Bromley Mansion, Ground floor, Kitchen

Frankie watched his reflection in the dark window, looked at the serious expression, the close-cropped hair that made him look tough, the large eyes that were narrowed in frustration and the arms that were crossed in front of his chest. He nudged himself back into reality. He was mulling over this recent conversation far too much. What had happened after all? Nothing.

She'd just voiced her opinion of things and he'd given her an obvious warning that merely reinforced why he was here with her. A subtle threat to keep her on good behavior. End of story. He could easily crop out the moments where he'd found that tingling of truth in her heated words even if he'd hid it flawlessly. He'd felt sympathy and was furious at himself for it. He was making a bigger deal out of his than it was worth.

Still turning facts and fiction over in his head, he pulled open the fridge door. Several rows of marked containers, brimming with red fluid, greeted him. The sight was so mouth-watering he had to swallow the rush that had his fangs elongating from his gums. It felt all too long since his last meal. He finally got to savor the bonuses of taking on this task.

Moments later he'd located two tumblers from the kitchen inventory and trickled the thick substance into the glasses. The plastic container landed in the sink and he started ascending the stairs with his prized possessions. Somehow, it appeared far simpler to be looking out for this girl's needs than he'd originally thought. A nice, pure liter of this stuff a day and she'd be just fine. However in the matter of body guarding…

It was a bit too quiet upstairs. He'd only been down barely two minutes, all the while keeping his ears perfectly alert for anything unusual coming from the top floor. Maybe she'd gone to bed for a nap, he reminded himself, it doesn't mean she's doing anything she shouldn't or that she had suddenly disappeared. He would have noticed that kind of action. He didn't like taking chances though. He tripled his pace and stood in front of her closed door the next instant, nudging it open with a practiced movement of his elbow.

The door swung wildly on its hinges to reveal Alison, standing in the midst of a crumpled bunch of jeans and cotton on the floor. He really couldn't help his following reaction. It was a very male thing to do that had nothing to do with vampiric instinct. His eyes roved from her bare feet along the thin creamy legs, past the underwear to her equally slim torso and finally the dark blue bra that brought out the pale skin of her upper body. By the time he'd reached her rocky expression it sunk through to him that she was undressed in front of him. He'd definitely get hell for this.

Alison seemed to be shocked into a state of frozen indecision. She didn't move from her position, apparently having just shrugged out of her T-shirt and finding her arms held at her sides tensely. His staring did not last longer than a few seconds before he clamped down hard on his composure and extended one of the drinks towards her.

Don't let this catch you off guard, he reprimanded himself, strictly professional. Apparently she did the same because the look in her eye changed to the same carelessness. The vampire ability to shut out emotional insecurity really helped for once. It didn't matter at all that she was only half-clothed. She shouldn't be feeling so caught and exposed. She took the glass from him, expecting him to leave her to herself once she'd accepted. He didn't.

"You'll have to convince me that you drank it," he shrugged, indulging on his own drink. His casual demeanor was back in place as he raised the glass to his lips.

She swallowed heavily. She didn't want to do this. Her body craved it but she'd rather smash the damn thing on the floor than drink it. His golden eyes pinned her however and she found herself lifting the heavy pitcher to her lips and granting herself a single sip, just to placate him. She wouldn't take any more. But she wasn't prepared for the ecstasy that flooded her senses. The liquid was cold but it held so much rejuvenating energy in it that made her take another gulp, then another until her entire being shook with the life of somebody else.

When she opened her eyes, that had somehow fallen closed in her procedure of emptying the glass, she glimpsed him looking at her. He'd known that she would take it. She wanted to bury herself away from that gaze, somewhere where her weaknesses weren't put to show and she could wallow in her self-hatred and pity for a change. She was conforming to temptations and she despised herself for it. But she couldn't stop anymore and she knew it. So did he.

"You're gloating about this" she accused him, wiping the traces away from her mouth, ashamed. She'd given in to the thirst. As much as she hated this existence, her resistance to blood kept weakening with every day that she refused it. This time it had barely taken half a minute before she'd tipped it down her throat. She turned away.

He didn't respond and she found herself scolding herself for even speaking to him again. However, his gaze burned a trail down her bare back and she suddenly wanted to hear him speak again, to learn more about him, for whatever irrational reason. He had a nice voice, she supposed. It was deep but still sounded young, maybe a hint scratchy and occasionally with more feeling than her father's. She just wanted to listen to it, mindless of what he actually said.

"Who are you?" she wondered aloud, having noticed that she did not know how to address him. There was no name. She knew nothing about him and he probably knew everything vital about her. She hoped for an answer this time.

He set his glass down on the desk. The object clinked against the wood and she felt his presence moving closer to her.

"It isn't required that you know my personal details," he evaded her question in that monotone, drilled voice he used often, "All you should know is that I'm here to protect you from harm"

"I don't care if it's required or not. I want to know what to call you," she retorted, facing him again, "Or are you just some serial number?"

The verbal blow didn't rouse him as much as the sincerity of her wish to know his name. Since multiple months, nobody had cared to ask his name or shown enough interest to talk to him apart from work instructions. Even his brother evaded speaking to him more often than not ever since he'd moved back in, for whatever reason that was. He didn't care if his big brother had anything to hide and didn't bother digging around in his Ed's life. But now this girl asked for his name like she cared to know.

That was unexpected.

"Frankie" he revealed, watching her back for a reaction.

She didn't show her surprise at such a boyish name. It was borderline endearing. It suited him. She had imagined something terribly straight-laced such as Greg or Derek but this name was much better. Made him appear less like a military dog. He finally had an identity for her to connect with. She twisted around on her heel again to look at him, standing there finally sling-less and with a posture of somebody wanting to say something but keeping himself in check.

"Frankie…" her gaze dropped to his uniform jacket where his nametag hung over his breast pocket, "Dalton. Are you related to an E. Dalton?"

Now he definitely looked surprised. She could tell that he was frantically trying to decipher how she knew this man.

"He's my brother"

She nodded with a satisfied hum, sinking down onto the side of the bed, "He treated me briefly when I came round in the emergency room. Said all kinds of things about blood poisoning and offered to help me adjust. He was really nice about everything so I bothered to check his nametag. He was the most caring of the bunch that cleaned me up. Is he an actual doctor there?"

Her human attribute of good-natured curiosity was puzzling him increasingly.

"Hematologist," Frankie answered, distantly wondering why the hell he was telling her about his life and why she was suddenly striking up conversation with him, "He's working on a blood substitute to conserve the blood supplies we have. He knows how to deal with blood disease"

A little smile came to her face. He found himself liking it more than the frown she wore the majority of the time. That realization was followed by an inner slap. Caring about a prisoner? Caring about the boss' daughter? Her bright gaze moved to his face and he was caught in its open inquiry.

"What do you do for my father? He trusts you enough to leave you alone here with me"

Spot on. She really didn't know that assumption made him squirm inside.

"I don't see how that's relevant," he sidestepped the question, "You'd have to ask your father about his decision, I can't answer for his choice. I suppose he needed a soldier to ensure your protection"

She scoffed, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. "My father doesn't actually care about me or what I want in life. I think that's obvious enough. He did this to me. He only wants me to stop ruining his reputation. I bet you didn't know that he's responsible for a lot of the human hunting in this region"

"I do," was his confession, "I was part of a lot of them"

"You really don't care about them at all? They're still people!"

"Between starving myself and capturing humans to feed on, I'd rather survive" he said simply.

That shut her up. She regarded him for a while, in the end deciding to swallow the anger she felt at that statement. "Well then I hope your brother succeeds soon. All those that died fighting with me would be happy to hear that they may have actually been allowed to live the rest of their lives without tubes being stuck into them"

"You should be glad you don't have to run anymore," he retorted, moving to take her glass from her, "You should be thankful that you have a father who can supply you with this. You blame vampires but you haven't seen what is happening in the cities. You're better off than the lower class vampires that are begging on the streets for something they aren't going to get. They degrade day by day because they are starving to death and you do it because you think it's not right to take something from people who are already long gone. They don't care when they're dead"

She held onto the glass, even as his fingers tugged on it, her body completely still. Her face was pale though and her expression beseeching as she stared up at him.

"Don't you ever miss the sun? Don't you ever wish that you could still go outside and feel those little things that you can only take in during the day? Feel human things?"

"That's not important," he intercepted, "You're not going to change back to the way you were. This isn't a disease, it's a new life. It's changed almost everyone. Vampires are the majority. There is no way back and you should get used to it now if you don't want to end up getting killed with the real monsters that they're picking up from the streets"

The more he spoke the more the fight seeped out of her. Her fingers loosened around the object and the glass would have fallen onto the floor if he'd not snatched it. He knew that had been harsh but the sooner she got a grip on the situation, the faster he'd be out of here and the sooner she'd have it easier in her own life. Right now, her head fell against her chest in defeat and as he straightened up she whispered, "I want my life back"

There it was again. That unfamiliar rush of sympathy for her. This stupid new sensation had him pausing where he was half inclined to go get his glass and take his leave. Simultaneously, he thought it was his duty to stay and offer some form of comfort even though Bromley had never mentioned anything about keeping her happy as well as psychologically stable. He looked at her, crouched on the side of the bed, half-clothed and hopeless.

They should have appointed his brother for this. He was so much better at handling emotion. Ed was actually compassionate whereas he generally failed to console others. At least it had been that way when he'd been human and as a vampire it was just entirely wrong to attempt the act of comforting.

He placed the glass on the desk next to its counter piece and then slowly stepped back in her direction. He let his body sink onto the mattress stiffly. He could feel her cold skin against him and swore she actually had a shiver run through her when he closed the space between them. Probably out of discomfort at his proximity. He kept his hands firmly folded in his lap though and opted to speak to his boots instead of directly to her.

"Alison," that name sounded so foreign coming off his tongue, "You can't change what happened. It would be easier on you if you moved on from wishful thinking. From running away, starved, alone and scared, transformed…" he trailed off for a moment, not even knowing what he was talking about. Listing the trauma she'd been though in the past years wasn't going to improve anything. He cleared his throat, breaking the stupor. "It can only get better. It did for me"

There was a long pause that followed his words and when she still hadn't responded after a minute, he got up. That's when her hand closed around his sleeve, clenching around the material like the reflexive grip of a baby. He had to quench the instinctual defense movement at this sudden blockade. The rest happened so fast he didn't have time to comprehend what they were doing at all.

He looked down at the hand that was fisted in the fabric of his jacket and the next thing he knew, she'd risen, pressed her face against his chest, her shoulders shaking unevenly and suddenly his jacket was becoming damp. Far too late he grasped that she was crying. She was holding onto him like he was able to chase her worries away.

He couldn't remember feeling as insecure and overwhelmed with a situation as he was right now. Handling this kind of behavior was completely foreign to him. He was lost. Truthfully, he was itching to flee the embrace because he didn't have a single clue how to react to it and exactly that scared the hell out of him.

Alison didn't have a single clue why she had broken down. The impulse to clutch onto him had taken her by surprise, just as much as the sudden cracking of that dam inside that had held the suffering back for the past few days. His words had, somehow, smashed the wall to pieces and she couldn't handle herself anymore.

Tears streamed down her cheeks and she needed to know that somebody was there with her. That she wasn't as alone in this abyss as she felt. That invisible barrier that had kept her at a safety distance from him, out of fear and distrust, had fallen. She felt his tension as she fisted her hands in his jacket but she didn't care. It was wonderful to be able to hold a person after a week of solitude and silence.

After several minutes of stiff enduring on his part and her attempting to stem the flood of tears, she removed herself from him. Her emotional phase was ebbing away, leaving her feeling exposed once more. The previous embarrassment came flooding back and she put a little distance in between their bodies, aware that she'd just made a complete fool of herself. Her arms immediately came up to cross over her bare stomach self-consciously. Frankie swallowed the sudden sensation in his throat, stowing his hands away into his pockets.

"I…" she began, "uh, sorry"

He managed to shake himself from his frozen state and shook his head casually. "It's nothing"

Had his voice always sounded so thick? To his ears it sounded pathetic.

"I need to…well I should…take a shower" she mumbled, looking at the floor. Anywhere but him.

So that's why she'd been undressing. He wanted to hit himself for not counting two and two together. Obviously it wasn't intended to be a striptease. He agreed readily, quickly turning and taking the tumblers he'd brought up, "I shouldn't have interrupted"

He didn't know why he suddenly stuck up such a formal tone. Probably to drown out the realization that this job had already begun to get more personal than he'd intended. He needed to clear his head and focus. She didn't answer to that and as he exited the room and shut the door behind him, he'd never been more thankful that he'd lost the ability to blush a while ago.