," Mitchell explained. He shrugged. "She said that it's easier when she has permission, that she can help make things go away. With me, she didn't have permission, so all she could do was tell me it wasn't real . . ."

"How bad was it?" George asked, knowing a few more of the darker chapters in Mitchell's past than Annie did. He knew far better than she ever would the extent of the efforts he put into humanizing himself and burying the bodies he'd created.

Mitchell shrugged and fiddled anxiously with one of the culinary instruments he had no idea of the purpose for. "Lauren was there."

"Lauren?" George yelped.

"The girl that helped us escape from the funeral parlor?" Annie wondered.

"Yeah, that's the one," Mitchell said with black remorse.

Annie was confused. "What?"

"She's also Mitchell's ex-girlfriend, remember," George said carefully. "The awful one who sent the DVD."

As Annie reacted poorly to only hearing half the story filled in, Mitchell decided to try and find an out from continuing on with the part about how it was entirely his fault that Lauren had been a vampire to begin with. His searching for another topic let his attention wander back to the duo in the living room. "Guys," he called, directing their interest away from Lauren instantly.

Clara had disappeared from view.

When they went to investigate, they found that she'd fallen over and curled up under the coffee table. She'd let go of Nina's hand and was now clutching her head as she pressed her forehead to her knees.

Meanwhile, Nina appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Her face was the calmest that George had ever seen it and his hand instinctively went to brush the hair from her eyes. Mitchell grabbed him to prevent the action. "We shouldn't touch either of them, not until we know it's safe," Mitchell pointed out.

"She never said anything against touching Nina," George protested, pulling his hand away and coming around to hold her as best he could without disturbing her.

Annie was fretting over Clara. "Mitchell . . . shouldn't we . . . I don't know, but do something?"

"We can't touch her yet," Mitchell said, balling his fists at the effort it took him not to. Annie's hands hovered over Clara's form, trying desperately to comfort her somehow though she wasn't even sure what was wrong.
Mitchell only realized he was holding his breath when Clara's eyes snapped open and her posture loosened. He sighed heavily as she rolled back towards Nina and pushed herself into a sitting position as she said, "Nina's fine, she's just resting. She'll be out for at least a few hours."

"What the hell happened?" George demanded.

"I had Nina rewatch what had happened, and put the thing that scared her behind a bunch of filters so she was just watching a movie with no emotional attachment to the plot," Clara explained. "I funneled all of her terror into me so she didn't feel any of it."

"But what happened? What went wrong?"

"Nothing went wrong," Clara replied looking at Annie in confusion.

The ghost was just as confused. "But you were on the floor."

"Oh . . . yeah, I guess I should have warned you about that," Clara said. "It's kind of like a side-effect. I literally funneled Nina's fear into me so when I broke the connection I was kind of terrified. And there's a really bad headache that kicks in when the connection ends, so it was a little bit of both. I wasn't expecting it to be quite that bad though, sorry for scaring you."

"You, scaring us?" Annie asked her voice as bright and joking as she could make it, "Like that could happen."

George, determined to be unhappy about the whole thing asked, "What about us, have we scared you yet?" His hand was still holding Nina's.

"I'm still shaking. Watching you rip Herrick apart was the scariest thing I have ever seen," Clara confessed. "But you haven't tried to kill me yet, so we're just gonna go with that for now."

"We're not going to hurt you, Clara," Mitchell promised, holding out his hand to help her stand up. "You don't have to be scared."

As Clara took his hand and started to pull herself to her feet, Annie breathed laughingly, "Just to warn you though, if you go in for a comforting hug, Mitchell will try to kiss you."

"One time, Annie," Mitchell said, grinning widely. "That was one time. It was an accident."

"I left you alone for five minutes," George complained, a little of his ill-humor subsiding.

"Geor-"

Mitchell's comment was cut off as his head turned into a kiss with Clara as she stumbled forward on legs that refused to support her.

"Told ya," Annie laughed.

Mitchell held the kiss for a surprised second as Annie and George snickered before he realized that Clara was falling, and just as surprised as he was.

Breaking the kiss, Mitchell caught Clara and helped her over to the chair, saying, "Easy there, just rest a bit." He could feel that she was indeed still shaking from what had happened inside Nina's head.

"Are you alright?" Annie asked, worry returning.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Clara promised. "A bit of sleep and some tea in the morning, and I'll be right as rain."

Clara's words didn't seem to particularly soothe anyone. "Listen," Mitchell started, suggesting, "Why don't you two get Nina upstairs and I'll take Clara home?"

"Yeah, alright then," Annie sighed. "Don't be a stranger, Clara. Pop over any time!"

"Of course, Annie," Clara replied, getting back to her feet with Mitchell's help.

George added, "And uh . . . thanks, for . . ."

"Don't worry about it, I just hope it really helps," Clara told him.
Mitchell helped her outside to her car. Once they were settled and he'd turned the engine on he leaned back for a moment. "You know, there's one thing that's been bothering me about this whole thing with you . . . you always show up at just the right time. Like tonight, how did you even know to come by?"

"Why John Mitchell, I think you're suspicious of me," Clara teased.

"No, it's not that exactly," Mitchell said, pulling the car into the street.

Clara shrugged. "I've been spying on you," she said simply with a slight giggle.

"Why?" Mitchell asked, his voice careful. Protecting his friends was his first and foremost mission in this sliver of human-esque life he'd found and he was still riding the outgoing tide of hatred for humanity that had risen up in the incident with Bernie. Mitchell didn't think of Clara as a threat, but that didn't mean he couldn't be wary of her.

"Personal reasons. I've found your lives very interesting, and I'm just very nosy," Clara explained. "And it was easy enough to keep an eye on you."

"How is that?"

Clara told Mitchell to take a left before saying, "You know how I said I have friends in high places? Well I've also got friends in low ones. It's just like tracking tags on tumblr or watching twitter-trends. I drop a name, maybe a description, and anytime something different or interesting happens, someone makes sure it catches my eye. So yesterday's little rush through the hospital and subsequent vanishing into the woods . . . well, that really made me look." She paused reflectively. There was a slight tremor in her voice as she mentioned, "I didn't actually know what had happened until I watched it with Nina."

"What's a twitter-trend?"

"Oh that's right," Clara responded, shaking her head, both to clear it of the troubling thoughts of the night's events and to show disapproval of Mitchell's Internet habits. "You don't spend time on the Internet." She was still in disbelief at the fact.

Clara let the confusion in the air simply hang there as twitter wasn't worth giving lengthy explanation over. She gave Mitchell a few more directions before they arrived at the flat she was renting. Mitchell parked the car but made no move to get out.

"Listen, what you know about us-"

"I'm not gonna tell anyone, Mitchell," Clara promised.
Trying very hard to phrase it properly, Mitchell responded, "It's just . . . weird. Having a human know about us like this . . ."

"I got myself into it, though I can't say I really knew what I was doing," Clara said with a shrug. "I knew you had secrets, but when I started talking to you I thought I would just never know what they were, you know?"

"What exactly do you know about me? Do you know all of it?"

Clara shook her head. "Actually, I don't know much past what you've told me. I know you're a vampire, and that you've killed people and hate yourself for it. I don't know who or how many or anything, but I know a little. Like that Lauren girl, who I think you also Turned, right? And I know Herrick was a bad vampire, in charge of the others, and that after you let George tear him apart you went in and found his heart, staked it, and then burned the rest of whatever there was . . . which terrified Nina and even I found kind of disturbing, but there is the rule of double-tap."

She paused, looking over at Mitchell to see that he was staring straight ahead. "Other than that, I know George is a werewolf and you saved his life when you first met. And that Annie's a ghost that I'm guessing came with the house. I know you care deeply for them, and that you've always been relatively nice to me."

The car fell into silence for a moment as Clara gathered her strength to walk to her door. She took her keys from Mitchell's hand as he stayed still, trying to think of what he should do, if he should latch on to her fearlessness or warn her away.

"You're sweet, Mitchell, somewhere deep down," Clara pointed out. "And I like you."

She kissed his cheek before he could turn to her in surprise, and then clambered out of the car on almost steady feet. She made it to her door before Mitchell managed to rationalize what had happened and by the time he thought to help her inside she'd already closed the door behind her.

Mitchell grinned reflectively, thinking that Clara and Josie were very different women, but had they the chance, they would have gotten along smashingly. The thought followed him as he walked all the way back to the house with the sun warm on his back.

He came quietly in to find George and Annie sitting at the kitchen table. He grabbed himself the bowl of cereal that George wasn't eating as he sat down, suddenly ravenous. Annie asked how Clara was and he replied that she was great with a smile that made Annie sure Mitchell fancied the girl. Mitchell then asked her how Nina was doing.

"She's still sleeping, but it seems like she'll be okay," Annie responded.

The kitchen was quiet for a moment.

Then George asked, "So is that it then? Are we finally safe now?"

Mitchell shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe Herrick was right and maybe someone will step up to take his place." The thought hung uneasily in the air for a moment as Mitchell swallowed his mouthful. Then he added, "Or maybe it is over. Maybe we are safe. None of us have ever really felt that before, so maybe this is it. Maybe this is what safety feels like."

"Yeah, maybe," Annie agreed, quietly hopeful.

Everyone has secrets.

Everyone gets scared.

Everyone runs away from some things.

It's such a fundamental part of being human that the moment when you can stop running, when you can just sit for a moment, feels wrong.

Sometimes it is wrong. And sometimes it isn't.

But only Time can really tell.

A/N: This is the last chapter that sticks to Cannon exactly save for a few rather insignificant alterations. I could stop the fic here, and just let you all suppose what would happen now that Nina isn't cursed. I do have another version this chapter, one that leads into a few continuation chapters that cover the relevant points seasons 2 & 3, but I'm not sure if I should put it up (one of my friends really likes how open this ending is, and I thought some of you might agree).

So what do you guys want, a bit more continuation, or completion as it stands? If you care to answer, just PM me or review with your response!