A/N. Just One more review, give it to meee.

I just didn't get things anymore. How had this happened, after all the space I had tried to put between me and my humanity, to my desires? I shouldn't have let myself open up, thought by now that that would be impossible. Past experiences shaped me that way, betrayal after betrayal making me what I was, an emotionless cold-blooded killer. So how was it that I was lying next to her, like this? She had started it, though, although once she had, I was very willing to go along with it, after all, it had been a very long time since anything like that had happened. She stopped me after a while though, and I apologized, thinking I'd perhaps done something wrong, as I saw a tear on her cheek. She told me there was no need to, and cuddled up to me, her skin warm against mine. After a time she decided to lighten the mood, as was her way. She sat up, and I copied her, the mattress cold without her lying with me.

"I told you I'd get the mattress" she laughed "now go to yours I have to get to sleep for work tomorrow"

"Like I said before I'm not letting you sleep on a crappy old mattress that no one should ever sleep on"

She sighed, "Fine, I'll sleep on the futon"

"Futon" he lifted his head as she walked to the couch, "you didn't tell me it was a futon"

"Too late you wanted that mattress so bad" she said, swaying her hips as she walked over to the futon, teasing me once again.

I picked up my shirt off the floor, where it had been thrown after she had removed it. "You know I love whoever invented indoor heat, means I don't freeze when you get ideas, missy."

Hayley laughed as she dressed in a black tank top and a pair of girly boxers. She looked so beautiful in the half-light caused by the street lamps outside. She looked over at me on the mattress, and after a few seconds, coyly moved back to me on it. She lay beside me, and whispered

"Guess what, I get the mattress."

She lay just inches away from me, tantalizing me once again by being so close, and yet not touching me. I wanted her in my arms, it seemed only right in my arms, after the evening we had just had. I thought I'd give her the hint, and whispered at her.

"You know I'm a little cold."

"Sorry flash can't help you there"

I gave up, and said, rolling over and wrapping my arms around her

"Oh but you can, see"

She didn't complain, and I drifted into a deep, thankfully dreamless sleep. The last thing I wanted was to wake her up with my usual restless sleep.

The next morning we got up, and Hayley sent me in search of breakfast. I returned with coffee, hot chocolate, and breakfast bagels, and we ate them in companionable silence. She told me she had to go to work, at some diner. This suited me fine; I could move my things into one of the empty rooms in the block, without her seeing. She was under the impression that I was poor, and only owned as much as could fit in my pack. I wasn't about to tell her the truth; it seemed easier to protect her. After all I was in all aspects a monster. She left, and after a few minutes, I went in search of the landlord, who didn't want to sell me an apartment, nosy git wanted to keep tabs on me no doubt. However a few extra hundred-dollar bills stopped his complaints, and I soon owned the apartment next door to Hayley's. Outright bill of sale; signed and witnessed by one of his associates, and a lawyer from across the street.

Returning to the decrepit old block where I had previously squatted, I placed my hand on one of the remaining corridor doors, revealing that in fact it was a sensor, locking the door to anyone but me. The door itself was a façade; no more rotting wooden door then I was poor, homeless Gareth. Behind the door was my lair, where I worked in piece on inventions to make my job easier. It was here I had created the ultrasound device capable of disrupting the devils echo-sense, and here that my latest device rested. Using squeezed-vacuum technology, I was able to generate negative energy, and hence antigravity, not in enough quantities to negate my weight, but enough to reduce it, and any objects I was holding, to a fraction of it. I called it an inertial dampener, for reasons obvious to my physicist background. I dismantled my kit, placing the dampeners in several rucksacks in the room just for that purpose. Placing a copy of the device inside each of the rucksacks, I realized it would take several trips, even with their weight reduced. I didn't have the time for this, and so called in an old favor, and before I knew it, my stuff was in the new lair, the rotting door replaced by the door from my old lair. To finish the effect, I sprayed the windows opaque with black spray-paint purchased for that purpose, and connected up my experiments, power provided, not from the aging electricity provided to the room, but from my own generator, powered by hydrogen and aluminum. I had stolen the idea from a product called enginuity, and modified it for my own purposes. I also wired up one of the plugs in Hayley's apartment up to my setup, intending that she shouldn't have to pay for my usage. I finished just in time, Hayley returned from work as I was fixing her door, replacing it with a much more secure one which I told her I'd found on a demolition site. Liberated more like, but needs must abide. I couldn't have some mugger break in on her, especially with the danger I was putting her in.

We sat on the futon after I'd finished, and she talked about her day at the diner. Usual day it seemed, boring as ever. I picked up some crisps out of one of the bags I had brought from my old place, passed her a bag, and sat next to her, eating my own, arm around her. Her cell phone rang, and she moved into the next room to answer it. She returned before the call had ended, slowly hanging up her phone. I looked over from the couch, at her saddened face.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She told me, shaking her head.

I put the crisps down, and walked over towards her.

"Don't lie to me I know something is wrong"

"It's not me, its Josh something wrong with him"

She walked over to the couch and plopped down, exactly in the spot I had just vacated. I followed her over, kneeling on the floor in front of her, and placing my head on her lap.

"You look like some things wrong to"

"No I'm fine you big lug" she smiled, ruffling my hair

"Hey, hey don't touch the do." I mock screamed, fixing my now seriously compromised hair do.

Hayley laughed and lay down on the couch. To try and get her happier again, I decided to be playful, and lay down on the floor, exactly copying her position.

"Are you copying me?" She asked.

"Are you copying me?" I replied in falsetto.

"That's really annoying." she yawned

"That's really annoying." I fake yawned

"I'm a pretty girl"

I'm a… hey!! Not funny." Damn it, she had outwitted me again.

"On the contrary it was very funny" she chuckled

There was a knock at the door, breaking up the moment. She answered it, to find a very wet josh. After hello's, I retreated into the other room, with the mattress in it, to adjust one of my toys. One of the inertial dampeners wasn't working properly, and I was determined to fix the small, handheld device.

Some time later I heard the door bang as Josh left the apartment without saying goodbye. If Hayley hadn't been there I would have said something over his terrible manners. I hear her talking to herself,

"Crap that was my last dry shirt."

I couldn't resist.

"Well you could just take your shirt off"

"Har di har har, not going to happen perv." She changed underneath a towel.

"Aww ruin my fun" I laid back down on my mattress, having completed the fix.

She came into my room, and lay on the mattress next to me, in my arms. She seemed upset again, but wouldn't tell me what. After she drifted off into oblivion, I extricated myself from her returned embrace. I would have stayed, but I had work to do. I went to my lair, and dressed in my outfit, including some new boots, which increased my height by several inches, so that I would have a height advantage over my enemies. Hitting the streets I found a young female mugger, standing over an ex comrade of mine, a man of the hand who had been injured in service, and could no longer defend himself, and started fighting her, hoping to attract the attentions of Elektra herself, or if not, her young copycat. I needed to test how my inertial dampener worked, and she would be the perfect test. I heard a voice, from below.

"Leave her alone" it yelled out

I looked up, and said through the mask. "Finally, word gets around quickly"

"What word?" Abby whipped out her warrior beads

"A new Elektra is on the streets tonight, and I guess that it's you"

"Well word does get around quickly, and who are you?"

"I am the one with no name, neither friend nor foe. However if it is Elektra you are connected to then I must kill you."

"And why is that?" she asked

I said something about Elektra killing my parents, hoping to dispirit the young copycat.

"I am not Elektra but if you want to hurt anymore girls or Elektra than you have to go through me first."

"Then so be it." I charged after the young copycat.

We fought, and I overpowered her, plunging my sword into her shoulder, purposefully maiming her. I was about to end it for her, when I heard gunshots, and felt the bullets hitting me. No pain though, as usual. I turned to my new assailant, and realized it was Josh. I swore under my breath, realizing I had to exit quickly. Silently I said goodbye so he wouldn't recognize my voice, mockingly saluting him as I jumped up to the rooftops, another outfit ruined. I cleaned myself up, and returned to the mattress with Hayley, finding oblivion myself, in her arms.